Aww, heck, I'm just in too good a mood at the moment to complain about anything. Sorry!

Not that there isn't PLENTY to complain about...

I'm one of the resident members of the board of directors at my apartment complex, which is a HUD funded thing. After google stalking the various corporations and other non-resident board members, I have to believe that I'm just a figurehead in a scheme of tax write-off BS. Sigh.

I work with a lot of students who are convinced that they are a special snowflake, mostly because their parents haven't taught them how to be self-sufficient in any way before they leave for college. (Bonus, my kids are 13 and almost 12 and we're teaching them life skills, like cooking, saving money, keeping a house, etc., as well as general computer skills).

I show art with a group of ladies. I've been handling the mailing lists for the group and for announcements, started a facebook group, make the flyers, do all the secretarial stuff... and I'm the only one who hasn't sold a single piece of work yet in the past year. I refuse to lower my prices, though, because of the level of effort and time and materials, so maybe it's my own damned fault.

All that said, I have great kids, I'm in a happy marriage, I like my job, I had a good interview today for a better job with my current boss's blessing, and I don't feel like I just phone it in every day. So, although I have some gripes, I'm basically doing ok.

Thanks for the invitation to vent. I really needed it.

I have only one complaint: strangers with too much perfume.

When you don't complain, nothing changes.

For me, this is only sometimes true. I'm definitely more of an Asker than a Guesser; if I want to change something that requires the help or cooperation of others, I ask.

But I notice that I do complain about a lot of things that can't be changed or that only I can change. Those complaints are sometimes kinda useless, but sometimes the purpose is just to vent.

A pretty standard exclamation I make is "ooooh, my big old butt!" which is household shorthand for "my back hurts!" The Fella usually responds to it by asking if he can help me: can he do some heavy lifting for me, can he get me my ice pack, can he make dinner so I don't have to. But usually I don't want any help, I'm just complaining to be complaining. I'm just venting. Learning to distinguish between "Please help" complaints and venting complaints has been really valuable for both of us.

Here's my big complaint for today: D'oh, my library is closed! I have a stack of overdue books, some from interlibrary loan (so they can't go in the drop box), but I forgot that budget cuts means my little branch is now closed Friday to Monday. Those books are going to sit over the weekend racking up late fees, and if I'd just taken them over yesterday like I planned, they'd be outta here.

One of my grad school professors would tell us, "Never ask a question when you mean to make a statement." Elsa's comment makes me realize that the reverse might also hold, "Never make a statement when you mean to ask a question." I am going to ponder this further. (And, of course, "never blah blah blah" really means something more like "Think about this thing before you do it if it's been a problem for you in the past"; I'm totally not picking on Elsa or anyone else for what they've said here, it just sparked some thought about what my professor had said.)

I agree, occhiblu, that both of those ideas are really valuable. It's worth considering: this thing I'm about to say, is it a statement or a question? It's really useful to distinguish.

It took me years upon years to learn that, in some cases, questions allow more negotiating space than statements, and that statements are often statements of opinion, not of fact. For years I would say things like "Oy, this [whatever cooperative venture] is a mess! We have to fix it!" That assumes that everyone else agrees... and if they don't, it doesn't leave my partners much room to respond except in an adversarial way.

A separate issue: to my ear, the space between a complaint coupled with a direct statement/request and a statement or request couched in a complaint is pretty big. Consider the difference between "It's hot in here. Can I open a window?", "It's hot in here. I'm going to open a window," and "It's hot in here. I wish we had a window open!"

That last, the passive complaint that is actually a disguised request, really tweaks me... even though I do it sometimes myself. Or if I don't, my partner (who is a Guesser) thinks that's what I'm doing and scrambles around trying to satisfy the tacit request he thinks he hears, so it works out to be much the same thing.