I love how you said that “you aren’t going to be love, or liked, for raising problems to those who are causing it” — but I totally agree that it’s SO worth it. Even if you don’t solve the problem, you have to live with yourself. And, it’s much better to live with the self-respect that comes with standing up for yourself and protecting your boundaries, than to cower and hide.

I’m glad you were here!

Laurie
.-= Laurie Pawlik-Kienlen´s last blog post..4 Ways to Reconnect With Who You Were – Shirley Valentine =-.

I went outside and asked them what they were doing, they rolled their eyes and groaned – here comes the cranky neighbour – and told me it would only be there for an hour. I asked them why they couldn’t have at least knocked on my door and ASKED if it was OK to use my front lawn as a materials depot, and they said they thought I would be asleep. Right, with all their noise, nobody could sleep.

One of the guys just walked off and said ‘whatever’, and I said yeah, it will be whatever when I ring your boss. Suddenly these men were willing to discuss the situation. It wasn’t until my husband (a building site foreman himself) rang their project manager and complained that they moved their materials off our front lawn. My husband was still attacked for being rude, but not before he was told that the builders ‘meant’ to tell us what was going to happpen a few days earlier, they just ‘didn’t get around to it’. It’s the usual case of shifting blame, minimising the problem, misdirection and projection when somebody steps up to the mark and says ‘no’. You aren’t going to be loved, or liked, for raising the problem to the ones who are causing it, and in the end, you may well feel it was not worth all the aggravation but its all really important for your self-respect to know that you said ‘no’ when it was necessary.

Thanks for taking the time to comment….working from home definitely has its perks (jammies!), but it really can be difficult to gain respect from friends and family. But, the longer a freelancer successfully runs her business, the more respect she’ll get…and the less people will push her personal and professional boundaries

See you in cyberspace,
Laurie
.-= Laurie Pawlik-Kienlen´s last blog post..7 People Skills That Help You Achieve Your Career Goals =-.

I know what you mean about some people/friends not understanding that you’re really “working” when you are a freelance writer working from home. It took even my husband several years to realize that I was running a legitimate business and doing serious work. Even if times, I was doing it in my jammies!