Rude awakening

So I woke up this morning, went to the loo, put on the kettle and poured a bowl of cereal as I usually do. Heading back to my room, I ran into a guy I didn't recognize who asked if I was in room 2. I said yes, and he asked if I minded if he did electrics work in my room and I said no, that's fine (thinking it would be one electrician with his tools or something). So I ate my breakfast in the lounge and went back to my room to discover four surly blokes setting up scaffolding! (My room is a loft and the ceiling is high so it's the only way to reach the top).

Now normally, this would be fine, had I been given any sort of notice whatsoever! Usually when someone is coming in to do something like this there's a note in the kitchen a few days before saying 'so-and-so will be in on this date between these times to do this thing' - and that's fine, but that definitely didn't happen with this one. So I scrambled around, still wearing my bathrobe, trying to get together everything I needed for a shower and then for work later that day. And anyone who knows me well will know that for the first hour or so after I wake up, I'm not really with it, so this was not a pleasant experience.

I apologized to the guys who were doing the work for not being more prepared, and then told them that no one had warned me that this would be happening. I asked them who asked them to come in today and who I should talk to about this (turns out it's 'Glen Miller' from the property trust...'Glen Miller,' my new arch-nemesis) and then went for a shower.

So, just now actually, in the middle of this post, the guy asked me to come have a look, and apparenly the scaffolding is going to stay there until tomorrow morning when they come to replace my skylight - at 8am. Again, more information that would have been helpful to have before!

So while I was in the shower, I got to thinking about why this little event bothered me so much, and I came up with two reasons:

1.) I'm a rather territorial animal, perhaps more than other folks, and I don't like strangers in my 'space' without my invitation.
2.) This one is a bit more difficult to explain, but I guess I feel that for much of my life I've been pushed-over/walked-on. However, I'm tired of other people thinking that their goals/aims are more important than my own. That said, I am a firm beliver in the 'servant-attitude' - in fact, I think the main reason that our Western society has gone to shit is because people have become too independent, and too self-focused and have stopped helping one another out. I suppose it was perfectly within my rights to refuse the guy entry to my room, but it wasn't their fault that no one had told me, and it would have made their job that much more frustrating since they'd have to come back the next day. So, on the one hand, I don't want to give in to this culture of 'me first, I'm the most important,' and yet on the other, it REALLY pisses me off when people don't consider me as a person. I'm not sure what the solution/balance is to this....

Anyhow, I'm off to work now. What a great start to the day :P