I did a bunch of cleaning today. More than I’d do on my own, which is what makes it notable. Some friends of mine are moving, and they need the place clean in a hurry, and I need math tutoring, and with one thing and another, I cleaned a shitload of their dishes and some of the kitchen.
“But Rath, that doesn’t seem like, ‘a bunch’?”
I spent five hours at that sink / counter area. I took a few short breaks to grab a drink and rest my legs, but mostly I was on my feet and doing stuff that whole time. Considering all the relevant factors, I was making about seven times what I did when I did this as my primary job, so that was satisfying, but damn am I sick of dishes now.
Mind you, that won’t stop me from going back tomorrow and doing more dishes and more cleaning. I really need that tutoring!
Aside from that, there’s also a certain satisfaction in doing hard work. A clean dish is a clean dish. You know you’ve done something, when you’ve cleaned a dish, and that’s satisfying. There’s also a certain je ne sais quoi in having and exercising an unusual ability.
For whatever reason, dishes seem to be the bane of my weird tribe. I’m not sure why, but most rat houses I’ve been to have a dish backlog. Some people have sensory aversions, but I know that’s not everyone’s jam, and yet, somehow, dish stacks. Dish stacks everywhere.
It’s not just rationalists, either. It was a thing when I worked for Martina, and trust me, most of my fellows there were not rationalists. Yet somehow, the dishes stacked up. I spent a good deal of time cleaning dishes because I lived there, and I couldn’t just let it slide until I went home. With enough time in front of the sink, it’s honestly not that bad, and I get crawls from having dry skin after soap strips the oils from my hands.
It also wasn’t just dishes. People would go out of their way to dodge doing things that weren’t even that hard to do. I don’t know if it’s strange, or maybe unethical, to get the enjoyment I do from doing stuff that other people won’t, but there’s also a sense of, “Seriously?” confronting something someone could have done, but for whatever reason didn’t.
Maybe it’s a part of the dread disease, “Adulthood”, to find this stuff both easy to do (in the sense of having low EF costs, there’s still effort involved of course or it wouldn’t be “hard” work) and be somewhat vexed when other people don’t do the thing. I’m not sure. The idea of being an adult is still pretty novel to me – a few years ago I didn’t think I was ever going to grow up (while exhibiting the seeds of this).
However it came to be, I’m pretty happy I can do this stuff. I don’t want to spend my working life cleaning, but being capable of doing so seems pretty advantageous; it’s a decent subset of the Jack of All Trades Trait. It’s nice to be able to help friends and make gains from trade.
Sorry for the lightweight post, but I’m kinda tired ^_~