Stress can make you crazy. It can make your hair fall out, cause memory lapses, make you put on weight and perspire profusely. It can cause crippling phobias, bleeding ulcers and even pimples. Nowadays, people talk about it so much, it's getting boring. So there's another one: stress can cause boredom, too.
What, exactly, makes a groomer stressed. Maybe it's that regular customer who tells you, "Just take your time with Snookums. I don't want to rush you, but I will need to pick her up before lunch."Or the fourth call from the overprotective lady who wants to know how Cookie's doing. "Does she seem happy? How many times have you taken her out to potty? Has she had a drink of water? Is there any chance that she'll be ready early?"
Maybe you finally stop to take a coffee break, feeling pretty pleased with yourself. You started out with six funky furballs and five of them are done, beautiful and beribboned, awaiting their owners. Before you take a sip, the phone jangles with a harried owner of one of the pooches who wants to know if his dog is ready yet. Which one of the six is his? (If you're a groomer, you know the answer to this multiple choice.)
Perhaps it's the plumbing that's making you a wreck. That tub drain has been slowing down to a trickle and since you've got theater tickets for tonight, today's the day it gives one last gurgle and quits. Seizes up like a frozen pond. Makes you wish you married that groomer's dreamboat you knew in high school who grew up to be a Roto-Rooter Man. So what if everyone knew he had a lock on the male lead for the school production of Beauty and the Beast.
Or could your stress source be your staff? Margie's got a sinus infection; Joanie just found out she's allergic to pet hair, and it's the third week this month of Peggy's PMS. Or was that clanking crash you heard the sound of the two-hundred-dollar shears you lent Mary hitting the floor? Perhaps you just heard the one word every shop owner dreads, "Oops!" Susie stands before you with half a poodle moustache in her hand. "How bad did Mrs. Simpson want this left on Pepi?"
Maybe you shouldn't have opened your mail. You never claimed to be a math whiz, but that last bank deposit slip was off by $386, not in your favor. Maybe you should have married that nerdie Class Treasurer who now heads a CPA firm. So what if he wore his plastic pen pocket protector to the prom.
Your daily ration of stress could be coming from that over-the-hill clunker you call a car. You dropped it off on your way to work for an oil change and the mechanic just called to tell you the transmission is shot. Wonder what ever happened to that guy with the dirty fingernails whose life's ambition was to open his own auto repair shop. So what if he left an oil slick wherever he went and the only compliment he ever paid you had something to do with your crankcase. Your mother was right. You've always been too picky.
Maybe you should take up Yoga or practice daily meditation.Cut out caffeine and take up bird-watching. You have good intentions. You buy these tapes about visualization but in the middle of your vision of a perfect day with all customers, groomers and animals alike engaged in a beautiful symphony of harmony and cooperation, the legs on Betty's table buckle and the oldest living poodle in your clientele enters his second puppyhood and makes a beeline for the front room. Could be you're just overprogrammed. They're offering an evening course at the Community College on how to manage your time more efficiently. You saw it in the local paper:
"Is your daily workload turning you into a robot? Are you a victim of stress overload? A guilt glutton who postpones pleasure? A wornout workaholic driven to depression by the punishing pressures of life?" You pause for a moment. Do these people know you? This might be right up your alley. You should give them a call. If only you had the time to fit it into your schedule.