Yikes!! In spite of the meds and the counseling, I still have ADHD. I mean, don’t get me wrong. I never doubted that I still had the symptoms. After all, I am going down the path of trying to change careers and become a writer instead of jumping back into the high pressure world of Information Technology. My treatment makes me better, but it is not a cure.
For the past couple of weeks I have been dealing with the new residents of a recently renovated building across the street. It use to be a single family house, but now spouts two separate condos which were to be sold to single families. The condos didn’t sell, so the corporate owners decided to rent the place to lots of Boston College students. They are noisy, inconsiderate, and at times dangerous. A few nights ago one of my neighbors caught them hitting golf balls at our building and she called the police. Shortly afterwards they put a commercial sign up for a business they were operating out of the condo which is a clear zoning violation.
Concerned about my property value I got involved and sent a letter to the city constituent representative who promptly replied with support. He sent my letter to the zoning department who replied with a letter that made absolutely no sense to me. The author referred to two properties, but my original email only made reference to one. She scheduled for the zoning inspector to come out and look at the signage, but said that he was coming to look at my address and not the property in question. She also said that she looked up the property and it was zoned as a three family dwelling although it is list as a two family.
I was upset at the email. It indicated that I would have a lot more work to do. I would have to convince her that the inspectors were going to the wrong address. I would also have to go down to the zoning office myself to look at the documents to confirm that the zoning was for two and not three family. I replied to her email very cordually. Impulsively, I compose a harsher email back my city representative. I communicated my disappointment in the zoning department’s reply and said that it contain so much incorrect information that I wasn’t sure I trusted any of it. The I went on to say that I wasn’t sure if the zoning inspector either didn’t read my email or had a problem with understanding English. Of course I didn’t intend to send the email as is. I intended to tone it down and make it more concillitory. But instead of saving it I sent it. I forgot that Control-S in email sends the message instead of saving it.
I discovered this error the next morning when I went to edit the message. I sent an apology explaining my mistake, but knew it would be in vain. By Monday the signage was gone from the condo across the street, but I haven’t heard back from my city representative. My guess is I am persona non-gratis.
Having ADHD sucks. I struggle with focus and attention and the difficulty in completing projects. Dealing with administrative matters is often exhausting and overwhelming. But the worst is the pain and embarrassment of the impulsivity and mistakes like this because once done, there is no going back.