Keeping Score

As always, my life seems to follow themes. This week, the theme has been "keeping score" especially with respect to workplace issues and people's needs to have everything be "equal". In my own life, I have struggled (and continue to) with the issue of equality. My issues with this topic go back a long ways. When I was a kid, if one person in our household was working, we pretty much all were. It was the idea that since we all shared the privilege of having a house, then we all share the responsibilities for the upkeep of it. I liked that - there was some comfort in knowing that, if I was the one to cook dinner, then it would be someone else's job to clean up the dishes. Now that I'm on my own, things around the house aren't always "equal", and I'm learning to deal with it. For me, it was being asked the question "how is that working for you?" when I explained my need to keep a mental checklist of who does what. The short answer is that it doesn't work very well for me because it only serves to piss me off when I see that I'm the one doing more chores. But do I keep track as closely when I'm not the one doing the majority of the manual labor? Admittedly, no.

Funnily enough, the issue of "equality" is now popping up at work, with certain teachers comparing their workload to those of specialists (which is what I'm considered) and complaining that we have it "easy". Of course, since the roles were reversed, and I was on the receiving end of the "scorekeeper", it was easy for me to see how ridiculous "keeping score" is. It only served to make me feel undervalued and unappreciated for all the things I do and no one sees. It also made me realize that, no matter how hard you try, things cannot be made completely equal. Someone always gets what they view as "the short end of the stick". Also, why is someone else keeping track of what I'm doing in my work? Do they not have enough to do to keep track of themselves? Do they not realize that not only can I keep track of myself, but so can my supervisors? Oddly enough, my supervisors never have issues with my decisions or activities on any given day. What if everyone did their fair share, without anyone keeping score? That would work if everyone had the same work ethic. But we are only responsible for our own work ethic and don't have any control over another person's sense of responsibility. Shouldn't it be enough that, at the end of the day, we've done the best we can according to our own personal score sheet without worrying about someone else's tallies?