running a communal shelter is not just about blending animals in functioning groups with personality mixes that match fairly well. it is more than that..like with the bed buddies..i have far too many noisey, demanding, busy body personalities in there..so while they don't drive each other too badly nutz...the combo of all of them together can sometimes drive me insane. that room is like a hyperactive kindergarten room when everyone had far too much sugar in their apple juice today!
and to a certain extent..i have to blend staff and volunteers effectively too. plus there are the actual workload needs of the shelter so while dog person may prefer to work in a dog area..it is a cat area that we need help in. and sometimes certain personalities just don't mix.
we once had volunteer that it really bothered a lot that i was always on the move and distracted. she felt i was totally cold and unfriendly and never smiled and she did not like working here because of me. i wasn't trying to be unfriendly, but when i am busy, i am focused on other non-people things.
i am pretty intolerant of i don't like so and so...if we can all deal well with the multi and varied mix of animal personalities and if the animals can mostly get along because i insist on it..i figure humans should be able to get along too..you give a little, you take a little..none of us are perfect and as long as we are doing our jobs for the animals well....
i am not going to fuss about shit too much.
but i will say this..in animal rescue..we have far more tolerance and acceptence for difficult personalities in the animals than we do with people. phoebe may be a royal pain in the ass..but people who come here will at least like and hopefully love her.. if i feel they don't and she feels it too..i will ask them not to come back...phoebe deserves to at least be liked in her home.
every negative or toxic feeling we have is magnified 10 fold as the animals receive it..and you can tell when they have been exposed to a bunch of human angst or when they have felt safe in a happy and content day ....i pay real attention to that.
i lived with high and unhappy stress for almost 30 years and so did my tyra. i was so surprised at how well both of us did when suddenly that ongoing stress disappeared.
it is hard living and working here..there is so much going on all of the time. but my job is to keep the animals happy and that means to a certain extent, i have to keep the humans happy..but part of me does think that that really should not be my personal job...maybe that is really a shared human job that all of us work really hard at.