Those people that have jobs.
When we moved I was very enthusiastic about joining: the knitting circle, the French conversation club, the bridge group, the scuba dorks, whatever. I was ready to be a joiner. To meet my new neighbors and learn their mysterious suburban ways, buy girl scout cookies from their children, and trade casserole recipes. Except no one told me that the first rule of Greenwich:
Working is for other people.
Now, while husbands may be included in the subset of humanity known as the workers, women certainly are not. Why? You may ask. Oh, ok. Because if you wanted to do ANYTHING in the town of Greenwich you would not also be able to have a job. Knitting circle: 1:30-3:00pm. French club: 11:30-1:00pm. Devoted partner and I wanted to take Spanish class at the high school in the evenings. Yes, well, I don't know how many people you know who are able to be out of work and sitting in class by 5:30pm, but the only ones I know are unemployed.
But the final straw came yesterday when, at 4:00pm I went to Town Hall to get our beach passes. Leaving aside, for a moment, that the amount of documentation needed to get a beach pass dwarfs both the documentation needed to buy a house or, say, gain legal entry to Libya, and come with me to the sign that typifies why I don't think we'll be living here for the rest of our lives. Greenwich Parks and Recreation. Open Monday - Friday 8:15am-3:45pm.
Imagine, for a moment, that you and your living partner are both gainfully employed. Chances are 9ish is the time of day you start being employed. If, like EVERYONE in Greenwich, you work in finance, chances are 9ish is when you are finishing your 4th cup of coffee. Greenwich is approximately 22 miles from Manhattan, or 45-60 minutes to Grand Central by train. People work in Manhattan. When, pray tell, is one supposed to get one's beach pass? Should one take a day off work to do so?
Ahhhhhhhh. Wait. Now I understand. If I am one of those deeply disturbed women who chooses to work despite my husband's massive, throbbing paycheck, thereby preventing me from doing those household chores that Greenwich deems to be daytime chores, I must encourage my domestic to do those chores for me. I send Consuela to Town Hall armed with a dizzying array of personal information and 60 bucks and she gets us our beach passes.
Right?
This is how the rest of you did it?
4 days ago
Oh geez. Yeah... banker's hours... except the banks got smarter and started opening on weekends.
ReplyDeleteI don't think it's Greenwich, dear. Not that I'm defending it, I just have the same amount of difficulty accomplishing anything in my very decidedly un-Greenwich town that involves town hall or any other Government office. It's more of an indictment of public sector employees, but that's opening Pandora squared. Example, we were supposed to have Resident Parking Passes for street parking in April. I still don't have mine. I won't take a day off to go up to the town parking office and get it done.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was working, it ticked me off to no end that the PO closed at 5:00 and was open only short hours on Saturday and that the driver's license place, my doctor, the dentist weren't open past 5:00, either. I did not have a wife to delegate my chores to and I didn't want to have to leave work to do these things because the amount of work I had did not change. I just had to stay later to get it done.
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