My Trust Issues

OK, so I have trust issues. I came upon them honestly. Over the weekend, while working with a volunteer writer for the work project, I was emailing her, probably going into more detail than necessary, about what I was asking her to do.

I stopped and reminded myself that she is working on a PhD and could probably sort it out for herself.

It reminded me of when Amy was coming to stay with me, and I was putting coffee stuff out for the morning. The thought crossed my mind that maybe I should write out directions for the coffee maker -- was tempted to do that until I stopped and reminded myself that Amy can fly an airplane so she could probably figure out how to work a coffee maker. (And she could since it turned out her daughter has the same machine!)

Just now, I got an email from a client. I had sent him an invoice from another company to pay. I mailed it on Monday, and he hadn't gotten it on Wednesday. He was taking Thursday and Friday off. I told him to look for it on Monday and call me if he didn't get it. So now I get this email:

I found the [company] invoice, but I can not remember what I am supposed to do with it.
Should I throw it away?

Very funny.

My self-defense is that I am being reliable and helpful. (Do I hear a sputtering from the peanut gallery?) I'm a work in progress. I replied:

Please have your day nurse contact me. I need to talk to her about something.

Just now, writing this, I had an insight. I was (again self-defensively thinking) that there are people who would give up on the coffee maker, write the wrong article, and ignore the invoice. But I need to use better judgment to differentiate those people who can be trusted from those who can't. Not so easy for me.