jenk

With thanks to

Practical vampires are the people, places, institutions, beliefs, and situations we deal with every day that drain us of our time, our energy, and our good will. They are personal to us and defined not by what they do but rather by how we are affected by them. When we diagnose a vampire in our lives, it is by looking at our wounds, and not by looking at the vampire. [...]

Practical vampire slaying is founded on the spiritual principle that a vampire cannot enter into our lives to feed without first receiving our invitation to do so. Taking responsibility for what enters our lives and how we deal with it is how we reclaim our power to choose for ourselves what we want to do about our vampires.

Sometimes we choose to evict them by "revoking our invitations," and sometimes we don't. Sometimes we are ready to be rid of our vampires and other times we're not. It's all about having a choice. &emdash; The Practical Vampire Slayer

There's definitely some good stuff in comparing boundary-violators to vampires. At the same time, my work drains me of time, energy, and sometimes of good will - but I get money and satisfaction out of work. Overall I consider it a fair exchange. I also know that others would want to alter the bargain (less work, more money, different location, different sort of work, etc) and that is fine too.

For me, it's the lack of fair exchange that defines a problem. :)