Old S.C.s and their wives (kinda long)

[SonOfSpam]

I was going to write about this fellow earlier but since work and school have been so hectic lately I haven't had time to do much besides read a few new entries at the forums. And besides this S.C. hasn't done anything particularly interesting until today. Okay, so anyways, me and my buddy Shawn have a landscaping company (kinda small, only 40 customers). And a couple months ago we started working for this old guy who supposedly had a history of firing landscaping services after only a couple of weeks (should have been our first hint). Now you could take one look at this guy and tell he was an asshole, he looked like he had a stick in his ass 24/7. But I swallowed my pride and cut his lawn anyways, first time I cut it my mower's bag got full and spewed some grass clippings on his drive way before I could change it out. No big deal right? Wrong! This guy, who we refferred to as "Oscar" (as in Oscar the grouch, clever huh?) walked right up to me and began yelling at me to make sure I blew the clippings away. Yeah, I know how to clean up a yard, thanks. A few weeks later I was busy blowing out his driveway when Oscar showed up from his garage, observing my work with a look on his face that may have suggested he was having a heart attack. He began hollering at me again, this time he said I'd done a poor job of cleaning out the window ledge and that it was "full (of grass)". I apologized and blew it off for him but Oscar got a broom and brushed it off after I was done anyways. At this point I was convinced this guy had some vendetta against me, espescially since he never complained about anything when my friend Shawn cut the grass. I think he spent time thinking of trivial things to bitch about and pin on me even though I busted my ass to make sure his lawn looked good. It happened again just this morning after I finished off Oscar's front lawn, we were done and my friend Shawn had collected the money he said that Oscar was complaining because I'd gone a few inches over his property line and had accidentally cut some of his neighbors grass. Now, if that was anything to complain about, the neighbors would be the one's that did, who cares if someone cuts their lawn over the boundary? What clinched it was this evening, Oscar's wife called to complain that I hadn't cleaned up all the leaves and twigs in their backyard. Me and Shawn are there only to cut, edge, weed-whack, and blow the grass; if you want a fall cleanup you have to pay extra, it's not a free service. The thing was that Shawn had blown off some of the leaves in their front yard so it looked a bit cleaner than normal and the Oscars's expected the same treatment for the back. The woman looked me in the eye and told me I did a lousy job. We explained to her that the mower I used wasn't powerful enough to pick up all the leaves but it shouldn't matter because the grass was still cut and we weren't hired to do a cleanup. At this point she looked at Shawn and said "Well we paid you to cut the lawn, he (me) shouldn't be cutting it." Shawn gave her a bewildered look and said "He's my worker, and he's been cutting it for months...". The old bitch looked at us and just said, "So it's just gonna stay like that?" I said, "Unless you wanna pay for a cleanup, lady" She looked at me and just said, "Well, then I guess we have no choice...thanks anyway" and wandered back into the house in silence. I had to bite my lip to avoid giving her a piece of my mind. Me and Shawn walked back to the truck laughing, oh well, they're not doing us a favor. Lucky for us the rest of our customers aren't assholes.

[Imogene]

Huh?
So, you've been mowing their lawn for a while now, and the first time they actually flat out say they don't want you doing it is so they can get a free leaf-removal? Kind of, sort of, not really?

[draftermatt]

Uh huh. Wow.

My guess is they are sick (or just old and don't care anymore) so they have to complain about something (anything) in order to make their feeling bad make more sense.

[friendofjimmyk]

"So, you're not going to do that for free? Well, you've been doing a lousy job anyway!"

SC logic. Everytime I try to wrap my mind around it, I blow a few more brain cells!

[protege]

Uh huh. Wow.

My guess is they are sick (or just old and don't care anymore) so they have to complain about something (anything) in order to make their feeling bad make more sense.

That's probably it. Several years ago, my grandfather did that to me. I was over there one afternoon, and he went apeshit on me. He'd just had his knee operation, and was in a bit of pain. As if that wasn't enough, his yard was trashed too--the local township sewer had backed up, flooded his basement, and required the entire yard ripped up to repair/reroute the pipes.

He was going out to water his plants. Rather than have him fall in the yard, I went out back to water the plants. He said 20 minutes, I did 20 minutes. No sooner had I come back inside, when he started yelling about how I wasn't out there long enough, and how I obviously didn't know what I was doing. Um, are you effing kidding me? We're talking about using a hose to pour water on greenery...not rocket science here!

At that point I lost it. I yelled back that his temporary problems were no excuse to treat me like that...at which point my grandmother and aunt actually agreed. He'd been giving them a hard time about things as well. He later apologized , but I was pissed.