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Folks, I'd like to tell you a story...
Last year, I received a visit from an old friend, who had just moved back to New York. I'll call her "Lynn" (not her real name, for privacy reasons). She was with her husband, who I was meeting for the first time.
We had a great day together, with just one little wrinkle :
At a department store, Lynn's husband got into an argument with a sales associate. Long story short ... Lynn's husband had found a $10 blanket that had been mislabelled, "$0.00." (Don't ask me how.) He wanted them to honor that price (i.e. give it to him for free). The associate offered him a discount, but she said they couldn't give it to him for less than cost, much less for free. Lynn's husband argued that they should honor the marked price, whatever it was, and whether or not it was a mistake.
I honestly felt that he was being unreasonable, but I was reluctant to say so. I didn't want to get into an argument with Lynn's husband, certainly not on the first day I met him.
Lynn, however, didn't hesitate. She told her husband that he should take the discount they offered him, but it wasn't fair to expect them to give him the blanket for free. But he wouldn't budge, and neither would the associate.
He became belligerent, and began raising his voice at the associate. Lynn tried to calm him down, to no avail. Then, Lynn lost her temper and told her husband...
...Well, I don't think that I need to use her exact words
... She basically told him, "Honey, you are being a real jerk about this!"
(In slightly more colorful language.)
Lynn loves her husband dearly, and she will move heaven and earth to protect him . . . But she will not support him when she believes that he is wrong.
The same goes for all of Lynn's family and friends . . . She loves them all and will do everything she can to protect them . . . But if she believes that they are wrong or out of line, she will tell them so, whether in public or in private.
And she has always made it clear that she wants and expects her family and friends to do the same with her, when they believe that she is wrong about something.
Now, you may ask, why am I telling you all of this? Well, it is because of this rather curious statement :
Regardless of whether you are right or wrong?
You know, up until now, I had thought that the reason that the OP's wife had acted as she did was because she believed that her husband was being mistreated. (Although I didn't agree with that opinion.) But, apparently, it doesn't even matter if somebody is right or wrong, their friends and family should support them anyway.
This may have to be one of those "agree to disagree" moments, but I certainly wouldn't expect anyone to support me if they felt I was wrong. If my loved ones thought I was out of line, I would expect them to call me on it. (I wouldn't be happy about it, but I would understand it.)
Doomed? Hardly. Lynn and her husband certainly don't appear doomed to me. They're two of the happiest people I know. As I said, this may have to be one of those "agree to disagree" moments . . .
EDIT :
After I wrote this post, it occurred to me that I might have been misinterpreting what Getoutofmylobby was saying, when he said "to defend you regardless of whether you are right or wrong" . . .
By the word "defend," he might not have meant supporting a loved one unconditionally, or automatically taking their side in any kind of dispute they may have with somebody else. He might, instead, have meant protecting a loved one from harm.
(For example, if a man was arrested and tried for a crime . . . You would, naturally, expect his family and friends to help and support him through this ordeal, even if he was actually guilty. They certainly done have to condone what he did (and shouldn't)... But they still love him, after all, and it's understandable that they would want him to have the best possible defense, as light a punishment as possible, and come home as soon as he can.)
If so, I would agree... to a certain extent.
Actually, there have been cases where people committed serious crimes and their families chose not to support them, or actually supported the prosecution. That's a deeply personal choice, and I respect these people for making it.
Anyway... Just my opinion, but a guy being stranded outside his own residence and facing a long walk in the cold... I honestly don't feel that this qualifies as a situation where loved ones should defend him unconditionally. Maybe if he was stranded on a highway or a place far from home, or if he had a health condition that makes a long walk in the cold dangerous...
But in general, I don't think this is serious enough to justify ignoring "right and wrong" to support your loved one. Again, we'll just have to agree to disagree.
Well, you got your wish, then. What are you so upset about?
Actually, it took about ten minutes. Most of my arguments pretty much wrote themselves.
For example, when you said "I wouldn't just let them leave without trying," it was pretty much an automatic reaction to point out that the sales agent had tried to call maintenance and offered to call a taxi for you, which IMO does indeed qualify as trying to help. Most of what I wrote in my first post was similarly automatic in nature.
Indeed? And what makes you think that?
Was it the sheer length of my post? Well, I do tend to write too much at times, a habit that I've tried (with little success) to curb.
Was it the fact that I used a line-by-line format to respond to your posts? I just thought it would provide the greatest clarity, and ensure that I didn't leave anything out. If you don't like the format... Sorry, but I happen to like it, and I'll continue using it.
Was it the tone of my post? Granted, it was rough at times (with phrases like "completely out of line" and "so rudely")... But, on the whole, I didn't think it was all that harsh.
You didn't strike a nerve with me, and I don't have a problem. I just had a lot to say, and I type fast.
Did I? Well, I will admit...
So? Merely posting it on a website like this should be acknowledgement enough that I was wrong in my assumption.
I was, arguably, splitting hairs here. But I stand by everything else I've written.
If you don't mind my answering that question with a question... Whatever happened to the idea that selfless acts of kindness should be done purely out of the generosity of one's heart?
I'm really not trying to give you a hard time here, but I keep coming back to this... You say that the sales agent wasn't obligated to help you, but you act as if he was.
Of course, people should help each other. But those who choose not to should not be forced into it.
To me, an act of kindness wouldn't mean anything if a person is coerced into doing it.
I try my best to help people, too, you know. In fact, I've often gone pretty far out of my way to help people.
And I encourage other people to do the same. But if they choose not to, that's their decision to make, however much I disagree with it. I don't believe that it automatically makes them bad people, nor do I believe that it means they deserve to be threatened for it.
I certainly wouldn't expect a stranger to place himself or his property at risk to help me. You said it yourself... When you found out about the earlier incident (the blown up battery), you understood why he didn't want to give you a jump start.
But, as I said before... A battery getting damaged in a failed jumpstart was a foreseeable possibility even at the time, was it not?
Now, the reason I brought that up in the first place was because you insisted that the agent could have helped you "with little trouble"... I didn't believe that was the case here, and I still don't. Even if he didn't have any other work to do... Giving you a jump start would have still required him to place his personal safety at risk, to place his property at risk of damage, and to place himself at risk of being held liable for damage to somebody else's property.
If somebody refuses to help you even though it would cause them little or no difficulty to do so... Perhaps you do have cause to be angry. But I don't believe that was the case here.
Let me be candid here. If you had just said, "I know I was wrong to swear at him, but I really thought he was just blowing me off, and I was angry" . . . Then I honestly don't think that anybody (certainly not me) would have come down on you so hard.
Am I "splitting hairs" again? Perhaps. But since we're talking about perceptions "at the time" ... The fact that you focused almost exclusively on the agent's behavior (rather than your own) ... The fact that you never explicitly acknowledged that you were wrong to swear at the agent or for your wife to threaten him ... The fact that you applauded your wife's actions and argued that the sales agent "deserved" what he got (or, at least, that you seemed to do this) ...
All of this, honestly, made it look to me like you were trying to argue that your actions were justified. If that was not your intention, then I was wrong, and I apologize. But, as you say, it was what I thought at the time, and it was what I acted on.
I'm not even going to try to understand what that was about.
Possibly because if the manager says, "We plan on fixing it," then the automatic response from the resident would be, "When?"
That would force the manager to commit to a time frame, which may not be possible . . . Or tell the resident that he can't give a specific time, in which case the resident is almost certainly going to think that management really isn't going to fix it after all.
A lot of residents would have reached that conclusion no matter what the management told them. How were they to know that you wouldn't have?
"Excuse me, my car is stalled out there. Could you please give me a jump start?"
"Sorry, but I have more important things to do."
Oh, yes, that would have gone over marvelously.
Wait, wait, wait, let me put it into less emotive terms :
Yes, but just because you would have, doesn't mean everybody would.
If the agent had explained about the previous incident he had (the battery blown up) . . . You would've understood, but there are plenty of other people who wouldn't. They would've said :
"Oh, come on, I know what I'm doing, it's perfectly safe."
"Well, it's not my fault somebody blew up your battery!"
"Are you calling me an idiot? I know how to jumpstart a car! I want to talk to your supervisor!"
To me, it's perfectly understandable that the agent was reluctant to tell you the truth. I mean, how was he to know that you would, in fact, have understood?
And if the agent had had other work to do . . . Again, you might have understood, but other people wouldn't have. So the agent might, understandably, have been reluctant to say that.
So he didn't have any other work to do, after all? Very well . . . Still, the fact that he didn't say he had other work to do does not constitute proof that he didn't.
As somebody else pointed out, he may have been wrong to lie about the "liability issues" . . . But it was his best chance of getting out of the situation without a prolonged argument.
And as for the fact that it looked like he was just trying to blow you off . . . So he was a lousy liar. What a pity. He won't get very far in sales work that way.
(In case anybody misunderstands . . . That was a joke. I didn't actually mean that.)
I'm going to ignore that.
. . . Absolutely none of my business . . . but why in the world you advise a friend to move into an apartment building that has a track record of being extremely slow to conduct major repairs?
Glad to hear it. Now, as I've repeatedly stated, this is clearly going to have to be an "agree to disagree" matter.
And, personally, I am getting rather bored with this whole issue anyway. So, for better or for worse, this will be final post on this thread. I will let everything that I've said stand on its own.
Last year, I received a visit from an old friend, who had just moved back to New York. I'll call her "Lynn" (not her real name, for privacy reasons). She was with her husband, who I was meeting for the first time.
We had a great day together, with just one little wrinkle :
At a department store, Lynn's husband got into an argument with a sales associate. Long story short ... Lynn's husband had found a $10 blanket that had been mislabelled, "$0.00." (Don't ask me how.) He wanted them to honor that price (i.e. give it to him for free). The associate offered him a discount, but she said they couldn't give it to him for less than cost, much less for free. Lynn's husband argued that they should honor the marked price, whatever it was, and whether or not it was a mistake.
I honestly felt that he was being unreasonable, but I was reluctant to say so. I didn't want to get into an argument with Lynn's husband, certainly not on the first day I met him.
Lynn, however, didn't hesitate. She told her husband that he should take the discount they offered him, but it wasn't fair to expect them to give him the blanket for free. But he wouldn't budge, and neither would the associate.
He became belligerent, and began raising his voice at the associate. Lynn tried to calm him down, to no avail. Then, Lynn lost her temper and told her husband...
...Well, I don't think that I need to use her exact words
... She basically told him, "Honey, you are being a real jerk about this!"(In slightly more colorful language.)
Lynn loves her husband dearly, and she will move heaven and earth to protect him . . . But she will not support him when she believes that he is wrong.
The same goes for all of Lynn's family and friends . . . She loves them all and will do everything she can to protect them . . . But if she believes that they are wrong or out of line, she will tell them so, whether in public or in private.
And she has always made it clear that she wants and expects her family and friends to do the same with her, when they believe that she is wrong about something.
Now, you may ask, why am I telling you all of this? Well, it is because of this rather curious statement :
Originally Posted by Getoutofmylobby :
If you think it’s a bad thing for a loved one to defend you regardless of whether you are right or wrong, then you my friend are doomed.
If you think it’s a bad thing for a loved one to defend you regardless of whether you are right or wrong, then you my friend are doomed.
You know, up until now, I had thought that the reason that the OP's wife had acted as she did was because she believed that her husband was being mistreated. (Although I didn't agree with that opinion.) But, apparently, it doesn't even matter if somebody is right or wrong, their friends and family should support them anyway.
This may have to be one of those "agree to disagree" moments, but I certainly wouldn't expect anyone to support me if they felt I was wrong. If my loved ones thought I was out of line, I would expect them to call me on it. (I wouldn't be happy about it, but I would understand it.)
Doomed? Hardly. Lynn and her husband certainly don't appear doomed to me. They're two of the happiest people I know. As I said, this may have to be one of those "agree to disagree" moments . . .
EDIT :
After I wrote this post, it occurred to me that I might have been misinterpreting what Getoutofmylobby was saying, when he said "to defend you regardless of whether you are right or wrong" . . .
By the word "defend," he might not have meant supporting a loved one unconditionally, or automatically taking their side in any kind of dispute they may have with somebody else. He might, instead, have meant protecting a loved one from harm.
(For example, if a man was arrested and tried for a crime . . . You would, naturally, expect his family and friends to help and support him through this ordeal, even if he was actually guilty. They certainly done have to condone what he did (and shouldn't)... But they still love him, after all, and it's understandable that they would want him to have the best possible defense, as light a punishment as possible, and come home as soon as he can.)
If so, I would agree... to a certain extent.
Actually, there have been cases where people committed serious crimes and their families chose not to support them, or actually supported the prosecution. That's a deeply personal choice, and I respect these people for making it.
Anyway... Just my opinion, but a guy being stranded outside his own residence and facing a long walk in the cold... I honestly don't feel that this qualifies as a situation where loved ones should defend him unconditionally. Maybe if he was stranded on a highway or a place far from home, or if he had a health condition that makes a long walk in the cold dangerous...
But in general, I don't think this is serious enough to justify ignoring "right and wrong" to support your loved one. Again, we'll just have to agree to disagree.
I wanted you guys to rip into me and tell me exactly what I did wrong
you clearly spent alot of effort debunking my every word
For example, when you said "I wouldn't just let them leave without trying," it was pretty much an automatic reaction to point out that the sales agent had tried to call maintenance and offered to call a taxi for you, which IMO does indeed qualify as trying to help. Most of what I wrote in my first post was similarly automatic in nature.
Wow, I must have really hit a nerve with you Anthony K.S.
Anthony K.S. seems to have more of a problem than most.
Anthony K.S. seems to have more of a problem than most.
Was it the sheer length of my post? Well, I do tend to write too much at times, a habit that I've tried (with little success) to curb.
Was it the fact that I used a line-by-line format to respond to your posts? I just thought it would provide the greatest clarity, and ensure that I didn't leave anything out. If you don't like the format... Sorry, but I happen to like it, and I'll continue using it.
Was it the tone of my post? Granted, it was rough at times (with phrases like "completely out of line" and "so rudely")... But, on the whole, I didn't think it was all that harsh.
You didn't strike a nerve with me, and I don't have a problem. I just had a lot to say, and I type fast.
You split alot of hairs here Anthony K.S. is everything ok?
(Which, by the way, would mean that this . . .
. . . was actually WRONG. Something that you have consistently failed to acknowledge.)
And my impression at the time was he said no simply because he didn't want to be bothered with me.
what happened to selfless acts of kindness?
I'm really not trying to give you a hard time here, but I keep coming back to this... You say that the sales agent wasn't obligated to help you, but you act as if he was.
Of course, people should help each other. But those who choose not to should not be forced into it.
To me, an act of kindness wouldn't mean anything if a person is coerced into doing it.
I try my best to help people, too, you know. In fact, I've often gone pretty far out of my way to help people.
And I encourage other people to do the same. But if they choose not to, that's their decision to make, however much I disagree with it. I don't believe that it automatically makes them bad people, nor do I believe that it means they deserve to be threatened for it.
I certainly wouldn't expect a stranger to place himself or his property at risk to help me. You said it yourself... When you found out about the earlier incident (the blown up battery), you understood why he didn't want to give you a jump start.
But, as I said before... A battery getting damaged in a failed jumpstart was a foreseeable possibility even at the time, was it not?
Now, the reason I brought that up in the first place was because you insisted that the agent could have helped you "with little trouble"... I didn't believe that was the case here, and I still don't. Even if he didn't have any other work to do... Giving you a jump start would have still required him to place his personal safety at risk, to place his property at risk of damage, and to place himself at risk of being held liable for damage to somebody else's property.
If somebody refuses to help you even though it would cause them little or no difficulty to do so... Perhaps you do have cause to be angry. But I don't believe that was the case here.
Of course I was sucky! Not just for my FU response but for committing the gravest of errors, deluding myself into thinking I was totally in the right. . . .
. . . I "assumed" I was being blown off. Regardless of whether or not he was an employee of ANYTHING how could I NOT be mad about that?
. . . I "assumed" I was being blown off. Regardless of whether or not he was an employee of ANYTHING how could I NOT be mad about that?
Am I "splitting hairs" again? Perhaps. But since we're talking about perceptions "at the time" ... The fact that you focused almost exclusively on the agent's behavior (rather than your own) ... The fact that you never explicitly acknowledged that you were wrong to swear at the agent or for your wife to threaten him ... The fact that you applauded your wife's actions and argued that the sales agent "deserved" what he got (or, at least, that you seemed to do this) ...
All of this, honestly, made it look to me like you were trying to argue that your actions were justified. If that was not your intention, then I was wrong, and I apologize. But, as you say, it was what I thought at the time, and it was what I acted on.
his "taxi" comment was meant to be funny to his co-workers in earshot
I'm not even going to try to understand what that was about.
. . . the building needs heavy maintenance. If they plan on doing it then why don't they say that?
That would force the manager to commit to a time frame, which may not be possible . . . Or tell the resident that he can't give a specific time, in which case the resident is almost certainly going to think that management really isn't going to fix it after all.
Since they don't, we can only "assume" they aren't going to do anything about it.
If he really had more important things to do then why didn't he say so?
"Sorry, but I have more important things to do."
Oh, yes, that would have gone over marvelously.
Wait, wait, wait, let me put it into less emotive terms :
I would have taken the truth alot better.
If the agent had explained about the previous incident he had (the battery blown up) . . . You would've understood, but there are plenty of other people who wouldn't. They would've said :
"Oh, come on, I know what I'm doing, it's perfectly safe."
"Well, it's not my fault somebody blew up your battery!"
"Are you calling me an idiot? I know how to jumpstart a car! I want to talk to your supervisor!"
To me, it's perfectly understandable that the agent was reluctant to tell you the truth. I mean, how was he to know that you would, in fact, have understood?
And if the agent had had other work to do . . . Again, you might have understood, but other people wouldn't have. So the agent might, understandably, have been reluctant to say that.
So he didn't have any other work to do, after all? Very well . . . Still, the fact that he didn't say he had other work to do does not constitute proof that he didn't.
As somebody else pointed out, he may have been wrong to lie about the "liability issues" . . . But it was his best chance of getting out of the situation without a prolonged argument.
And as for the fact that it looked like he was just trying to blow you off . . . So he was a lousy liar. What a pity. He won't get very far in sales work that way.
(In case anybody misunderstands . . . That was a joke. I didn't actually mean that.)
Let me provide some more fallacies and hasty generalizations in case you get bored . . .
. . . and I told him I had a friend looking to move into the area that I would send his way.
All is right with the world.
And, personally, I am getting rather bored with this whole issue anyway. So, for better or for worse, this will be final post on this thread. I will let everything that I've said stand on its own.
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