As many of my faithful reading several will know, I sometimes say the “wrong” thing. Not that I am trying to be intentionally hurtful by my quips, it’s that most people don’t like being exposed to the painfulness that can be the honest truth. But if you know me, you would know that I also could care less if I accidentally offend you with my remarks. This week, I have two ( yes, two!) instances where I had made “wrong” remarks at my job that involved old people in some manner.
1.The other day my boss bought us lunch at some shitty cafe and lo and behold, the original owner of this cafe walks in and begins to chat with my boss, who is a long time friend of hers. The ex-owner was upset because she was just came back from visiting an old friend, who happens to be in the Alzheimer’s ward of a nursing home. The patient, as it turns out from hearing this sob story, has been in the advanced stages of the disease for many years and has no memory whatsoever and the lady was very upset about it. ( “It’s SO terrible! She doesn’t even remember her own family much less ME!”)
After a few minutes of this little sob story, I just had to go and open my big mouth: “Why are you wasting your time visiting your friend and then getting all upset about it? You knew that your friend has late stage Alzheimer’s and doesn’t remember a thing, so you are just torturing yourself needlessly by visiting her. I mean it’s not as if they have a cure for Alzheimer’s or anything.”
Of course I ended up looking like a total fucking asshole, but I was right. Yes, it’s terrible that your friend has an incurable disease that robs you of your entire existence, but when you make a big show out of bemoaning this fact in order to gain some sympathy from those you know and from total strangers, now that’s sick!
2. Yes there was a heat wave this week and that meant we were swamped with service calls out the wahzoo. We received a call from someone who was calling on the “behalf” of their elderly grandma. Of course, who do you think answered the phone?
I know I’m supposed to have a professional demeanor on the phone while I’m at work, but if I feel you are trying to pull one over on me, I’m going letting you have it.
caller: (abruptly) My grandma’s ac is not working. You need to fix that shit now.
me: (after getting the home address and other pertinent information from the caller) we are really swamped with calls, as you may well assume due to the recent heat wave. I’m sorry, but we won’t be able to send someone over till the end of the week.
caller: (really agitated) Damnit, that’s my grandma! She won’t make it till the end of the week in this heat. She’ll die!
me: (realizing that the grandma story was a cheap ploy to get bumped up the service schedule due to the caller’s demeanor on the phone) If you “cared” about your grandma so much, why don’t you put her up in your air conditioned home until she gets hers fixed? Better yet, go put her in a nursing home so you won’t have to worry about her well being as much.
caller: I’m not doing that!
me: Wow, so you are saying that you would rather let your grandma die staying in that hot house of hers? You really must not care about her at all.
caller: (caught in his lie) yeah, but, ah, ah….
me: Fuck you you greedy, inconsiderate fuck! Better luck scamming another HVAC company during the next heat wave! (click)
jareddriskill
