Re: Driving in the car with Grandma

Banty wrote:
In article <u--dnVISyMPG6uPVnZ2dnUVZ_rjinZ2d@xxxxxxxxxxx>, Ericka Kammerer
says...
Banty wrote:
In article <o5WdnXsHGpP8ceDVnZ2dnUVZ_vjinZ2d@xxxxxxxxxxx>, Ericka Kammerer
says...

I mean, if someone asked me to help them paint their house, is it OK that I
decide it should be pink rather than beige? And, then, with pink all over one
side of the house, did they fail in not having told me "we will paint with the
beige paint - this paint right here, not some other paint, just to make that
clear, even if it's free paint, even if it's paint you already have, even if
it's not your favorite color - it really really needs to be this beige paint
right here."

C'mon.
If you want me to paint your house, you would be wise
to put it all on the table at the beginning. I can't be inside
your head to know what you want, and you can't be inside my
head to know what I might think is reasonable. That's why
we discuss things. Let's say, for the sake of discussion,
that your house needs painting and I offer to do it for you.
I may have made the offer thinking that you
could use the help, and anything would be better than
letting it go, and I have a source of inexpensive paint that's
better than nothing and a paint sprayer. You would not be wise
to accept my offer with no discussion and then come back at me
saying that you want a different paint color, a different type
of paint, and by the way you want it brushed rather than sprayed.
Now, it may be the case that my color was all wrong, the paint
type wasn't right, and a sprayed paint job would have been a
travesty...but my heart was in the right place and I made a
generous offer. The only smooth way out of this situation
would have been for you to gather enough information at the
outset to determine that you were not going to be happy with
the way I was going to do things and to politely decline my
offer (or skip the information gathering and politely decline).
Once you've accepted my offer, there's no good way out. It's
even worse if you ask me to paint your house, and then later
you decide you don't like how I'm doing it. Unless you don't
care how your house is painted, you need to iron out the
details before getting into the deal.


So you're not going to take *my* example of ignored intentions :-/

Where is the ignored intentions bit in your example?

Taking *yours*, people being people, here's what would happen.

Offerer who is going to help me (say I'm elder and strapped for funds) tells me
about it. I ask him questions - what kind of paint, what color. He answers. I
ask if he can change the color, use a different paint.

He sighs heavily and retorts "Lady I was trying to help you." And I'd be
considered an ingrate. For not wanting cheep white slathered and sprayed all
over my house.

This is the kind of predicament 'helpers' can get one into, whether asked or
volunteering. The *key* politeness that gets one past this business about
beggars-can't-be-choosers is the willingness to answer politely asked questions
simply and honestly, and simply accepting the answer "no" should it come. But
it so often doesn't happen that way.

Again, as I've said before, none of us have the option
to require that everyone else do the right thing. All we can
do is try our best to do the right thing. You can choose to
decline the house painting offer sight unseen, you can choose
to get details and then decline, you can attempt to negotiate,
or you can accept the offer as is and live with whatever happens.
You may not get a happy ending with any of them. Life just
ain't fair sometimes. But the riskiest option of any of them
is accepting the favor without discussion while remaining
particular about what comes of it. The next riskiest option
is to attempt the negotiation, because that's a conversation
full of landmines for the unwary. If you feel like playing
it safe, better to decline the offer or decide you're *really*
flexible.

How does the fact that others may respond rudely
affect what is right for one to do in the first place?

I've often observed that having *anything* available for free causes all kinds
of goofy distortions. The idea that anyone is a dern fool not to take what's
free; the idea that anything to be had for free has to be taken as it is. The
latter would be fine if it weren't for the first.

People do get odd notions stuck in their heads, that's
for sure.

DIL was just trying not to offend a rather persistent Grandma; giving her the
benefit of the doubt. Finding that they had a different that they didn't
anticipate, what to do then. And one can't possibly anticipate everything; I
maintain *I'd* assume that watching a child, yes even a relative for a favor,
for four hour stretches, it would take place in my home, and not whereever I
might have been otherwise, and I'd work the rest of my errands around that. I
don't think it such a failing that she didn't anticipate this difference. No
more than that homeowner would expect a volunteer painter to ignore several bins
of beige paint and put it on me to accept a pink house because he enjoys
painting it that way more.

I don't really think that analogy holds up very well.
If you asked someone to help you paint your house and failed
to have a discussion about what color until after he went out
and got pink paint, shame on you. If you said, "please help
me paint my house beige" and he goes out and gets pink paint,
that's a horse of a different color. If you said, "please
help me paint my house beige," he has the opportunity to
say, "You know, I just can't stand painting that much beige,
so unless you're interested in considering another color like
pink, I'm afraid I can't help you this time." Or, if he
decides he can help and later decides he's had enough beige,
well, that's his own problem because he committed to painting
your house beige. You might let him off the hook, but he
has no call to bring in the pink paint on his own recognizance.
Are you suggesting some sort of convoluted situation where
you ask him to help you paint, fail to specify conditions up
front, and then get cranky because he doesn't do it the way
you want even though you left him a hint? Because my
experience is that if you want something, hinting isn't
enough. You need to ask for what you want. You may not
get it, but your odds of getting what you want are much,
much lower if you don't ask.

And people work out things while they're helping all the time. Goodness, hardly
any volunteer work would ever come to fruition if however the volunteer
initially conceptualized the task always held sway.

As they say, the battle plan never survives the
first engagement. That doesn't mean that one skips
the planning, that the planning has no value, or that
failing to plan has no negative consequences. And I'm
not saying that the volunteer gets to lay down the law.
I'm saying that even if you are the decision maker,
if you don't communicate your terms prior to signing
someone on, you have created a sticky situation and
lowered the probability of getting what you want and
increased the probability of creating friction. And
believe me, when I ask someone if they'll volunteer,
I'm falling all over myself trying to get out the good, the
bad, and the ugly, because I don't want *anyone* coming
back and accusing me of luring them in under false
pretenses. In the long run, I'll end up with fewer
volunteers if I'm not seen as straightforward than
if I scare a few off prior to a commitment.

Best wishes,
Ericka
.

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