The Sander

The father (P) that I work for is Mr. Negativity. He is complains about everything. Nothing can ever be done right, for instance, when the cleaning ladies comes, this is how it goes every time: (P)"Were the cleaning ladies here?" (me) "Yes" (P) "Oh" (as he is doing a white glove test, without the white glove) (the mother[L]) "Why?" (P) "You can't tell". And mind you, yes you can tell, they do a wonderful job. So when something actually does go wrong, you can about imagine how well he takes it. Two days ago a man came to fix some stuff in their unfinished basement, mostly sanding some cement, among other things. The basement door hasn't been latching lately, so it pops open, as well as other doors in the house, including mine (now fixed). When the man began to sand, dust was coming up the stairs and getting everywhere. I kept trying to close the door, but it just popped back open. There wasn't much I could do and I knew the cleaning ladies were coming the next day, so I let it go, knowing P would be pissed when he got home. And boy was he. But thankfully not at me. He claimed that it wasn't my responsibility to stand and hold the door shut, the home builders should have done a better job with the doors in this place. So P goes on yesterday to bitch at the home builder that sent over this guy, saying there is dust on everything, including the baby grand (P offered the info to me that he could buy a house for how much he spent on that piano). P calls me to let me know the home builder is coming over to check things out, but he tells me not to tell him the door was open because that is besides the point. I think, "fine, I won't tell him that, no big deal". When the home builder arrives, he looks at everything and then goes to the door and open and closes it a few times (P fixed it the night of the dust, so it closes by this point). He then goes on to tell me, in an aggrivated tone, "The guy [the sander] claims he shut the door, but obviously he didn't." I don't tell him that he did shut the door, but it kept opening. So now I am plagued by the fact that this poor man was just doing his job and got chewed out for not shutting the door, WHEN HE DID! I explain to P and L that this man is getting in trouble when its not his fault, but they don't seem to care. But I care. The sander got in trouble for this and may lose this job (he is contracted jobs, so he will still have others). All because I did what P asked and didn't say the door kept opening. So I feel terrible. To the point that I want to let the home builder know this the next time I see him. But then P will be really pissed off. No worries, just more restless nights for me thinking about the poor sander. I am not sleeping most nights anyway, so what the hell!

Comments

Anonymous said…
Quite a class dilemma going on here. I'm glad that you see through it all. You were raised by people like those workers, not men like P. Thank goodness we're grounded. Sorry about the sleepless nights.
I can't believe people can be so crass and awful. I never realized how cruel and snobbish people could be until I started working in a call center. Those who were upper tier frequent flier members were so snooty and felt everything should be handed to them without any work, without any thanks to those who get them where they are going, get them what they wanted. It hurts to read this.
Anonymous said…
Jdoc called it - a lesson in class and class. Class in the sense of upper, middle, lower or white collar v. blue collar. And class, as in, at least you have the class to understand that this was wrong. How quickly people forget the principals of right and wrong when money is involved. Ugh.
teacherwoman said…
On top of what is right and what is wrong, it drives me crazy to listen to people who complain and are so negative. It gets you nowhere in life! Oh, and let's not assume that all upper class people are like that.
cdoc said…
I don't assume all upper class are like this, but the stereotype of the stuck-up Northeast people is unfortunately proving true in about half my experiences. I was hoping to be proved wrong.
teacherwoman said…
I wasn't saying YOU were saying all upper class people are bad, I was just making a general comment. I just don't like that so many agree with certain stereotypes because of a couple bad situations.
cdoc said…
Misunderstandings are too easy through the internet! Teacherwoman, I knew you weren't saying I thought that. I was just pointing out that I finding this particular stereotype true a lot of the time, which is unfortunate!

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