This morning we had a little issue with one of our home appliances. I called the tech support line and we spent forty minutes troubleshooting each of the individual parts to figure out that there was a clog in a hose. Then, and this is the kicker, the woman says “You’re going to want to wait until your husband comes home because this next part is hard. You’re going to need to take the whole base outside and flush it out with a hose”. REALLY?! After forty minutes of work, you’re going to tell me the HARD part is flushing with a hose and I need to wait until the husband comes home to fix it?! REALLY?! Needless to say, I had the thing flushed out in no time. Don’t tell me I have to wait for my husband when its something like that. Give me the instructions, and I will take care of it. I somehow think my house needs to work before hubs returns from deployment in September. Don’t doubt my abilities.
It reminds me of a story my mother tells about when they bought the house where I was raised. The mortgage agent, a woman, called my mother and after a period of talking about options, said “you’re going to want to have your husband call me back. This is where things get hard. It has to do with percents. He will know what I’m talking about. We will work through the math and get the loan going”. It was something to that nature anyway. Here’s the problem: My mother was the valedictorian of the math division in college. She understands percentages. The lady even called them “percents” instead of percentages. Silly. Needless to say, the woman lost the mortgage. Mom let Dad know that this was NOT the person we were to work with, and we needed to find someone el
Don’t doubt the abilities of the person on the other end. Ask, “do you understand”, “how are you with”, or “do you think you could”… Don’t say “you can’t”. It just makes the person on the receiving end angry or upset. In my case it motivated me to figure it out on my own. I may be a stay-at-home / work-at-home mother raising two small children quasi-single handed, but I am NOT uneducated or stupid. I live this way by choice! Please don’t treat me that way. I am w0man. Hear me roar! 😀
