To quote Charlie Brown, 'Aaugh!' Last night I found a note under my car wiper: 'I'm very sorry to have hit your car. Please call me to discuss. [Name & number]' I usually park on the side street by work (there's no parking for the building). This is the second time in about a year that someone's hit my car while it was parked there. The perp didn't leave a note the first time. That is most annoying. I ended up paying around $1,500 to fix it. I don't look forward to having to get another dent fixed...getting the estimate, trading insurance info or having the guy pay for it, dropping off the car at the body shop, picking up the car, etc....but at least the guy had the decency to leave a note so I'm not very upset this time. I'll call the guy today...and hope it goes well...I have an idea who it might be bc a lot of store/restaurant employees and owners park in the long term spots on the side streets. The person from last time, who didn't leave a note? Scum of the earth.
Sadly, finding that someone hit my car was not the low point of the day. Apparently, I am an asshole. Not just me...I share that attribution with my co-worker/friend/fellow crazy cat lady/and now fellow asshole, Stephanie. Some patron was upset bc she couldn't take out a book for her kid's summer reading book report which is due on Wednesday (which he had, ya know, all summer to do it) bc she owed too much money in fines. If you owe >=$5 in fines, you can't take stuff out or use the computer or put something on hold.... Suffice to say, this patron owed a bit more than $5.
If possible, we generally try to work out something with patrons. I can't speak for Stephanie, but once this lady got going, I admit I was kinda speechless. She informed us rather pointedly that she knows the mayor. That might impress in NYC, but Boonton? There's only about 8,000 people in town...it seems that a large percentage -- perhaps a majority? -- of town residents are (is?) related to somebody else in town...who doesn't know the mayor?
It's fortuitous that I've recently been upping my public response chill skills. Earlier this year, I decided to pretend I was high or on medications (that is, more meds than I'm really on) when someone was especially challenging. Recently, I've added the wait-a-bit-before-I-open-my-mouth strategy. It's always tempting to say the obvious flat out, e.g., to the lady leaving her kid's report to the last minute (and they're not the only parent/child combo that does it; she's just one who reacts badly) I was tempted to get into that saying about how lack of planning on her part doesn't constitute an emergency on our part. Not that that would've been helpful; most certainly it would not have been. But it's tempting to say that. Or smack them upside the head. Mmm, that's rather unhelpful, too. Although saying nothing was probably not helpful, it was probably not as hurtful as more satisfying alternatives.
That is a problem, unfortunately. Yeah, the one that left a note when he hit your car is quite a nice guy. Others would simply go like nothing happened (like the first guy). Good thing you were able to quickly remedy the problem.
Posted by: Garry Brei | Friday, June 10, 2011 at 02:12 PM