I think you’re being overly judgemental and entirely unfair. When things progress as far as they had in this case, and a parent is mad as hell about an injustice being perpetrated on their child, this was absolutely the appropriate response. As for the “teaching” aspect, I agree with what others have said: the teaching aspect here is “watch, and learn”.
This exchange makes me wonder whether either JohnT’s actions or CairoCarol’s reaction would have been different if the child had been a young man instead of a young woman, and if so, in what way.
I have a 24-year old son. In a similar situation, I’d have coached him through the process. I might have done a little of the research (finding the list of 20 execs) and suggested what he might want to write, then offered to read what he wrote before he sent it. Same thing with a daughter (I don’t have one, but I imagine that’s how I’d respond if I did.) My overall approach would have been, “I think it might work if you do blah-blah-blah. What do you think of that approach?”
To me, age is more significant than gender. A 15-year old wouldn’t find themselves in this situation, most likely, because only an adult would be doing what JohnT’s daughter is doing. But if there were an analogous situation with offspring that young, then I would be more likely to butt in directly.
My high school used “in-school suspension”. Not exactly fun.
I had communicated via email with his teacher and the principal about the suspension. They said it was automatic, and the fact he was defending another student didn’t matter.
I sent an email each day with a description of our activities; “steak and eggs for breakfast, went to the zoo, hotdogs for lunch, pizza for dinner”. No reply from the school.
I ran into his teacher at the supermarket afterwards and she told me my son was a really good kid.
I came to my mother’s defense when her insurance company was trying to screw her over. My involvement quickly fixed the situation. (And yes, she is of sound mind.)
According to you, I messed up, and should have simply told her what to do.
Agreed.
When I was a young man, I decided to take up a life as a long-haul truck driver (lured by the empty promises of “good pay”); I put all of my worldly possessions into a U-Haul storage facility in Georgia. While on the road, U-Haul started sending me letters that I owed them hundreds and hundreds of dollars (If I remember right, somewhere around a thousand dollars); more than I had, far more than I could have even conceivably owed, and my attempts at resolving it over the phone whenever I wasn’t driving were futile. Next thing I knew, they had SOLD all of my stuff, for like $300 (been a long time, I don’t remember the exact numbers), and…
…sent me a deposit of the difference between that and what I owed. Moral of the story: fuck U-Haul storage.
OK, so is U-Haul’s business model Scam People Out Of Money And Hope They Don’t Notice? Or is haphazard record-keeping and deflection of accountability just systemic in the company?
My mother turned 85 this spring. She’s sound of mine and doesn’t have to take any medication. She was also dependent on my dad for about 48 years, with him always saying “I’ll do that, don’t you worry, I’ll fix things, no need for you to…” ASF.
After he died I, the only child and only family, have constantly been telling her that she’s capable, she can do things, she can make decisions on her own, that she has to live with the consequences of her actions.
As a result, she’s more independent than ever. She managed - by herself - to go to a large airport, get through all the hassles, board a flight and go to the Med for an eight day vacation this march ( I was there already and had fixed hotel for her).
So according to you, did I mess up, and should have simply done everything for her, not letting her manage on her own?
I don’t see this as a “man defending woman” issue. I see this as “@JohnT, personally, happens to be a person who is far more effective than typical at squeaking the wheel”. Most people, of any age or gender, are not as resourceful as him at things like this. And it behooves the rest of us to know who, among our friends and family, is most resourceful at things like this, and to ask them for help when problems like this come up. For Sophia, the resourceful person from whom she asks for help happens to be her father. For others, the person they ask might be their daughter, or uncle, or sister, or friend.
Team, I didn’t take the original remark with offense, we all speak from the depths of our experiences to the inadequacies of the others’ written word. Every situation is different, every family is different, and there really should be no judgement calls here.
We are all correct, we are all wrong. It’s just the way of the world.
Sometimes you have to go over peoples heads to get results.
I had to do it when I got a ration of shit from my boss for going to my FIL’s funeral. I had been a highly respected liked employee for 25 years. This was (still is) a professional highly technical position.
When my previous boss gave me shit, I was absolutely gob struck. I had to hit the road that day. I came in in person to change my email and phone message. I thought that was rather nice of me.
I just left. Fuck it. My Wife and her family comes first. You’re way down on the list boss.
Soooo… my department completely having my back, I went to his boss. My grand boss.
Grand boss had a 3 hour discussion with my boss about how I was treated. Boss apologized a number of times to me.
Boss was told that if this ever happens again to anyone, wish condolences, ask them if they need anything and please contact us when you get back. PERIOD.
Or, that kids (even grown-up kids) sometimes need their parents to protect them. Or that relatively young and inexperienced people sometimes need older and more experienced people to protect them. Or that polite, deferential people sometimes need more assertive, contentious people to protect them.
I’m glad @CairoCarol shared her perspective. Even if it doesn’t apply here, it’s well worth thinking about in general.
My understanding is that they are pretty much all franchised. So you will get fairly variable quality in their customer service.
I think that you completely misread @Crafter_Man’s post if you are taking that attitude there.
Let’s put it this way, your mother calls you because her flight has been cancelled or some other obstacle comes up, would you tell her, “Mom, you are an independent woman, you need to take care of this yourself.”?
No, no I didn’t. I responded to his post to @CairoCarol with a counter example. The point being that what is helpful for one person might be a detrimental action for someone else.
To my point earlier, you are speaking to the depths of your experience to the inadequecies of my writing. Sophia knew of this plan long before now, she knows how I approach things, she just refused to go this route. And when we talked, she did not ask me for the website or to even guide her, she asked me to resolve the issue. Of course she was cc:ed on the email, as was her mother. She had every right to respond, and even wrote her own email, asking me to review it. It was, shall we say, in the intemperate voice of the young.
We discussed the differences between her letter and mine, we talked about how to speak to executives (“Just talk like your dad, honey, just no swearing”), and, most importantly, during the conference call with her mother, we discussed the importance of using our human network, especially our family, to overcome our own deficiencies, a situation I struggle with myself.
Regardless, there wasn’t time to have her do something, “grading” each step of the process. There was full transparency to Sophia re: my actions so she has this to fall back on, and hell, she’ll get a link to this thread like she gets a lot of links to my threads about her.
In short, I don’t have anything wrong with your approach, it has been done many times in the past, we just didn’t have time for it.
I grew up in a smart family of hard-working strivers, so it’s that last. From my grandparents all down, we’re a pretty small crew, only 19 of us from my grandparents-on, but 14 of the 19 have had their own business at one time or another, or went through the professional ranks, or both.
This case was pretty simple. I had done some research, most of these executives went to state schools for their undergrads, so I pitched my tone to that level and not, say, Ivy League “in regards to the matter of July 3rd”… levels. I didn’t mention the dollar amount, they would not have cared if the subject line was “Your store owes me $400!” but they definitely will care if the subject line is “Documented Sexual and Age Discrimination in New York City”. I hit on a number of notes - maybe one of these people is a proud parent, let’s hit that note. Surely someone is in charge of “Sexual and Age Discrimination” there, let’s play that melody. I was slightly apologetic, only slightly, at the outset, and my ask was reasonable and clearly stated, so I played the “this guy is relatively reasonable now, so let’s get this resolved before it becomes a big issue” tune for whichever executive enjoys that. Maybe somebody doesn’t want to get into some bullshit regulatory issue in New f’in York. Etc, etc, etc. I pressed damn near all 88 keys, somebody was going to hear something.
I had this one day, working for my dad’s business, where I had to email a top executive at our largest clients’ accounting office and demand payment, while a second email, to a top operations executive at the same business, had to explain why we didn’t suck even though they just found 2,000 telephone directories in a dumpster. This U-Haul thing was rather easy, comparably.
Nice explanatory post, @JohnT.
I have a similar story involving a dispute about auto insurance. I won’t go into a lot of details here because I suspect most folks won’t be interested, but the long and short of it was trying to claim storm damage (an unprecedented hailstorm) on a car that I had possession of but which I didn’t (technically) own, but which I was committed to buying from the ex-wife as soon as we got it safety certified.
After an initial approval of the claim, there was some back-and-forth and finally a call from a senior adjuster who informed me that the claim was denied. I explained that I had two rationales to justify the claim: that the car was effectively, if not formally, my car, because I was still paying my policy and the car that it was covering was now non-existent, and secondly, that I had optional coverage for “non-owned automobile”, which this was.
He was apologetic about the claim denial but explained that my first rationale simply had no legal weight, and that the second was intended to cover a rental car where there is an explicit contract of liability in the rental agreement. A car that was just “lent” to me had no attached liability and therefore no coverage.
When I said that I would escalate it to his management, he said I was free to do so, but explained (as if to a child) that the conditions and limitations of an insurance policy were the lifeblood of the insurance business, and that making exceptions where they clearly had no obligation to provide coverage was just not going to happen, not for reasons of goodwill, nor basic morality, nor any other such reason.
I took several days to compose a detailed and thoughtfully worded letter, detailing what I felt were the legitimate reasons that an ethical company would extend coverage in these circumstances, and politely making it clear that my next recourse would be a complaint to the provincial government’s insurance regulatory agency. I didn’t send it to management executives, having discovered that the company has an ombudsman for such matters, so I sent it there, as well as a copy to my agent.
Anyway, to end the story, about a week later I got a call from someone at head office, informing me that they would be able to extend coverage for the claim under my comprehensive coverage. The claims adjuster, senior though he may have been, and knowledgable though he may have been about the industry, was ultimately wrong. My letter, and the company ombudsman, prevailed. I also got a message from my agent just saying he had been impressed as hell by the letter.
I think that’s one of the biggest lessons other people should take away from your letter. You informed them of a problem, described the previous failures to solve it, and asked for a reasonable solution.
Lifetime free storage and firing the local manager would have been nice, but I bet if you’d asked for them, you’d have gotten nothing. You’d still have the overcharges, but now the executives think you’re a crank, and it would be that much harder to fix. If you opened by threatening to sue, you’d be handed to the lawyers, and nobody would talk to you until you served papers.
Write complaint letters, but say what you want, and make sure it is something reasonable. Even if all you want is to inform them of substandard service, let them know: “on my visit on the 22nd the coffee was not up to your usual standards, and I’m just letting you know so that my future visits will be excellent, as usual” vs “you’re coffee sucks, and I’m never coming back!”
I’m more comfortable with your approach after reading that explanation. Thanks for the added details.
This attitude strikes me as being based on a willful misreading of posts by those few of us in this thread that are advocating for a less heavy-handed approach by dad (sorry, @JohnT, I’m referring to the situation prior to your added details). No one is saying, “Don’t help.” In my post #23, I elaborated ways in which I would assist my child while letting them take the lead.
Setting aside that the dynamics of an adult child assisting an able-bodied compos mentis parent are different from a parent taking over for an adult child, a more analogous situation might be if mom was at the airport calling to say, “I can’t find the taxi stand and I don’t know what to do.”
No one would expect the child to respond with, “Well, sucks to be you, then. Deal with it.” But a good response might be, “Look for a volunteer in a bright blue vest, they are Travelers Aid reps who can help you find the stand.” Or, if the child is super-familiar with the airport layout, “What do you see when you look around? You are in Terminal A, right? Is there a McDonald’s nearby? Good, now start walking down the corridor to the left of the McDonald’s…” etc. etc.
A less reasonable response would be, “stay on the line and don’t move! I’m driving to the airport now to find you!”