Was I being manipulative? (long, sorry)

Here’s the scenario: My boss invited all of us at work to come visit her new house and attend a craft fair down the street from her. There are three of us: me, Brenda (who doesn’t drive) and Ruth (a part-timer who is older and a professional woman in her full-time job) The original plan was that I pick up Brenda, and Ruth drives herself. Then Ruth volunteered to drive all of us. Then Brenda didn’t know if she’d be able to go because of her husband’s work schedule, so it was thought Ruth and I should go together, and Brenda and her husband would come along later. I was supposed to call Ruth and work out the details, but I was waiting until Friday, since she was out of town…

Thursday night I fell down some steps and sprained my ankle. Friday, I had to prepare food for a concert reception. This entailed trips to four grocery stores, standing on my feet baking all day, a trip downtown on an errand with my son-in-law-to-be, and then the concert, and clean-up. I forgot to call Ruth.

Saturday Ruth and Brenda worked together. I was off, baking all day for a funeral reception. I couldn’t find Ruth’s number, and called Brenda to get it. She told me she’d be able to ride with us after all, and we’d all meet at my house, and that she’d talked to Ruth about it and given her the directions. I then burned a batch of cookies and forgot to call Ruth to be sure she would be fine with driving us all.

Sunday morning I realized my son needed to take my car to work, so I thought if Ruth didn’t want to drive when she got to my house, we’d take my mom’s car, which was in the garage. I was going to call her as soon as I got home from church, but my son locked himself out of the house and in the ensuing rush to get home and get him off to work, I forgot again…and all of a sudden it’s time, and Ruth is pulling into my driveway.

Have I mentioned the headache I’ve had for three days?

So I asked Ruth if she’d mind driving. She’s says, “no problem!” and then has to clean stuff out of her backseat and into her trunk to make room. She seemed a bit agitated by this…a bit embarassed at what she thinks is a messy car, and I go inside to print off a Googlemap. The garage door is closed, and I don’t think she realized I had a car ready and waiting. Brenda finally arrives, ten minutes later, and off we go, getting lost on the way and arriving later than we’d planned. The weather is great, though, and we have a fun day, though Ruth is bothered by the heat…but then she’s always bothered by the heat, so this is normal.

Ruth drives us home, and in the confusion of unloading the pumpkins we’d bought and saying our goodbyes, I forgot to give her a couple bucks for gas…when I remembered an hour later, I figured I’d give it to her at work the next time she’s in.

Two hours later, I find a message on my voicemail from Ruth. She’s upset that I asked her at the last minute to drive, even though she’d planned originally on driving and indeed prefers to drive. She’s upset that she didn’t have prior knowledge so she could clean up her car…really, it was only some papers and a file box of work stuff, not pop cans and fast-food wrappers!..and she’s upset that I didn’t give her gas money. She called me manipulative and passive-aggressive and rude and a few other things, and demanded I call her and apologize.

Which I did. I told her I was sorry for the last-minute request, I cited my injury and the two 12-hour days baking, and blamed the constant headache, and told her I was thoughtless for not calling her ahead of time. She accepted my apology and said it was over and done with. But I’m still upset.

Considering how our plans were changing practically from hour to hour, and the fact that she originally had volunteered to drive all of us, was I truly manipulative in asking her to drive when she arrived? She doesn’t take well to change and rush…I know that from work, but she’s a grown woman, and I forget about that because I don’t work with her often, and she’s gone on all these trips and travels for work and hey, she could have said no, she’s rather not drive. I realize now she had no idea there was a car there for me to use, and she didn’t mention not knowing that when she was chastising me. I just feel bullied by her. I did thank her for driving several times during the day…I just forgot to slip her the cash…which, by the way, she says is not the point and she refuses to let me give her anything now.

So…am I manipulative, or passive-aggresive? I admit to being thoughtless, but not rude, I don’t think. I’m just bummed now about having to work with her in the future, and worrying about stepping over some imaginary line.

I don’t think I’d call you manipulative–what, you deliberately hurt your ankle and didn’t call to warn her? It doesn’t sound like this was a well-planned adventure, and I’m not sure I blame her for feeling upset–and it is a little embarrassing to need to clean out one’s car even when one had no reason to know one would be driving.

So, if a similar situation comes up again, I don’t think I’d blame her for not wanting to drive with you–but I wouldn’t blame you for not wanting to coordinate driving with her, either.

I thnk calling anybody and demanding an apology is a good way to make sure you get told to shove it.

What a nutcase. I really don’t see that you did anything wrong (certainly you didn’t have bad intentions); if she had a problem with driving she should have said that she would rather not, and you could have worked something else out. She is overreacting. I can’t imagine calling someone and demanding an apology for a silly mix up. Just be polite at work and pretend it didn’t happen. She’ll eventually find some other major offence to focus on.

I would say you weren’t being manipulative, and I think it was a bit much (to say the least) of Ruth to phone you to tell you so.

BUT

If I was in the Ruth position in this story, the next time a carpool situation comes up, I would tactfully absent myself from the arrangements because this experience was just too darn flaky. Baking, and illness and injury not severe enough to make you cancel outright – I don’t really buy those as valid excuses.

I agree with the advice to simply be polite at work and assume Ruth will do the same.

Seriously…she needs to get a fucking life. If that’s all it takes to get her bowels in an uproar I suggest she spend some time in Dharfur or some equally unpleasant parallel universe and find out what it’s like to have a bad day. Demands an apology? Didn’t anyone ever tell her that the ones you ask for don’t mean anything?

If you’re sensitive about the impression you make, as she appears to be, the car thing could be upsetting. It’s akin (for her) to having to invite a guest into a messy house under duress, which could piss a lot of people off.

Some people are more rigid than others and take poorly to suddenly changed plans, and the combo of becoming a chauffeur when she didn’t expect it, and the embarrassment of exposing her messy car to a guest aggravated her further, and then to get no gas money at the end. She probably felt she’d been played. It’s all small stuff in the big picture, but I can see how she might think you are being careless and inconsiderate and, a bit of a manipulative ditz, in giving no prior notice, and to be fair you really should have made time to have done that despite being busy. The psychological "passive aggressive"name calling is a little silly however.

Either I’m missing something, or you left a step out, or Ruth is being weird.

Here’s what I see, leaving out the other details:
“Then Ruth volunteered to drive all of us…Then Brenda didn’t know if she’d be able to go…Ruth and I should go together, and Brenda and her husband would come along later… I forgot to call Ruth…[Brenda said] she’d be able to ride with us after all, and we’d all meet at my house, and that she’d talked to Ruth about it and given her the directions. I…forgot to call Ruth to be sure she would be fine with driving us all.”

But it seems as if the last thing agreed on was that Ruth, Brenda and you would be riding together, and that Brenda had worked out the details with Ruth at work. So why would Ruth need to be asked again to drive by you?

Disorganized, yes. Perhaps flakey, and definitely having a bad week. But I don’t get why Ruth was such a bitch, when Brenda had secured a ride the day you missed work, and Ruth was the volunteer driver all along. :confused:

Well, I don’t think you were passive agressive or manipulative. Just really flaky, which given everything that was going on is not super surprising. Obviously Ruth was caught off guard and embarassed.

Embarassement can make people act really strange. Personally, I would forget the whole thing. You apologized (for being a flake), she accepted (because she’s a high strung wing-nut), and now you can both move on. Honestly, I’m sure by the next time you see her she will have forgotten this and have her shirt in a knot about some other percieved affront on her person.

See, I think her calling you was manipulative and passive aggressive. Rather than just telling you while you were together or catching you at your door and saying, “Oh hey, do you have that gas money?” she waits and calls you antagonistically.

If there were any “real” damage, I could almost understand. The fact is, she’s a controlling, dull, rude person who has nothing better to do than make a mountain out of a molehill. If she’s so sensitive, she should refrain from interacting with other people. She’s a ridiculous example of an overprivileged pain in the ass.

I don’t see how kittenblue was flaky. If she has other obligations, like baking, then she just does. No one plans to sprain their ankle or get a chronic headache. Ruth agreed to drive, and at one point agreed to drive two other people, not just one. Is she that passive, that she agrees to something she doesn’t want to do in the hopes that she won’t actually have to follow through? Seems like the person Ruth should really be mad at is Brenda. “I won’t be riding with you guys…Yes I will…No, forget it…Wait, I wanna ride with you guys!”

Well, she did forget to call Ruth at least twice. But I totally agree that it was understandable, given the challeges of the week.

But yeah, I’d be annoyed with Brenda, as well. Not enought to call and demand an apology, mind, but enough to not listen to her in the future until we were 20 minutes away from leaving and she couldn’t change her mind again!

She’s not a nutcase, and you’re not manipulative. She was put off by the situation and made the mistake of calling you while she was still fuming about it, a mistake I’m sure many of us have made. She would have been better off waiting until she saw you again, or at least until the next day. People act stupidly sometimes when they are angry.

I’d let it go. She is probably somewhat embarrassed about her conduct by now.

I’m with WhyNot here. It looks like she volunteered to drive you and Brenda, then Brenda cancelled but the two of you were still going to ride together.

Why would she be surprised about being the one to drive when she volunteered for the job?

Demand an apology for her lying to you.

Or, be an adult, give her a call/talk to her and say “I was sorry to hear you were upset at my actions, it wasn’t my intention to make you upset, here’s what happened…” and give her the opportunity to accept your apology and move on.