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.