Admittedly so, but what experience I do have does not include counterproductive behavior.
Disliking someone and actively dealing with counterproductive behavior are two different things.
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So anyone needing help deserves help only if they have a very specific way of going about it?
Someone said it before – you don’t have to like someone to help.
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Thanks for not disappointing.
What I am saying is that if someone is asking me for help they can bloody well accept that help on the terms that I offer. In this case if you are so irrational as to be cussing me out the moment you see me approaching (as if any of the situation is somehow my fault) I am going to assume that you are not rational and (if I am going to help you) I will decide how you can best be helped.
It’s like if someone is panhandling and asking for money for food and I give them a sandwich. You don’t get to be upset because you really wanted money, or you like ham more than turkey. If you cop that sort of an attitude, I am pretty much going to feel free to tell you to go fuck yourself.
I have a deep contempt for people who put their immediate reactions to someone else’s craziness above the safety for that person’s life.
I could see driving off, going home and letting off steam. But eventually, wouldn’t it dawn on a person, “Hey, that crazy chick might still be out there and it’s two o’clock in the morning!” Even if you absolutely hate people and she turned out alright when you showed up in the morning, would you really want to deal with an even crazier, pee-soaked woman ranting in front of clients and employees about how you abandoned her ALL NIGHT LONG? I wouldn’t. I would have at least called the police to see if they had swung by the place. At the very least.
It’s not like the OP had to do anything much more than he did. Just sit by the phone and keep an eye out for Twisted Sister now and then just in case she passed out. I think if he had stayed somewhere in somewhat close proximity, people would be laying off of him. But just to leave someone out in the middle of nowhere? And it’s your place of business? That just sounds personally irresponsible, at the very least. I wouldn’t do that if crazy-lady was stuck in my driveway at home and I had to go to work (especially if I’m the boss), so I wouldn’t do it at my place of business (especially if I’m the boss).
Yeah, so I am not quite clear if you are talking directly to me here or if you are using my post as some sort of a springboard. Because I am not saying that I wouldn’t help her. I am being honest enough to say that I wasn’t in this situation and have not been in a situation like it.
I don’t disagree that the right thing to do would be to call for help and then stay and take abuse and coddle the woman until the professionals arrive. I am just saying that I am not personally positive that I would have it in me to do so.
OK, that’s kind of where I am too. I am never confident that I would always make the right decision in a given scenario…just like I don’t know if I would never bug out like this woman did. I just know that staying with her would have been the right thing to do. There are a lot of ways to keep tabs on someone without actually being at their side. It doesn’t even seem like the OP cared enough to consider them.
Is anyone else reminded of the Sopranos episode where Uncle Junior got his arm stuck down his drain?
Yes, I would have stayed. I’d have also called 911 as she insisted.
She might not deserve my kindness, but I could not have gone to sleep without knowing that the woman had been released.
It’s hard to say what anyone would have done in either of the two roles in that scenario. But the question is really, looking back on it, what would one have hoped that he would have done?
I still think the best solution is to have stayed and watched her heap abuse on the police. Win/win! Well, except for the poor police person who is getting abused, but at least he/she is getting paid for it.
Well the thing is, if you’re going to stay, wouldn’t you call the AAA garage down the street that will almost certainly respond much sooner than the police (according to the OP)? That’s really the “best” solution, in terms of solving the problem as quickly as possible, rather than doing exactly what the crazy person is demanding.
Even if the woman was calm and apologetic, I’d still use my own knowledge and intelligence to come up with a best solution, instead of blindly following her instructions.
I’m not so sure, actually. I know that whenever I’ve called AAA, the phone tree always informs me that if it’s an emergency I should get off the line and call 911. I suspect AAA or mechanics would balk if there’s a physical injury involved and not just a mechanical problem.
The impression I got from the OP is that there is a mechanic more or less just down the street that happens to be affiliated with AAA. So you would just be calling up the dude and asking him to come on down, not going through the AAA dispatch. In any event I believe that the point that muldoonthief is making is that this women was not behaving like a rational, thinking adult and therefore is not in a position to decide how best she can be helped.
Indeed, one might argue that getting herself into this predicament in the first place does not speak well to her decision making prowess even before the supposed panic set in.
I don’t know, I am really getting a picture of an entitled woman who has know little to no adversity in life being a total twat the moment things aren’t going just her way.
I’m also trying to make the point that if I’m being asked (rationally or otherwise) to stay until help arrives, I’m now far more involved in the situation. If someone in a bind asks me to call AAA/their spouse/etc. for them, but is happy to let me go on my way afterwards, I’ll do exactly as they ask. But if they want me to stay until the situation is resolved, I’m going to do what I can to help resolve it as quickly as possible. So in this case, I’d call the garage down the street, try to push or pry the window down so she can get her arm out, etc. I wouldn’t break the car window without her permission though.
But that’s really besides the point, right?
I mean, she could have been Mother Teresa herself and someone would still find a reason to just put in the call to the police and drive away. Not my problem, dude. I gotta get home and heat up my Hungry Man dinner.
If the OP had said he was afraid and that there was something fishy about the situation, I would be more in line with taking the bare minimum approach. But he admits the woman was panicky and in distress. Usually people who are familiar with these terms also know that the associated behavior is typically wild and crazy. I’m not saying he should have stuck around to be subjected to crazy abuse. Just sit in your car far away to drown out the shrieking and wait till help arrives. Or if that’s too much to ask, calmly ask if there’s someone at home that can come and sit with her.
I guess I’m feeling some sympathy for the woman because just this weekend I was driving around in Hill Country on my visit to Austin. I’ve been out in the middle of nowhere before, but never like that. Never by myself. I kept thinking about what should happen if my rental car were to break down on one of those long-ass, God-forsaken ranch roads. I had my pre-paid cell phone with me, but what if there was no service? What if I couldn’t give someone the information they needed to find me? What if the few people who were on the road at the time just drove past me, perceiving me to be some kind of illegal day laborer or something? There was a moment, when the gas was approaching the 1/4 mark, that I did start to feel afraid. What if no gas stations showed up in time? What was I going to do?
If you are not used to be in a rural area, just the idea of being all alone and in trouble is scary. Actually being in trouble and all alone…I don’t know if my city-slickerness coolness would have kept it all together.
A guy is drowing and I’m the only witness. I throw him a life preserver and it thunks him in the head. He screams out, “HELP ME, YOU BITCH!!!” before he goes down a second time. Should I just walk away, not even waiting to see if he grabs the preserver? No, of course not. I should be mature enough in my humanity to be able to divorce my feelings about his craziness to see him through the whole thing. Once he gets to land, yeah, I’m outie and not about to ask for a thank you. But just doing the bare minimum when you know the risks involved and just hoping everything works out..I can’t see how that’s nothing but a weak move.
Especially if you have to pee.
I actually hadn’t realized when I first read this the OP was a business owner and the woman was on his property (my first reading made me think she was in front of his business but not actually on his property.) That does make me think the OP basically let short term annoyance cause him to make a bad decision, I don’t really care what some drunk lawyer says, it’s stupid business to leave someone in a potential emergency situation on your property without making sure it gets resolved in some way.
Even if your drunk lawyer is 100% correct legally, what if the woman frees herself and really is crazy, and now she’s crazy and mad at you? What if she sets fire to your building? Throws a rock through the window? There’s all kinds of things that could happen.
Luckily in my business we don’t normally have to deal with things like this, but I’m reminded of high school when I worked at a local grocery store. The owner and me were closing up one night when a dude covered in blood starts pounding on the front doors (glass, but locked.) He was insisting he needed to come in to call for help, the owner told him he would not let him in, but if he sat on the corner outside he would make sure help arrived. The owner’s logic was we had no idea what this dude’s deal was, and if he was well enough to walk he could wait til emergency services got there. He could have been drugged out of his mind or whatever.
But the owner did wait long after he would normally have gone home for emergency services to get there, precisely because he feared what someone like that might do to his store if he just left it alone unattended (we parked in the back and thus worrying about going past him to get to our cars wasn’t as much an issue, I opened a locked back door and took two steps to my car and drove away.)
So, I’m not the only one who is curious about the woman, herself.
Really? Based on the vulgar language, I assumed lower to middle class.
Yes. Only poor people curse. :rolleyes:
What the fuck?
Not had the nerve (= was overstepping polite boundaries), got up the nerve (= mustered the courage to ask). He didn’t say anything about being annoyed with the employee, who apparently was taken aback and thus didn’t ask about the incident immediately after it occurred.