Cecil says it is called heterochromia, but doesn’t mention a slang term for it.
She said she didn’t want money and now she does; it would annoy the hell out of me and I wouldn’t pay a dime for it. But one you want and tell her no.
I would be a teensy bit annoyed and would probably get (a bigger) one somewhere else.
I’d say she was tactless to offer to sell it to you, but she definitely didn’t do anything unethical. Among coworkers this is the kind of thing you overlook, when you spend 8-10 hours a day with people eventually everyone will do something slightly tactless.
My WAG, she mentioned to her mom in casual conversation that she was going to be giving it away, and I’m guessing it’s her mom that said “I bought that for you, I don’t want you to just give it away, get me $30 for it” Probably longer winded then that, but I’ll guess that’s the gist of it. If I were you, I’d give her the $30 if I wanted it or say “nevermind we already got one” if I didn’t want it.
I’d assume she had every intention of giving it to you for free until her mom found out. If her mom didn’t have something to do with her wanting money for it, she wouldn’t have mentioned her mom in the email.
Seems to me you’re spending an awful lot of calories passing moral judgment on her.
Actually, I think that’s a normal reaction in this situation. Of course she has no obligation to give you the crate, and obviously you recognize that, but if someone says they’ll do something it’s just natural to expect them to do it, and disappointing if they don’t. I would say a little annoyed is reasonable.
That said, I think it’s wise to put that annoyance to rest. Yeah, you spent the money saved on other things, but they were things you needed so you would have had to do that anyway. And the crate being the wrong size essentially makes the original offer moot. She was trying to be helpful and misjudged how helpful she could be. I think the best lesson is to not so readily rely upon such goodwill offers in the future - some people don’t think through these things before speaking, and thus not all well-intentioned promises are kept.
She was going to do you a favour until she realised the favour wasn’t hers to give away, at which point she apologised and made it clear you were not to feel obliged to take the crate now that she couldn’t give it away for free. I can see how you’d be disappointed that your crateless situation is not as resolved as you thought it was, but I don’t think you should be annoyed at co-worker for this. I think she handled it quite fairly. Maybe she could have paid her Mom for it out of her own pocket and gifted it to you, but I don’t think this was a $30 error of judgement and don’t see why she should be obligated to do that just because her attempt to be helpful flopped.
I would be annoyed (maybe disappointed is more like it) but I don’t think she did anything ethically wrong. She’d be wrong if she brought you the crate and then asked for money.
Her email was polite and apologetic and she had a rational reason for the change, and you were under no obligation to agree to the new terms.
Get over it.
This is eactly what’s going through my mind. Your reaction is perfectly human; I’ve felt the same way myself.
It’s perfectly human to be sure, but it’s your reaction, not her actions.
I really doubt that she was trying to turn a last second profit. (If she were, she would have worded her e-mail differently.) The worst thing that she did was to offer a deal that she didn’t know she didn’t have a right to offer. Her final solution was to try to make everyone as happy as possible under the circumstances.
Just an update – while I was a bit annoyed, I moved on pretty quickly, and as I mentioned before was just wondering if my reaction (being annoyed, but not rude to her) was overreacting. Meh. She did check the dimensions of the crate, and it is in fact too small for the long-term, so the issue became moot. She is a very nice person and I think it probably was an issue of her mother blindsiding her – she did offer to let me use the crate for free short-term since it will be too small in the long run, but I figure that by the time Udo got accustomed to his new (all-to-himself) crate, we’d need to upgrade, and it would be more hassle than it’s worth & declined. Thanks to everyone (whether you think I’m a jerk or have a right to be annoyed) for the responses. I am really trying to balance out my lack of social graces with experience, and it helps to get other people’s input – especially when those other people don’t know me or the people with whom I interact.