I don’t think I’ve ever gotten volunteered for anything to that extent. Occasionally someone will say to someone maybe I’d be interested in something, but they’ll always couch it terms that I have to actually be asked, and often there is compensation involved.
Now see, I understand the general sentiment in terms of unwanted calls but the way I approach it is to never pick up a call if the number isn’t already in my phone. If its important they can leave a voicemail. When I have to give out my number but don’t want to, I use my house phone, which no one ever picks up.
Yep, on occasion I’ll get a call from a number not in my contacts. I let it go to voicemail. It’s often my gf using a friends cell as her battery is typically dead. I do not have a landline, though my gf does and I’ve given that in a pinch.
A friend of mine used to volunteer me to babysit other people’s kids. He was a witch (it was his religion, it’s not a statement of his personality), and part of his belief system was that all women are motherly by nature, plus since I HAD a kid already, surely I loved all kids. I finally had to tell him that if he volunteered me again, I was gonna give his contact info to the Mormons and the Scientologists.
My husband has a truck, in addition to a car. His brother thinks that my husband should share this truck with him. His definition of sharing is that my husband pays for the insurance and maintenance, while the brother uses the truck and might condescend to let my husband use it if he asks in advance. Brother had some big plans of going into business for himself, as a mobile auto and truck mechanic, and he’d use my husband’s truck as his work vehicle. This is not happening. We’ve been burned with Brother’s big plans for owning his own business before (Brother borrowed cash and lawn equipment, which we never saw again) and I told my husband that he could use me as the bad guy, if he needed to. Brother already thinks that I’m a bitch, nothing will change that, so we might as well use this opinion of his against him. Brother also volunteers my husband’s RV for various family members to use.
I’ve experienced this also, and “discussed” it with my wife at some length. Her argument is that lending me out to one of her friends is no different to me lending someone a hammer.
To answer on topic, I just don’t in general understand this penchant for asking favors. If I need to drop off my car, I arrange it with my boyfriend. If I didn’t have one, I’d suck it up and wait, or if it was really long, in the past I have dropped it off at a place close to home and walked home and back. If I need to load something really large and heavy, I get it delivered or I pay for a rental car. I don’t even ask my friends to help me move! Why would anybody want to?
Last week we all (the entire staff) had to go somewhere. So they all piled into my car, two days in a row. Fine…but I feel like they should have at least offered me gas money, since they were all saving it on their own cars! (I wouldn’t have taken it, so I guess it’s moot.)
So all that is bad enough…I don’t give out these favors (mostly) and don’t expect any in return either, so that’s OK. But to volunteer someone else for a favor YOU don’t anticipate doing! Height of rudeness.
To me, this is saying she respects your free time as much as she respect a hammer’s free time. My coworkers do this too - when we have work-related events, they all bring their husbands/boyfriends and make them work. I never bring my SO. Why should I? He’s not even getting paid - that’s his free time! We get two days off a week. I have to give up mine, he shouldn’t have to as well.
I have a friend who is, in some ways, more like a dependent. He’s got no family support structure, and I’m generally happy to help; but he’s also a poor planner despite being intelligent. He tends to make unreasonably optimistic assumptions about financial matters, so when something goes wrong, his budget crashes down like a house of cards.
He does some ebay selling, and since I don’t want the hassle of maintaining a seller’s account, I sell things through him on occasion, and give him 10% of the sale price, plus whatever overage he ends up with on shipping costs.
Recently - for the second time - his financial crush came at a time he was holding money of mine from ebay sales. And without asking me, he opted to delay giving me my cut, so he could use the total cash to keep afloat. So my 90% became an implicit loan to him - or I should say, additional loan.
I chastised him the first time. This time, he’s got so much going on that I let it slide. If it happens a third time, then I guess I’ll look into creating an ebay seller ID of my own…
[QUOTE=campp]
When you own a pickup truck, suddenly lots of people can think of ways you can do them a little favor.
[/QUOTE]
Yep. I’ve lost track of the number of times we’ve been lassoed into helping people move and “just a couple boxes” mushrooms into a third-floor flat where they have packed a couple boxes, but everything else is still waiting to get boxed up, plus there’s been pianos, lawn mowers, rickshaws, appliances, plus the odd trailer or boat moving.
The best was some furniture that we moved for a friend that ultimately involved the FBI. Try to follow this… Someone was moving. Friend finds out and offers to sell their sofa. They call me, saying they need to move a couch, and ask if they could stash it in my shed while they make space for it at their place. Their home resembles a furniture store, so needing to clear a space made perfect sense. Fine, I say. Should be just a few minutes to pop over about a mile away to get the couch, load it up and bring it to my back yard.
Surprise! Can I also take a recliner and dining room table? Sigh. I scoot back home for the furniture pads I wasn’t expecting to need when moving a single couch.
I did not know about the bit how they’re only getting the furniture with intent to sell it for their friend who’s moving. I also had no idea at the time that the whole mess would ultimately degenerate into us filing a police report and contacting the FBI due to a credible interstate threat of bodily harm when the owner of the furniture had a beef with us.
We’ll see if she’s so generous after she finds out you’ve been hammering her friends.
But (climbing back out of the gutter…), I understand. My wife “lends me” to friends and… anyone at church. She’ll come back from a Church Council meeting with a sheepish look, and I’ll say “Okay, what did you volunteer me for now?”
As a teenager, my mom used to accept invitations for me. It took me a while to convince her that wasn’t going to work.
The thing that struck me first about the OP was someone else was passing out the poster’s phone number. If I know someone’s contact information (phone number, email, etc.) and someone else wants it, I’ll tell the wanter to give me their contact information and I’ll relay the message. I don’t think I have the right to pass out other people’s information.
I once had a manager “volunteer” me to drop a customer off a on my way home. :eek: I did have a car, my grandmother having died the previous year and my getting my licence a few months prior. I was a 17 yr old at my first job, and still knew that was way out of line and downright bizarre. :dubious: Of course I refused.
I always knew being antisocial had its perks, but you guys have really opened my eyes to a whole bunch more. Those are some crazy acquaintances you have there!
My dad constantly loans me out to his female friends with computer or gadget problems, which I don’t mind cause I like that kind of thing. What I don’t get is why he contradicts me CONSTANTLY when I’m working on said computers, and won’t listen to a SINGLE word of advice from me about his own computer problems.
I did once help a friend of a friend repair his washing machine purely because our mutual friend knew that I had once repaired my own washing machine. Took almost a full day to solve the problem remotely.
I then got another call from a friend of this friend’s friend and had to point out that I’m not a plumber and if I were I’d expect to be paid. In much more polite language, of course.
