Not sure whether this is a post for this blog or my food blog but as I've just posted there, I'll give the ol' bottom drawer a chance to speak.
One of my personal battles on site is not with my teammates, my hammer, the mud or the splinters in my fingers, but with our client. And we clash not over the design of our building, or the mess we make when its wet, but over how many hamburgers she's allowed to eat each week.
She is partial to, of all things, McDonalds hamburgers and milkshakes, probably my most despised food on the planet. In addition, she is severely diabetic. On the other hand, she's an 86 yr old with very few treats in life. So when you're going back to town to eat lunch and she asks you to bring her back a hamburger and milkshake (she doesn't drive) what are you to do? It's certainly not good for her diabetes.
My compromise solution was that she would be allowed one a week. Last week, we got her one on Monday, and then on Thursday she asked for one again. I said she wasn't allowed one. She resisted strongly, trying all the wheedling of a small child. This went on for quite some time. 'If you get me one today, I won't have one next week.' Eventually I relented and said OK, just this once, I'll get one but next week she's not allowed any. Now that day the milkshake machine was broken so there was no milkshake for her, but did she believe me? No - of course, I had fabricated the story to get out of giving her a milkshake.
Then this week, of course it starts all over again. I tell her she can have a milkshake because she didn't have one lasdt week, but no hamburger. She thinks this is deeply unfair and that she needs to have a sandwich to eat with it. I prove a hard nut to crack and stand firm, so she tries out my other teammates. Then she gets in a sulk because we won't do what she wants. She sticks her lip out and does her knowing best to tug on our white middle-class heartstrings. This despite having actually been given a burger this week by a teammate's visiting boyfriend who thought he could bend the rules.
The standoff is getting more intense. Yesterday she pretended to withhold use of her bathroom in retaliation. 'I'll use you like you use me', she crowed. Except, Miss Phillips, we're building you a house, and all we want is for you to live long enough to enjoy it rather than clogging your arteries with all this crap.
One of my personal battles on site is not with my teammates, my hammer, the mud or the splinters in my fingers, but with our client. And we clash not over the design of our building, or the mess we make when its wet, but over how many hamburgers she's allowed to eat each week.
She is partial to, of all things, McDonalds hamburgers and milkshakes, probably my most despised food on the planet. In addition, she is severely diabetic. On the other hand, she's an 86 yr old with very few treats in life. So when you're going back to town to eat lunch and she asks you to bring her back a hamburger and milkshake (she doesn't drive) what are you to do? It's certainly not good for her diabetes.
My compromise solution was that she would be allowed one a week. Last week, we got her one on Monday, and then on Thursday she asked for one again. I said she wasn't allowed one. She resisted strongly, trying all the wheedling of a small child. This went on for quite some time. 'If you get me one today, I won't have one next week.' Eventually I relented and said OK, just this once, I'll get one but next week she's not allowed any. Now that day the milkshake machine was broken so there was no milkshake for her, but did she believe me? No - of course, I had fabricated the story to get out of giving her a milkshake.
Then this week, of course it starts all over again. I tell her she can have a milkshake because she didn't have one lasdt week, but no hamburger. She thinks this is deeply unfair and that she needs to have a sandwich to eat with it. I prove a hard nut to crack and stand firm, so she tries out my other teammates. Then she gets in a sulk because we won't do what she wants. She sticks her lip out and does her knowing best to tug on our white middle-class heartstrings. This despite having actually been given a burger this week by a teammate's visiting boyfriend who thought he could bend the rules.
The standoff is getting more intense. Yesterday she pretended to withhold use of her bathroom in retaliation. 'I'll use you like you use me', she crowed. Except, Miss Phillips, we're building you a house, and all we want is for you to live long enough to enjoy it rather than clogging your arteries with all this crap.
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Have a good week-end!