I have debated how to present this thought for fear of offending someone but, in all reality the ones that are offended by this are the offenders and should realize how much doing this offends or even bothers others. Let me start of by giving you a few of the experiences that I have had over the past few months.
The first one that I did that made it very obvious was when a TV in our house quit working. The “FIX IT” that I am did some diagnostics and found out that the lamp had burnt out (this was a nice projection TV). It is an easy part to replace and the cost was about $100.00 but when it came down to it, we really did not have the need for the TV so we decided to put it in the local free ads. For those of you who know me I stay very busy, especially as of late so in the ad, at the top, it said “DO NOT CALL!” “This tv is located on the front porch at this address. Come and get it “ and then went on to indicate what was wrong with it and where to get the part for the best deal.. the ad contained EVERYTHING a person would need to know so that they would not have need to bother me.. Within the hour of the post I received 5 phone calls and several text asking “where can I get this?”, “What is wrong with it?”, “how much would it cost to fix?”. I don’t get that.. If the ad says DO NOT CALL, what part of that do they not understand? What is it about people looking for a good deal that don’t bother to take the time to READ the details of an Ad and would rather bother the person than put the effort to put ALL of the details in the post..
Now maybe there needs to be a little background to explain why this bothers me so much.. I personally HATE to read.. I will read for a need but, it is not enjoyable to me. I have some level dyslexia on top of a long diagnosed case of A.D.D. If I can read an ad for something I want how is it that there are so many people that simply won’t.
Before this even, I was attempting to sell my motorcycle.. I gave as many details in the ad as I could and included about 16 pictures of all angles of the bike as well as close ups of things such as : tire tread, chain and sprocket condition, gauge cluster, seat , and so on. I had had only a few Nibbles when I had one person that sounded serious want to come see it in person. After a week and a half of trying to find a time that would work for both of us, the apt was made. When the time came he arrived and I took him out to the garage where the bike was located. He stood back and glanced at it. I awkwardly tried to explain any details that I thought of and let him hear the engine and so forth but he seemed reluctant. A short time later he left with no sign of commitment. Later I got a text that said something along the lines of “Thank you for wasting my time, What happened to the “Beautiful” bike you described in the ad. I drove over an hour with a second person so that I could drive the bike home” and it went on. All that ran through my mind was “what was he expecting that he did not see?” how many more pictures and details would have it taken to make this guy happy? Really I don’t know.. and after giving it some thought.. To make me feel a little better, I did later look up the bike that he was selling that he thought was “Beautiful” and it appeared to be a junk yard bike with a mismatch appearance with parts looking like it came off a dozen different bikes.
And finally the one that topped it off for me last night. With the recent loss of my father in law, we have had a lot of things that needed to be sold and gotten rid of.. On top of that our rental house is open for the week so we have a huge list of things that need to be done to it to prepare it for the new tenant moving in within the week. Needless to say I am super busy. I took the time and put together an ONLINE yard sale with pictures, details, and pricing and indicated that times for viewing and pick up were by apt only so that I would be able to keep going on the things that I needed to. I have had a fair amount of interest in several things but finally , I did have an individual call wanting 2 wheel chairs and a walker. I Indicated that I would take some of the cost off for a bundle buy. He agreed to the terms and arrangement of collection.. I told him that it would be on a specific day from 5:30PM – 6:45PM. He indicated that it would not be a problem, he got off work in SLC (1 hour away) at 5 pm and would come strait here. So the day came, I got home from work right at 5:30 and while waiting for him to show, I ate some dinner and started loading things up to go work on the rental house. At 6:49pm I called to see where he was at since he had still not arrived. He indicated that he was “at the north end of the valley headed my way (putting him still 30-40 min out)
– “OK please hurry I have an somewhere I need to be at 7pm”…
” OK will do”.
I finished loading up what we needed and then sat to relax with my wife.. and so we waited, and waited, and waited by 8:30pm I was pissed! How could someone waste so much of my time without the courtesy of a call or respect for my time. Now there was of coarse the benefit of the doubt given by this point assuming there were car problems, traffic, something.. out of anger I sent him a text that said (8:36PM) “did you get lost.. pick up time was 5:30 to 6:45… it is now 8:30.. I have had to cancel all of my plans because you were not here on time”… ahh that is better, now he’ll come back and say sorry my car died and I was trying to get it taken care of it so I could hurry and meet up to get those items right? Wrong, no , this was his reply (8:55PM) “I apologize I am stuck in Ogden, Thank you for your kindness, I’m sorry for inconvenience, please move fwd. “ Ogden?!?!?!?! Ogden is north of SLC and in fact is an hour and a half away making him a full hour more away than he said he was when I called when he was late in the first place. I replied with a “when I called you said you were at the north end of the county coming from SLC!” and left it at that.
This person was completely fine with wasting 2 hours of my time on top of the hour I had already agreed to give him.. at what point was he going to say I am not going to make it. Or even “plans changed and I wont be able to get there until a specified time later” something to make sure that he was not wasting my time.
These are 3 experiences I have had over the span of a month.. How many times has this happened to you.. how many times did you have an appointment at the doctor (they want you early too) and then you proceeded to sit in the waiting room for 2-3 hours? How many times have you stood in an “Express checkout line” while someone who was not in any hurry purchased too many items and then did not even have payment ready and on top of that decided on a paper check and filled it out slowly.. How much time have you spent in an average day waiting on someone that feels that their time is so much more valuable or important than yours? YOU ARE IMPORTANT TOO! Your time is valuable! I don’t care who you are. A home maker, a janitor, a CEO, I don’t care.. we are all allotted a certain amount of unspecified time on this earth. Now to turn the tables, How many times has this person we are all waiting on been YOU? Be sure you do everything to make sure the last question is not yes..IF YOU ARE NOT EARLY, YOU ARE LATE! Be considerate of others time, we all have lives, we all have trials. We all have a magical clock counting down somewhere that we are racing against.