brekin wrote:
Kudos to you for providing a personal real life example.
My 2 cents just because I had a similar job in the past. (Chimney Sweep)
First, this is probably the first time he has been to your house.
After getting his gear in the morning, talking to his boss, getting his
van ready etc, he heads out to your place. He probably gets lost and/or
has to deal with morning traffic. The whole time he is probably getting
calls or calling on his work cell phone about other jobs. It's early and maybe he
needs a cup of coffee,donut, or has to piss and stops off. Once he finds your place
he may not go in first. He may have to get your paperwork ready, find your
part, etc
People think nothing of having to wait to see a Doctor, or the tax man, or other
white collar professionals. A tradesman/service person though is assumed to be screwing around
and if he is late people automatically assume the worst. Twenty minutes late
for furnace guy is really not that bad. Once he shows up he is confronted with,
""You must be Ben. Can you tell me why you are late?"
I think if you arrived to your work 20 minutes late and your Boss said sans greeting,
blocking your entry:
"Canadian Watcher, can you tell me why you are late?" You would automatically
get defensive and resentful because you are not greeted and the person assumes
you don't have a good reason for being late.
As far as his comment, "What.. did your husband have to leave for work or something?"
he might have been assuming he inconvenienced someone
who was waiting for him that early. I doubt he'd want to escalate the situation and
it sounds like he was trying to make the situation work. Whereas it sounds like since you say
""I don't like people who are late," I say. "You were late. You're out."
You decided not to like him before you even met him and that was apparent on your first
encounter. He probably immediately, fairly or not, labeled you a "difficult person" which is totally
gender blind because he no doubts encounters that type of both genders. Him laughing I think
is the best he could do in that situation. I doubt he's fixing furnaces because it is the fulfillment
of all his dreams. It's early in the morning and he is what he believes (looks like erroneously) only
10 minutes late.
I don't buy it. I've been an employee and a small business owner and I have almost never been late. If I want a piss or a cup of coffee, or if I know it takes me ten minutes to get my truck ready, I budget time accordingly. This is not rocket science.
It is even possible to get up in time to make sure that one's children are feeling well and leave time to deal with it if they are not! (amazing, I know, but it's true!!)
With all that said, however -
THE POINT IS NOT that he was late. The point is how he reacted to the simple question; "Can you tell me why you were late?"
I didn't snark it at him. I was smiling. I was friendly. I was ready to accept any answer besides: "Because I couldn't give a shit about this job."
Think about it, if you showed up at work and your boss said, "Hey Bill, can you tell me why you were late today?" would you actually laugh in his face and say, "Seriously?"
would you?
More than that, if you were trying to grow your own business, would you think it prudent to laugh at your customers' concerns?
I mean really. This is basic human survival skills 101.
Not all jobs are that easy to schedule. How do you schedule fixing something you haven't seen? Just going to
people's houses adds unforeseeable problems. Do you think you would always be on time to your job if your commute was different every two hours? I think the thing is that not everyone subscribes to your idea of punctuality all the time. Half the jobs I had in the morning I was waking the people up. In their pajamas.
Maybe if was a combination of the disconnection between your smiling and your question because
honestly if someone "greeted" me with that I would probably laugh to. And I probably have laughed at a few of my bosses when they've ask me questions like that because they were probably later then I was most times.
Something to consider to is he is working out of economic necessity like most all of us. If he was a true equal
then his reaction would be that spontaneous or even more. He was treating you like an equal. You were expecting a baseline of deference which you thought was appropriate. He read your baseline as excessive or silly or assumed you were joking and gave you an honest response. He thinks he's there to fix your furnace in what he considers a reasonable amount of time. You think that he is required to report why he is twenty minutes late. I'd say he is more reasonable in this case. But that just my two cents...
