“You shouldn’t have done that…”, “If only you hadn’t cut it…”, “Of all the things you could have done, that was the worst…”, “I just can’t believe you did that…”
All of the above statements and more were made to me recently. The person speaking to me was our landlord. Currently, we are renting a house and I made a mistake. You see, the kitchen floor is covered in linoleum. It is in good condition. However, during the winter months, the edges started curling up under the cabinets and were covering the main heater vent in the kitchen. Being the consummate handyman that I am and not wanting to bother the landlord, I decided to “trim” back the linoleum. Unfortunately, I cut about three inches off of the linoleum and then stapled down the edges with a staple gun (I kid you not). Over the next couple of months, the linoleum started coming up and occasionally bits of food would fall under the flooring. Our dogs, with their finely tuned dog noses, sniffed out the food and would try to retrieve the food by clawing the linoleum. Needless to say, the edges of our linoleum are ripped in various spots and the whole thing looks like a disaster.
Back to the quoted statements…those were a few of the things that the landlord said to me when I explained to him over the phone the situation. Now, I can understand his frustration. Here he is managing many different homes and there are people like me (Tim the tool-man Taylor) trying to “help him out” by fixing things myself. I can understand his frustration. However, I do not understand why he continued to berate me over and over again on the telephone concerning the issue. I believe I counted ten different times he told me in no uncertain terms that I blew it, I made a huge mistake, this could have been fixed if I would have called him initially. I told him that I had good intentions and was trying to keep from having him employ someone to fix the situation. He put me down again and I finally interrupted him and said out loud, “I MADE A MISTAKE, I SHOULD NOT HAVE DONE WHAT I DID!”
Continue reading “Pouring on Guilt? Or Administering Mercy?”
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