Emotional Entitlement

[trickykitty]

She tells me: "You have now repeated yourself three times. I have two degrees. I understand what you're saying, but you're not listening to me."

No, no you do not understand, otherwise you would stop yelling at me.

You see, she is impassioned, which means her worries [that the mound of dirt in her yard is going to sprout legs and terrorize the entire neighborhood during the night] are completely justified in her mind, even though I keep telling her, no, the mound of dirt will settle more because of the rains and we will put the dirt back into the trench once the city has inspected the line tomorrow.

She tells me I'm not making a big enough deal over this, and I continually counter with, everything will be fine, this is how it works, your driveway and your neighbor's yards will be fine, the dirt will not turn into a tsunami.

I don't understand. I'm not the one that will be there when her neighbor starts to throw a hissy fit because the dirt has covered their yard, their cars, their pet Fido. I will not be the one to lose face with the neighborhood. [Oh, see, now it's getting good.] I don't care, because we've already been paid and we're never coming back out to her house EVAR, and this is the world we leave behind for her to deal with. I'm obviously just NOT LISTENING TO HER!

Then she tells me all about the things in her life. There's a court date tomorrow. It's already been moved once. The checking account from which they paid, that's a whole story. The weekend of having to deal with the mess in the yard.

Mind you, none of this has any bearing on the matter at hand. The only thing it has bearing on is her state of mind. This is the thing we have to deal with in the office. No one is prepared for their plumbing to go out, or for the expense required to fix it, or for the time it might require. There's times when I can sympathize, but it's usually not when the person comes at me with both guns blazing right from the start.

I have to use the stock phrases:
"I understand that you are frustrated."
"I realize that this was not something that you planned for."
"I can see that you are worried about this, but I'm trying to reassure you that everything will be fine."

My favorite is when they actually call me out on it. "You're just saying that to try and make me feel better."

Um....yeah, that's kind of the idea...since my magic lamp isn't working and I can't make your life better for you, that's about all I have to offer at this moment in time.