Thursday 28 September 2017

#265 Thinking about requests before granting them

Despite taking a while to decide on a coach to see, I'd received snippets of insight from some of the free interviews. The latest, Audrey, had unearthed the fact that I sometimes agreed to requests and then reflected later on how it might've been better to think them through first.

Take earlier this week for example. My housemate Bruno asked if a bed could be stored in my room for a while. "Sure" I told him. I had plenty of space. Then I thought about it. Did I want another bed in my room? Couldn't it go in the hallway?

Audrey asked that, regardless of whether or not I saw her again, I paid particular attention to any requests that were made of me for a week and kept a journal about what happened. She recommended I notice what was going on before, during and after each request. I took her up on the challenge but wasn't sure I'd get a chance to use it.

An opportunity came not long after I walked out of her appointment. I'd had a text from dad saying that my sister might join us for lunch on Friday. Lunch? We were going cycling, which had been my idea. I tried to remember whether we'd discussed asking her along. I wasn't 100% sure but I knew our plan had been to meet at 12:30. She was suggesting 1:30. I didn't like the way it felt.

I told him I didn't remember discussing asking her along. He said she was just meeting us for lunch if that was ok. Then he said we had discussed asking her. It felt like a mixed reply. I held off texting for a while and gave him a call later in the day. Voicemail. Could I get to the bottom of the situation by Friday? I wasn't sure. For the time being, I decided to be patient.

5 comments

Running on empty said...

I tend to be open to possibilities.

Profound Familiarity said...

A respectable stance.

Fizzfan said...

You must have a massive bedroom......and hallway! I suppose you could have a bounce between rooms which might be nice.
I don't like people changing plans, but I'm too polite to kick off. The worst one I remember was when a gaggle of us girls had arranged a long overdue getogether and one of them asked if she could bring her daughter along. We all thought hell NO but only one of us had the gumption to say it, although not quite in those words.
Family's a bit to close for comfort to be picky though.

Profound Familiarity said...

Yeah, I've always had large bedrooms. I think it's just luck although possibly with being tall people assume I need lots of space like a giraffe or something.

Oh gosh, yes I wouldn't "kick off" about it. Just make sure they know I'm there.

What did they say? Something like, if there's drinking and adult conversations they wonder if it would be a good idea having a child around?

It turns out I didn't sleep that well last night. If it happens again tonight, lunch might be preferable to cycling anyway, so I'll file my suspicions under "moot point".

Fizzfan said...

Spot on about the child thing, with the addition of saying she was sure she'd just get bored.
I've done a similar thing when we went on holiday with a couple who had a really obnoxious daughter. In order to extract ourselves from her company I said I was sure my son was getting on her nerves and it might be best to do separate activities. Its an unwritten rule you can never criticise someone else's children.

Moot points are often filled with great wisdom.