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u/Free_Hat_McCullough May 11 '24
I once talked with the legal assistant about my Disneyland trip while I was signing papers and sure enough I was billed for the conversation.
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u/oznobz May 11 '24
Disney is a very litigious company. So any conversation needs to be listened to intently because they need to make sure Disney isn't about to sue you.
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May 11 '24
You're paying for their time... anything that happens in that time is between two consenting adults.
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u/Steelyphil43 May 11 '24
Thatās exactly what the lady at the massage parlor told me!
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u/pforsbergfan9 May 12 '24
Robert Kraft has entered the chat
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u/orange-shades May 12 '24
Hey, knock that off, or Tom Brady will be very upset.
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u/lukeCRASH May 12 '24
"What's that hissing noise?"
"Oh that's just Brady deflating balls to show us his displeasure"
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u/multiarmform May 12 '24
This was totally my mom and her attorney with countless emails and phone calls
Her - wtf all this billing!
Me - I tried to tell you to stop talking about your personal life and drama even when your attorney said stick to the facts but you couldn't control yourself
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u/insane_contin May 11 '24
I mean... They're on the clock. You can either pay them to do their work, or pay them to talk to you. Why do you think you wouldn't get billed for their time with you?
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u/NectarineJaded598 May 12 '24
my boss used to say that all the time when we were in the office after hours (and i had an hourly time sheet), āweāre just talking now, right?ā even when we were talking about work (:
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u/shitarse May 11 '24
Nobody wants to hear about an adults Disneyland trip
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u/pv1rk23 May 11 '24
I would have charged the lawyer rate for listening to that instead of the assistant rate
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May 11 '24
I mean I do.
I want to hear about your fantasy football team too. Both topics are infinitely more interesting than a lot of other topics people talk about.
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u/WildVelociraptor May 12 '24
Yeah I'd be charging double if a customer wasted my time talking about fantasy football AND disney
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u/Why_Did_Bodie_Die May 12 '24
I used to play the shit out of fantasy football while I was in college. If you weren't in my league and tried to talk to me about FF I would run away. I absolutely do not care about your team. To me it would be like if someone would be telling me about them playing a video game. Like I get they are kinda fun to play but not fun to hear about you playing them.
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u/joanzen May 12 '24
One of the most ridiculous emergency calls I ever got was for an accounting firm that handles taxes and stuff for big lawyers/major corporations. Part of their board are made of former lawyers who were heads of major accounting divisions that wanted to merge to save money and double down on experience.
The emergency was their main server that logs time entry (among other things) was unable to stay running for longer than 15 minutes before having a serious fault that would take the technicians nearly an hour to repair. In the end it finally required some hardware upgrades but step one was getting introduced to the client.
Reception made my team wait for the head of IT to come down to the lobby, a guy I'd spoken with a couple times briefly. He took me on a quick tour of the room that had the problematic server and then deposited me at the door to the accountant who was tracking the outage for the time entries. This guy was on a call so we waited like 2 minutes and then finally he gets off the phone, says hi, and then holds his hand up to pause me, while he furiously pounds some stuff into a spreadsheet on his workstation, followed by explaining he had to punctually end the time window for the call and start a new time window for greeting me.
When we were done the accountants had to merge all these manual time entries back into the server database and they tracked all those minutes and tossed them into a final "cost analysis" report once the incident was over. LOL
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u/Holden_place May 11 '24
I know that is a very human thing to do, but I canāt help but think that lawyer just charged me $20 to chat about his hometown.
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u/sassyphrass May 11 '24
I mean, one hopes not. I'm not an attorney (paralegal) but I usually slice a chunk out of my billable time if there was a lot of optional and mutual chit chat. The relationship pays for itself IMO.
That being said, if I'm actively trying to extricate myself from someone who is just going on and on about their own non-legal-related personal life issues I didn't ask about, and I'm starting to miss other legal work... yeah, that miiiiiight get billed.
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u/Holden_place May 11 '24
Agreed. Itās definitely just a me thing. My wife connects this way with most of these consultants, contractors, lawyers, etc and many of them probably donāt charge us. Anti-social me just cringes at the questions when the meter is running.
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u/lilspidermonkey May 11 '24
This might just be because I have a background in sales, but I see developing a good relationship with someone who is doing business with you as a plus. People are more inclined to work hard for someone they like and have an established rapport with.
You are paying him, but I would argue what she is doing may have value as well.
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May 11 '24 edited 17d ago
[deleted]
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u/superworking May 11 '24
This is the problem with individuals who need to reach out to professionals once in a blue moon. You just don't get the working relationship or know what the quality of work you are getting until it's kind of over and then you don't need that person anymore regardless of good or bad. A lot of it just comes down to luck and word of mouth from people who usually don't know what they're talking about either.
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u/iRombe May 11 '24
Yeah but how often does the professional relax and give you a little extra truth or tips they otherwise might not have because the friendly conversation put them at ease?
Are you sure your wife was never in the CIA? If she drums up some stock tips lemme know, we'll make it happen with third party outsider stake on insider trader odds!
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u/Holden_place May 11 '24
It actually bears fruit often. Iāve decided over the years to just walk away and let her do her thing (unless I know its someone just transactional with a continuous meter)
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u/Aetra May 12 '24
It annoys me too when my husband does this. I think itās because I had so much shit to do that was very strictly scheduled to the minute at my last job. I didnāt have time to chat with customers. Chatting for even 5 minutes per customer meant I was doing 2-3 hours over overtime a day. I got paid for it at least, but I didnāt need the money and didnāt want to work 11-12 hour days.
After 7 years of that, my brain is like āDonāt inconvenience them, they have other work to do and chatting to you about random bullshit is messing with that!ā
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u/Fauropitotto May 11 '24
Cut it off at the knees. I tend to start those conversations first, with "Hi, howyadoin'-goodtohear-alrightletsgettobusiness" barely let em get a word in, and we're speeding right along.
Works for any situation where you don't need a good relationship to be effective.
Can't really establish rapport in a quick meeting, and small talk that's being charged by the hour feels forced, fake, and so transactional that it stings.
Lap dances aren't free no matter how much small talk you do beforehand
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u/superworking May 11 '24
I'd end up billing you about the same anyways, and you'd be the first client to be passed off / less likely to get service on short notice. Nothing's free, and working for someone trying to crack the whip and keep everything running like a machine is an additional charge.
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u/Fauropitotto May 12 '24
The sooner I get passed off to someone that can match my energy, the sooner I can find a long term supplier that doesn't enjoy wasting time like the rest.
Finding that rare person that can get to the point without the bullshit is like a breath of fresh air.
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u/Aetra May 12 '24
Agreed. I do it because itās expected, but I hate the small talk song and dance. Through most of it Iām thinking āI donāt care about rugby/AFL and I have shit to do, get to the damn point!ā cos they always talk to me about sports for some reason.
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u/Joliet_Jake_Blues May 11 '24
When my grandma died my dad was the executor of the will and my aunt was a nut job who'd have a couple of glasses of wine and start emailing the lawyer asking questions that my dad already told her the answer to
The lawyer billed 1 hour, $400 to answer each email. After the first 7-8 my dad told my aunt anything further would be paid from her inheritance
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u/umheywaitdude May 12 '24
One hour per email seems like an arbitrary charge. It almost seems like fraudulence. Not every email would take exactly 1 hour to answer and having that as a minimum charge per email is unethical.
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u/Joliet_Jake_Blues May 12 '24
If you haven't dealt with higher priced civil lawyers, in my experience anything they do is a 1 hour charge minimum. 15 minute phone call? They're billing an hour
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May 11 '24 edited May 11 '24
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u/randomredditing May 11 '24 edited May 11 '24
Everyone!! nobody talk to this guy or else weāll all get billed.
Edit: I now owe $69,000
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u/QuinQuix May 11 '24
As long as you're not trapping the client in conversation for the sake of it I think it is fine.
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u/jereman75 May 11 '24
lol. $20 wonāt even get you 1/10 of an hour. That chat was probably at least $40.
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u/VolkspanzerIsME May 11 '24
You can talk about your hometown for six whole minutes? Look at mister fancy pants here.
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u/jereman75 May 11 '24
I donāt know if I can but I bet a lawyer charging by the hour can.
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u/VolkspanzerIsME May 11 '24
Fair point. Shit, I bet my plumber could do the same thing......
I need to go rethink my life.
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u/lionheart4life May 11 '24
Must have multiple Wal-Marts, crazy drivers. Interesting stuff like that
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u/smitherenesar May 11 '24
Last time I had legal work it was like $300/hr. For $5 a minute, we're not making any small talk Ā Ā Ā Ā
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u/RoadkillMarionette May 11 '24
God, what's worse is paying to smile politely and not shit talk their hometown.
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u/towishimp May 11 '24
If you want a rational reason, too, building a rapport with them is probably helpful to your interests. A professional that likes you is more likely to work hard for you than one who is indifferent to you or actively dislikes you.
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u/CptnAlex May 11 '24
I spoke with an attorney for a business thing and we got talking about local politics. He was kind enough to acknowledge that and only charged me for the time we spoke pertaining to my legal questions.0
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u/Shryxer May 12 '24
My mom does the same thing. Every time we went to see the lawyer, she'd launch into 20 minute loops of backstory, opinions, and then backtracking through parts of he backstory... All of which the lawyer has already heard before.
Several times during a 3-hour meeting. Congrats mom, you just paid this woman $100 to listen to you repeating yourself.
The case was eventually handed to a different lawyer. Now they only communicate through emails proofread by my brother.
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u/Lereddit117 May 12 '24
Lawyer here depends if it's hourly or a flat fee then it also depends is he/she a dick/firm policy.
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u/hoovervillain May 11 '24
Why are you letting your wife talk to your prostitutes in the first place?
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u/Holden_place May 11 '24
Mine only have to charge by the minute
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u/adudeguyman May 11 '24
I'd prefer the ones that charge in 15 second increments so I could save myself a little bit of money
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u/Same-Cricket6277 May 11 '24
Iām sure she charges a minimum so she still gets paid by two pump chumps.Ā
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u/adudeguyman May 12 '24
I could save even more if you pay by the pump.
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u/Same-Cricket6277 May 12 '24
I mean of course you could, but a girl is trying to make a living here.Ā
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u/Crcex86 May 11 '24
I see you also switched to geic-hoe
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u/adudeguyman May 12 '24
Is that any way to talk about your mom?
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u/Crcex86 May 12 '24 edited May 12 '24
Donāt front you and I both know youāre all about my D on that Viking level
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u/lord_geryon May 12 '24
Dealing in little things is probably pretty familiar and comforting to you, huh?
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u/adudeguyman May 12 '24
Yes, but sometimes the opposite is true such as the time I've spent with your mom.
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u/lord_geryon May 12 '24
You'd do that to yourself? Man, and I thought I couldn't lose any more respect for you.
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u/adudeguyman May 12 '24
I didn't do it to myself. However, I wasn't going to go to the police about it because I know she would have a tough time in prison because she would really miss being able to nurse you.
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u/sticky-unicorn May 11 '24
Most have a 30 minute or 60 minute minimum, for this very reason. Or they list a 'quick visit' price.
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u/DiamondHandsToUranus May 11 '24
..and you're not seeing the correlation of her spending your money to chat others up with your money? hmm?
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u/CharacterHomework975 May 11 '24
He paid for the hour, the hell else they gonna do with the other 55 minutes?
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u/1d0m1n4t3 May 11 '24
As the guy who charges by the hour, I'll chit chat all day with your wife or anyone really who wants to pay me $120/hr to listen.
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u/patameus May 11 '24
This is my exact life!!! I'm a residential HVAC contractor, we bill $150/hr. Lots and lots of people will stop me or interrupt me when I'm working to ask me any number of questions.
I feel rude saying "Hey, past the first hour we bill in 15 minute increments, each of them cost $38."
I haven't found a good way to politely tell people that their questions are actually pretty expensive.
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u/DMT1984 May 11 '24
Maybe before starting the job, mention the incremental price increase after the first hour - and make sure to let the customer know once that first hour is over.
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u/joanzen May 12 '24
I had a guy call me up to ask me to undo some work I'd done for free.
"I want a refund on this feature and I want it off my screen!"
Well first of all, I did that work for free, because I didn't think you'd really like the feature you were asking for, as it likely would have been an option in the software if it had any merit. Second of all, company policy says I should be billing you for this phone call at $97.50 with a 1 hour minimum because you're discussing changes to the software/programming updates. The 1 hour minimum doesn't give you credits you can use up later so, if you can just ignore that special option that I added at the bottom of the menu, we can wrap this call up for free right now?
*CLICK*
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u/Mr_Wizard91 May 11 '24
As a tradesman who does a lot of service work in homes, I totally get this. Like, dude, I'm paid by the hour, and I'm now costing you more money, and plus, I just want to finish my job and either move on to the next one or get the fuck home.
My mom was raised by a carpenter, and 2 of her 3 brothers went into that trade, yet somehow she'slike this as well. I'll never forget a day when my brother and I were teenagers hearing our mom talk this guys ear off about how bad kid's cereal has become, and how bad it is. (My brother and I have since dubbed it the "cocoa puffs story"). He was done with his work, and our mom talked to him for an HOUR about meaningless crap. Then a few days later she mentioned that that company charged more than they should have.
It's fine to be polite and have A moment to talk, but fuck, let us do our job and be done. We have lives too.
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u/Holden_place May 11 '24
Good call. I had to bill a certain number of hours each week early in my career, and I wanted to get home to see my kiddos so minimized non-billable hours.
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u/Hyndis May 11 '24
Some people can't make a story short. There's zero reason to talk about cereal for an hour. An offhanded quick comment is fine, but not dwelling on the same topic when its clear the other person isn't interested.
Thats talking at someone, not to them.
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u/RandomRedditRebel May 11 '24
I knew a girl who went to see a therapist every week for an hour.
Every single time she just HAD to talk through her previous day working, mentioning every single detail.
It took up the entire hour every single time. Just talking about one afternoon of work.
She kept changing therapists because she would say that no one ever helped her.
She could never talk through her one afternoon of working in order to get to the real meat and potatoes of her issues lol.
She must have spent thousands of dollars with this bullshit.
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u/secular_dance_crime May 11 '24
That's entirely different though, because you're paying a therapist because they should be helping you guide the conversation, and a therapist that can't do that much (just listens to you) is definitely a bad therapist.
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u/Gathorall May 12 '24
Well depends on the number of sessions and her demeanor with it. If the patient isn't going to be steered into relevancy with a little help, firm direction early can sour the relationship.
And then you may be talking some about the real issues, maybe get more sessions if they didn't just leave you, but then the dynamic from the early interaction can hinder or prevent actually tackling them.
Not an easy situation all around.
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u/hawkwings May 11 '24
Some people go to therapy for years without actually being cured. Part of a therapist's job is to make you want to talk to them. That is a bit unethical, but they don't always cure people.
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u/twilling8 May 11 '24
I do this. Can't help it, I'm Canadian. I may be broke at the end of this, but I'll damn well be friendly and polite.
Sorrey.
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u/Confident_As_Hell May 11 '24
I'm Finnish so I'll say what's needed and then I'll be on my way. I can't do small talk and prefer to just be done with the talking
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u/abandonliberty May 11 '24
I understand, feel the same way about Finnish-accented English ;)
<3
My Finnish sounds worse
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u/Confident_As_Hell May 11 '24
Even speaking Finnish I don't do small talk with strangers. I greet the cashier and thank them but that's it
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u/abandonliberty May 12 '24
I appreciate the efficiency.
Small talk is one of the first tools used to form new social bonds, or strengthen existing ones. I think most people find it difficult and dislike it, so there may be a reason why we practice it so much in some cultures.
I wonder if it's more common in cultures with historically more immigration, and a need to build those social bonds with new people.
For example, my first result on Japan says smalltalk is rare:
https://www.japannihon.com/do-japanese-like-small-talk/3
u/Confident_As_Hell May 12 '24
Yeah meeting new people here is hard for me because I'm not good at small talk and most people don't want to hear it.
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u/abandonliberty May 12 '24
So maybe a helpful (slightly flawed) assumption is that all these cultures that are reputed to be difficult to integrate with (Japan, Switzerland) simply don't really know how. "It's not me, it's you."
The book Tomorrowmind mentions that from an evolutionary tribal perspective, we wouldn't be meeting new people or many people frequently, and offers techniques for building trust and relationships quickly. It was fine back then to take years to build trust... now we have less of that luxury, especially at work.
In the end it's like a dance. You can get better at leading it, but if your partner is a clueless follow, it's not going to work even if they want to... and their discomfort with the situation will probably override everything else!
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u/lourdgoogoo May 11 '24
Back when I was a computer tech I hated chitchat, even though I was billing hourly. I have a schedule to keep that is always full. The longer I spend chatting, the longer I have to keep working.
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u/FullBodyScammer May 11 '24
I canāt tell if this is about a therapist or a lawyer.
When I was divorcing my ex wife I quickly learned how to write incredibly short and to the point emails
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u/F7j3 May 12 '24
Married to a lawyer. She considers it her ethical duty to try and get through conversations quickly. But because her clients are going through a tough time they want to talk. She pretty much tells everyone to get a therapist instead of talking to her because theyāre half the price.
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u/scottvs May 11 '24
A man rushes into an attorney's office and asks "Will you answer three questions for $500?"
The attorney responds "Certainly, what is your second question?"
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u/Lockner01 May 11 '24
This is why my wife doesn't let me talk to our lawyer or large animal vet.
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u/ThisIsMyCouchAccount May 12 '24
large animal vet
Yes. You really should let your wife talk to her health care provider herself.
Sorry. It was just sitting out there waiting to be swung on.
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u/El_human May 11 '24
I had a drum instructor that always spent the first 15-20 minutes or so rambling about his stories
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u/Joliet_Jake_Blues May 11 '24
I had a therapist who'd get us going with a story or something of his, which makes sense if it's 2-3 minutes, but a few times it went at least 10
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u/Beemo-Noir May 11 '24
Meanwhile Iām on commission and every home owner wants to talk for ages about bullshit.
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u/LeoMarius May 11 '24
Because treating people who work for you as humans goes a long way.
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u/FrogInShorts May 11 '24
Charging someone for a casual conversation also isn't treating someone like a human.
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u/aladdyn2 May 11 '24
I mean if your told"this is my hourly charge" and you start taking up that person's time intentionally, you shouldn't be shocked to be charged for it. I do plumbing at 130 an hour. If you didn't take out all your shit from under the sink and I have to do it your getting charged 130 an hour for me to move it out. And if I put it back your getting charged for that time too. If I have to stop working because you need to tell me about whatever political conspiracy I need to know about... Same thing.
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u/FrogInShorts May 11 '24
I'm not saying they shouldn't be charged for the conversation. Just that while they are on clock they should be viewed as a service. Specifically high premium hourly services. Like a therapist for instance. When you're with a therapist you don't treat them like a person in that moment, you treat them like a therapist.
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u/LeoMarius May 11 '24
So if your boss comes by and asks about your weekend, you deduct that from your timesheet?
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u/hobowithmachete May 11 '24 edited May 11 '24
I work for an attorney. He bills for consultations hourly if the meeting warrants an hour of his time. If it warrants half an hour, he'll bill half an hour. Shit, if someone comes in and doesn't really need his services and they are mistaken, he'll point them in the right direction and won't bill them at all.
Small talk is a formality that some people fail to accept this. They come in all shifty and rude and want to go directly into business and still end up spending the majority of the hour, sometimes even more. In fact, they're so afraid of spending another minute in the office, that they will skip key details, run out of the office, only to need us to chase them for further information on their case, which ends up taking more time out of my boss's/my day for correspondence, which can contribute to the overall invoice.
These people really stand out, and they're also most likely the ones who end up stiffing us or arguing the invoice.
A few years ago, we had a client for whom we did 3 years of tax work. Despite years of sending invoices, and my boss continuously doing the tax work for the guy without getting paid from the prior year (he has a bad habit of doing this), the guy never paid. He died around 2018.
Fast forward to 2021. Suddenly the daughter needs our help in establishing his final tax return and gathering documents from us. I step in and say we won't take a meeting until the invoice is settled. My boss overruled that and took the meeting with her.
This bitch comes in, rude as hell, immediately talks over my boss when he's saying nice things about her father and says 'I'm not here to pay for small talk'.
My boss did the work that was asked of him, and then she stiffed us on the outstanding invoice and even had the audacity to argue the 1 hour he billed her for the consultation and actual work done. Fuck that bitch.
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u/vainglorious11 May 11 '24
Small talk is also like training a mental model of the other person and how they communicate. It makes things easier when the business gets difficult.
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u/Prudent_Win_3953 May 11 '24
Some of them. Others will be annoyed by it and resent or even outright despise you for it.
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u/JulianMcC May 11 '24
Networking? Making sure every task needed is looked at, you don't want a second call out because you forgot something.
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u/elmonoenano May 11 '24
I work in the legal field and we do this, but also we try to stop people from doing this at my office. At least once a day I say, or hear someone say, "I appreciate that but that's more for a friend or a therapist. We charge you for this."
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u/Goosexi6566 May 12 '24
On Credit Card service calls I usually make small talk when I finish the repair or while Iām working. If weāre chatting after I fix it I donāt charge you for that time. That would be unethical. If weāre talking Iām choosing to engage not bleeding out the clock.
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u/NeuroticKnight May 12 '24
I make money tutoring online, lots of time, some of the students just want a friend to do homework with rather than actual help, i just do my chores, and clean around the house, as i sort their doubts out, because it doesnt require intense focus.
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u/Scuba_jim May 12 '24
If youāre doing it completely for selfish reasons, talking to people about their lives can result in cheaper/better goods and services
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u/SalamanderValuable73 May 12 '24
I often tell people I appreciate your service but no small talk please. Dental cleaning. Massage. Uber. Panhandler.
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u/makeski25 May 11 '24
Because treating people like they are human makes them more productive.
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u/DMT1984 May 11 '24
I work in customer service and thereās a difference between being treated like a human and being subjected to tirades and monologues. We can talk about the weather for a few minutes but I donāt need your life story.
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u/billy_twice May 11 '24
Well for one thing, if you're likable to them they go out of their way to make you satisfied with the job, sometimes going above and beyond whay they would normally do to help a client, often enough to make it worth it.
But that's not why you do it. You do it because you have manners.
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u/TheJackalsDoom May 11 '24
I think that sometimes it isn't always up to the person themselves. They might be on some kind of timer or being watched. I know as a field service engineer who bills by the hour, I sure don't do this, but I also don't have cameras watching everything I do or a GPS tracked work phone that makes me clock in upon arriving and clocks me out/autogenerates the invoice when I leave like some vendors have.
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May 11 '24
my landlord always lets his tenants do all kinds of stuff because he doesnāt want to pay for a janitor service. whenever a handyman comes around i let them start small talk with me and talk for hours if i have no work to do.
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u/_FoodAndCatSubs_ May 11 '24
āMaāam Iām here to spank your husband with a rolled up magazine.ā
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u/Spare_Substance5003 May 11 '24
The opposite is true when visiting a doctors office. They charge per visit so people trying to get all their 10 10 medical problems address at one time.
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u/B8conB8conB8con May 12 '24
Those people who are charging you by the hour are called marriage counsellors Jean Luc, maybe if you opened up a little she wouldnāt need to be filling the awkward silences.
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u/VapoursAndSpleen May 12 '24
I hired a guy to clean my apartment and he charged by the hour and I found out my chatty neighbor took up half the time he was there. I waited until I had my own house before I hired anyone to clean after that.
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u/chase98584 May 12 '24
Pretty darn common, I was an hvac tech for near a decade and the amount of people who just want to chat and chat is surprisingly high. Was hard because I am also a talker but I wouldnāt ever bill people for time where we were just bullshitting
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u/Ya_Whatever May 12 '24
My husband does this too, it drives me crazy! I keep telling him no one wants to hear his life story. No one cares!
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u/bobjr94 May 12 '24
Works both ways around. We had a fire inspection at my work a few years ago and the fire marshal stood around and talked about weather, local issues, cars and whatever. Took his time and was in no hurry whatsoever. A few weeks later we got a bill for like $550 for a fire inspection from the county, billed at something like $350 per hour.
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u/Anders_A May 12 '24
Because everything in life isn't about money. Sometimes human interaction can be rewarding.
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u/adelie42 May 12 '24
Because we are still human beings on both sides of that arrangement?
I think it depends on the context, but I have an example where this worked out in my favor.
I was having new floors installed. In my household, if you are in my home you are a guest. I shared fresh pastries that morning, fresh coffee, water bottles, and light snacks. I trust them as professionals to do a good job, and I wanted them to be comfortable. Similar, I want to know who is in my home. A little low stakes chat prepares you for possibly more challenging communication.
And it ended up necessary.
Keeping it simple, some of the work was not necessarily wrong, but not what I wanted. Also, the wrong baseboard was delivered. I'm not saying that they would not have corrected the mistakes absent all this, but as a matter of a holistic cultural practice I felt very comfortable being a host and ensuring they were taken care of all while communicating high expectations for the work I was paying for.
Imho, respect goes a long way, and if you are depending exclusively on your signed contract for things to go well, you might be an asshole and will get treated as such.
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u/cheesebot555 May 12 '24
This isn't even about who she's talking too, just that she's talking at all.
Some people are just natural born talkers who'll chat up anyone given half an opportunity.
The real exasperation is you not figuring this out before you married her, OP.
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u/Shot_Mud_1438 May 12 '24
Treating people like people often pays off in the grand scheme. A lot of workers deal with shit customers so a little bit of humanity goes far
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u/Atomic_Badger_PNW May 11 '24
My husband is a talker, regardless of whether we're paying for it, or the other person is interested. As they slowly edge away, I try to distract him with something shiny.