You attack, I’ll apologise

My grandmother creates so much drama just by being rude to people!  Now I’m left to do damage control. 

First off, let me say that I always try to be nice to everyone.  That includes tradesmen and anyone I do business with.  And I don’t mean simply polite, I mean friendly and warm and genuine.  In most cases, that means I create good business relationships and people treat me well in return. 

My grandmother, on the other hand, seems to start every business interaction with the assumption that the other person is trying to cheat her.  She’s hostile, rude and combatative.  She puts people off side in the first thirty seconds, and it’s downhill from there.  She feels obliged to squeeze them for every cent she can, and sees no reason to be reasonable or fair. 

Last week my hot water heater died, and my grandmother left me to find quotes for a new one.  I got a great quote from a company that was lovely to deal with and had top quality products.  We went ahead, and they sent a plumber around early to install a new tank, so I’d have hot water straight away, even though they couldn’t install the solar panels till the end of the week.  It was very nice of them and I thanked them. 

My grandmother, however, spent all day harrassing and bullying the plumbers, insisting that they’d better do this and they’d better not do that.  And then instead of thanking them for doing emergency repairs so quickly for us, she threw a complete hissy fit that they couldn’t put the solar panels up the same day.  She ranted, she raved, she rang the company and lied that she’d been promised it would all be done at once.  The company offered to complete the installation on Saturday.  She refused.  It had to be Friday at the latest. 

Why, I asked her, did it matter?  So long as it was installed by the end of June, we’d get our government rebates and all would be well.  Plus I had hot water now, and was no longer showering at her place!  It mattered because, true to her general distrust and paranoia, she was convinced that unless the job was complete and the forms submitted by this Friday, both state and federal governments would renege on their rebate deals and she wouldn’t get a cent back.  I couldn’t talk her into anything approaching sense. 

I had to listen as she called the company again this morning to bully them and accuse them of tricking her.  The result was the woman stood up to her and told her she wouldn’t install the panels until July.  Now grandmother really was up the creek.  She didn’t take any responsibility for it.  No, she blamed my father and I for supposedly twisting her arm into getting solar instead of plain electric.  And she blamed me for organising the quote in the first place.  Then she handed the mess to me, saying that I’d have to pay if we missed out on the rebate. 

She still hasn’t the faintest understanding that she may have brought this on herself.  And she’s still saying I "have to" accuse them of lying about this and cheating us on that.  She seemed shocked when I said, "no I don’t".  Ah well, if I have to pay $300 it’s still less than I’ll save in a year or two with solar.