The Miscommunication Story
Last weekend, my wife wanted to buy a second-hand bed for our living room. It was on special discount and we were able to buy it for almost 40% of the original price.
There were a couple of problems, however:
- The location was too far away; almost 48 minutes drive from our place,
- We didn’t have a transportation van; and, even if we had one, it wouldn’t have been of much use since neither of us can drive.
I mentioned to my wife that I will talk with a guy who had provided us pick and drop services in the past as well. He knew his way around in Helsinki and, unlike other van drivers, had been happy to shift the house stuff when we moved into this house, and had made our moving super cheap and easy.
Michael is always on the hyper-active mode but was good at what he did. I would have recommended him to anyone for his delivery services.
So, I called and asked him to look up the address. The house was located at a considerable distance and I told him that he may have to pick the bed up by himself.
The Sri Lankan driver sounded okay with this and replied confidently, “Please send me the address, and I will get back to you with the cost, (and when to pick it up)”.
I informed my wife about the progress.
Since I had been working all night and all morning, around 3 pm, I got too exhausted to stay up and ended up going to bed with the sun high up.
Around 17:40, I received a call.
With my mind foggy with sleep, I picked up the phone. I recognized Michael’s voice and the first sentence I heard was, “I am at the pickup location in 2 minutes, Please call the person to give the bed to you.”
It was shocking. I shook my head to clear it and said, “But you were supposed to tell us how much it will cost and we haven’t finalised it yet… we still have to see the pictures”. I said everything at once to make him understand.
But, in vain.
He responded quickly, “But I am here already …”. I was annoyed but I didn’t want to be rude to him.
I called up my wife and quickly explained the situation to her. She was surprised as well, “But I haven’t received any picture of the bed yet, neither have I paid for it.”
I requested to her, “Kindly call the lady and request her to send the pictures. You can transfer the money to ….” I was mid-sentence when my mobile phone rang and I saw Michael’s name flashing up on the screen.
As soon as I picked up his call, he asked, “Do you speak Finnish?”
“No,I don’t,” I said, “But my wife does.” I heard him talking with some lady, and then she quickly came on the phone. She said, “I am sorry, but are you the one who is talking about the bed on Facebook?”
I was about to answer that it was my wife, not me and that I don’t speak Finnish. But, I was cut short because the bed owner lady got another call on her phone. Thankfully, it was my wife — talking to her.
When I sensed that my wife is in communication with the lady, I ended the call. Meanwhile, I had received a message on my Whatsapp, and guess who it was from? Dear Michael!
“This cost you 50 euros.”
I am a believer in Murphy’s law. My experience, or you may call it my belief, said that something else, too, is likely to go wrong here. That’s when I received a message from a friend who offered me a movie ticket for a 19:00 show for “War”, a Bollywood flick that I had been looking forward to. I so wanted to see Hiritik Roshan back in action.
I decided that since Michael was bringing the bed, I would (sadly) have to let go of this opportunity.
I was still mourning having to ditch the movie plan when my wife called. She had a good talk with the lady who had gotten suspicious of Michael pulling his truck in her driveway when she wasn’t expecting it. My wife nicely handled the situation with her presence of mind, paid the money, and sent the receipt to her. Both of them were amused at this miscommunication and the deal was sealed on a happy note. She gave the bed to Michael who was now on his way to our home.
On his way, he sent me this text, “I don’t know your address.” and I laughed and sent it to him.
While I waited, I started tiding up the house, such as making the bed, sorting things at their right place before wife comes back, to avoid giving her another reason to be angry with me.
I could sense a storm coming my way and was trying my best to negate Murphy’s Law this time.
Soon after tidying up the house, I reached out to my friend for the ticket but he had already offered it to someone else. I was ready for it, as I wouldn’t have been able to make it for the movie anyway.
My wife came home at 18:45 and shared her side of the story.
The bed owner got scared when she saw a big tempo reversing back into her parking area. She might have contemplating calling the Police. However, my wife called her in time, and paid for the bed.
Michael came with the bed at 19:00, and while I was receiving him, his first comment was, “It was too far man … I had to drive off-road 5 km just to reach the place.”
I looked at him and thought about pointing out the miscommunication and chaos he had caused. But, as usual, he was in a good mood and began unloading the bed, so I decided to get the bed into apartment before bringing up this matter.
It took us a few rounds to finally move the bed inside. He looked at me, and said, “It’s a nice bed… Did you negotiate well?”
I said, “Dude! you didn’t let us have the chance to negotiate. I woke up at your call. We were planning to see the pictures of the bed and decide when to buy it and call you.”
Michael said, “If I need a bed, that’s a bed I would go for; but I will negotiate hard.”
I didn’t beat around the bush and came to the point now. I reminded him, “You didn’t let me negotiate on the matter of your charges either.” He smiled and said, “Had I negotiated with you, you would have brought it down to 20 Euros.”
I smiled and replied back, “Dude! Let’s come to the point. How much for the trouble you caused us?”
Michael looked at me incredulously, as if he found me being unreasonable, “Hey man! I saw her phone while she was checking for you. She had so many people interested in the bed. This is a good bed.” He continued, “They were all women, it would be harder for you…”
I pretended to look thoughtful for a moment and said, “You know what? Let’s make it a win-win. How about I pay you 30 Euros?” He accepted the offer without much hesitation and then, as sincere as he could be, he apologised to me and my wife for the inconvenience.
In the end, his apology cost me another 10 Euros and I ended up paying him 40 Euros instead.
What would you do in my situation?
Michael drove almost 100 km to bring the bed.
He saved me the headache of further discussing the bed and keep weighing the pros and cons to see whether it’d be a good buy.
Also, I would have definitely broken the bed while moving it inside. He had been very helpful there as well.
And, not to forget, he gave me a good story to write.
However, things could have gone the other way as well; where the bed would not have been worth buying, or too expensive compared to the price we paid. Those things didn’t happen, thankfully.
In a team, while working, it is often that you will get to work with an individual who is extra ambitious and can take things too far too quickly. You have to see whether his activity had brought some good results or not.
I think it was fair to pay him the amount lower than what he asked for. He had acted on his own accord, without our consent. But, on the other hand, he helped fulfil the main task:
We needed an extra bed for our living room and we needed it at a reasonable price with convenient transportation.
He carried out his job and, now, we have an excellent looking second-hand bed at home.
