My silver lining story this week is about my experience with the moving company that I hired to move a few pieces of furniture for me. What should have been a very simple hour and a half move became 3 hours because they were not able to turn their truck around on city streets. Although I gave them the correct address, they went across the street and it took them a full 15 minutes just to find a place to turn around. Then, again, because they couldn’t turn the truck around, we had to go several miles out of our way and drive on a very slow moving street. When the furniture was finally in place, I noticed that my glass table was chipped. The owner of the company assured me that he had insurance and that I shouldn’t worry. I have moved before and every time there was a problem, the moving company paid for or fixed the damaged items. At this point, however, I was displeased enough that when the movers asked for a check, I refused and insisted on paying with a credit card. That turned out to be a wise choice. Since the owner was supposedly on vacation, he didn’t want to take time to talk on the phone about the additional cost I incurred because of travel time or about my making a claim on the damaged item. He just kept saying that it would all be fine. When he was supposed to be back in the city, he didn’t respond to my phone calls or text messages. Two weeks after the move, I still had no way to put in a claim for insurance. By this time, I had had enough. I called my credit card company and disputed payment. I asked that the full charge be removed from my bill. The owner did not respond to my credit card company and my money was refunded.
Hearing My Self-Defeating Thoughts
The silver lining was that I stood up for myself and quieted the chatter in my mind that was telling me that it’s a family business, the guy is just trying to make a living, he had to pay his employees, I was taking his income and I should just forget it. The old pattern of making excuses for other people’s bad behavior was coming up very strongly. I was repeating the old dysfunctional pattern of taking care of him instead of the other way around. As a service provider, it’s his job to take care of me, the customer. My trust had been violated. I had been cheated out of money that I didn’t budget. My property had been damaged. I had been ignored and lied to. At one point, he even said, “When I get home, I’ll calm you down.” Of all of the unprofessional behavior, that statement really triggered my righteous indignation and got me to act on my own behalf. It was totally unacceptable for him to treat me like an irrational woman rather than respectfully communicating with me as a customer who had paid for services that were far below expectation.
Taking Back My Power
I have healed enough and become strong enough that I could hear the words that I had all too often told myself that kept others in a position of power over me. All those years, I had chosen to listen to the programming by society and my family that tells women and all abused people that others are more important than they are. We are supposed to overlook problems, don’t make waves, keep the peace, do what’s expected, which in this case meant “be quiet and overlook the poor business practices.” Well that just doesn’t work for me anymore. At this point in my life, I expect to be treated fairly and with respect. If that doesn’t happen, I now choose to take appropriate action to settle the disagreement and if that doesn’t happen, I choose to take action to get my money back and I go one step farther and choose to write reviews to help prevent other people from being mistreated.
Renewed Self-Respect
The end result is that I feel really good about this experience. I don’t feel abused, I feel empowered because I refused to let myself be taken advantage of. Stuff happens. It’s how we respond that matters. We can’t always get everything we want, but we can act with integrity, strength and self-love. The inconvenience and the chipped table were worth it for what I gained. Physical objects can be replaced relatively easily. Self-esteem and self-respect are harder to replace. What a blessing to have an experience that allowed me to do just that! And, in addition, I get to help others pay better attention to the words that are running in the back of their minds telling them that others are more important than they are and that they are responsible for making sure that other people’s physical, mental, emotional and financial needs are taken care of, even to the detriment of their own. We must remember that if we don’t have enough self-respect to stand up for ourselves, who is going to do it for us?
