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| A Brief Encounter |
I was going to begin todays post by using the title Men and the F word but I decided to leave the titile as it is. Why is the F word used in a conversation between two adults anyway. Is it supposed to intimidate someone ? Is it used as a means of displaying your genuine anger instead of displaying your slight displeasure? Is using it supposed to make someone change their mind about whatever it is that you were discussing?
This post requires me to give you a little background about me. My family has owned a yacht storage yard here on the North Shore for over 150 years, it has become "the family business". Our facility is one of the last surviving large yards around as most of the others have been sold off to real estate developers over the past 20 years and these old yards are now condominium villages. The number of boats in this area has increased dramatically whereas the number of storage facilities has shrunk to a few. This makes competition for storage space, especially indoor storage space fierce. When someone puts their boat into our facility for winter storage they sign a simple agreement stating that they will pay the storage fee on the day they arrive to take their boat out for the summer. Our part of the agreement is that we will haul your boat, store it, and put it back in when Spring arrives. We will also do any carpentry work, mechanical work and painting work if the boat owner requests. Our fees are quite clearly printed on the agreement. In August, we also send out a letter to everyone that had their boat in our facility the previous winter and we ask them if they intend to use our facility again as we have to start to try to figure out how many boats we will be taking in. We also have a waiting list of boat owners who want their boats placed in a secure facility.
Right now, our yard is full. All the boats that requested storage space have been pulled and tucked into their winter cribs for their long winter nap. We are now in our period of time to relax and to take vacations. Yesterday, a man who has stored his boat in our facility for the past three years arrived and told us he was ready to have his boat put in storage. I informed him that we did not have any more room and that he would have to find another facility that could accomodate him. In seconds, he went from this calm person into a screaming lunatic and his language was filled with the F word. The more I told him sorry, the louder he got and the more frequently the F word was used. This "man" realized that he had no chance at making me back off so he demanded to speak to my father instead of wasting his time talking to " an ignorant, F____g bitch like me".
I informed him that using these charming tactics would not work and that my father had handed the day to day operations of the yard over to me as he is getting ready to retire. I also told him that my decision was final. That only got him going even worse and at this point, every other word out of his foul mouth was the F word. I told him that there was nothing more to discuss and that as far as I was concerned the conversation was over. I also told him that if he did not leave the premisis I would call the police and have him removed. At this point he started with the " Do you know who I am" routine. Some people think that just because they make a great deal of money for doing very little work it is supposed to impress me but it didn't. I told him that I did not really care who he was and that we had cut him enough slack already. I informed him that we sent him a letter in August as king him if he planned on using the yard and he ignored the letter. I also reminded him that the agreement he signed stated that he was to pay the storage fee before he took his boat away from our moorings, but at that time he claimed to have forgotten his check book and promised my father he would mail him a check right away. That check arrived in our office in late July when it was due to us in May. I told him that his space has already been rented and that any further arguing on his part would be useless and once again told him to leave the property. His final statement to me was a sentence that did not include one word that I could print here. I just told him that he was the epitome of class and I walked away . Once I got inside, I watched as he took out his cell phone and in seconds, our phone rang. I knew that it was him so I simply picked up the phone and told him "I told you to leave". " His response was 'I want to speak to your F ____ father right now. I handed the phone to my father and all my father could get out of his mouth was "hello" when suddenly you could hear a screaming voice coming right through the receiver. My father smiled at me as he Uh Huh'ed him for five minutes. The only full sentence he managed to get out was " If that is what she said then thats the way it is, good luck".
Last night I was wondering just why people like him use the F word like that. Is it to impress me? Is it a way for him to get his level of anger understood by me? Did he really expect me to say Oh sure we will take your boat in , after he called me a F_____ bitch? What was his point. Does he think he looks like a tough guy or is it that it is just a habit you can't break. I don't know.
I had a teacher in high school that told us that using four letter words repeatedly is a sign that you not only have a flaw in your character but that it proves to the world that you have a flawed vocabulary and that using that kind of language is a last resort in an argument that you know you cant win.
The bottom line is this, this morning this big shot " executive" is going to spend his day fruitlessly searching for a yard that will take him in, he won't find one because all the yards are booked solid at this time of year all the while this little wharf rat can sit back and be happy in the fact that i did not have to stoop to his level in order to win an argument. I am proud of myself today.
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Posted by tracyhamilton on 2009-11-06 06:49:28 | Rating: | Views: 48
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