Got talked about behind my back - right to my face

oxrageous

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Amusing story today. One of our clients is having their windows washed by our primary window subcontractor. The owner of this window cleaning company is a really nice guy, and I had talked to him a few times over the past few months. However, I'm still pretty new to the company and the two of us really don't know each other. By the way, these are $5 million mansions so people pay $600 to $800 to get their windows washed. Keep in mind we give these subcontractors a LOT of work - almost all of their work, in some cases. The last thing they want to do is alienate my company.

So I get a call from the window company owner that his guys are out at the house and that they are having trouble removing the screens. Evidently, the house is 5 years old and the screens have never been removed - it was going to take them longer, blahblahblah. He was wanting to know if it would be okay if they removed them and left them in the garage, assuming the owners never opened their windows. I told him that the owners aren't easy to get a hold of and the screens should go back on. He said no problem and hung up.

Two minutes later my phone rings, and I see from the Caller ID that it's him. I answer the phone and he immediately starts into this diatribe about the guy from (my company), Aaron BLAND, and "what an appropriate name that was". He starts repeating the conversation we just had, mocking me by giving me a low, guttural voice:

"And I said, 'can we leave the screens off?', and he said (in mocking voice) 'Well, the owners are hard to get a hold of. I want them back on...."

So all the while I'm just sitting here in silence listening to this, knowing that he called me back by mistake. He thinks he talking to one of his workers. It was a fascinating and awkward moment. Should I interrupt him? Should I wait for him to finish? Should I hang up? I admit I wasn't happy about what he was saying. It was a gross misinterpretation of our conversation and I had never been anything but professional to the guy.

I decided to let him finish, although I had no idea what I was going to say when he was done. What I ended up saying is, "You should probably pay attention to who you're calling."

Silence on the other end.

Then finally, "Oh man. I'm really sorry."

Me: "I'd be pretty embarrassed if I were you."

Him. "I am."

Then I started getting a little pissy with him. "I think if you remove the screens from our clients, they need to be put back on."

Then the groveling started, it was amusing in hindsight, although I was a bit steamed. I said goodbye fairly abruptly and hung up.

Then a text message: "I apologize and I'm truly embarrassed. Forgive me."

I ignored it. I wanted him to twist in the wind a bit longer.

Then another call, I sent it to voicemail. He left a message. It's 1 minute and 45 seconds of groveling. Poor guy. I suppose it could have happened to any of us.

I'm going to contact him by the end of the day to reassure him there's no hard feelings. He's suffered enough. He almost certainly learned a valuable lesson and so did I: be careful about what you say about people behind their backs. It can bite you in the ass.
 
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GatorBart

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Amusing story today. One of our clients is having their windows washed by our primary window subcontractor. The owner of this window cleaning company is a really nice guy, and I had talked to him a few times over the past few months. However, I'm still pretty new to the company and the two of us really don't know each other. By the way, these are $5 million mansions so people pay $600 to $800 to get their windows washed. Keep in mind we give these subcontractors a LOT of work - almost all of their work, in some cases. The last thing they want to do is alienate my company.

So I get a call from the window company owner that his guys are out at the house and that they are having trouble removing the screens. Evidently, the house is 5 years old and the screens have never been removed - it was going to take them longer, blahblahblah. He was wanting to know if it would be okay if they removed them and left them in the garage, assuming the owners never opened their windows. I told him that the owners aren't easy to get a hold of and the screens should go back on. He said no problem and hung up.

Two minutes later my phone rings, and I see from the Caller ID that it's him. I answer the phone and he immediately starts into this diatribe about the guy from (my company), Aaron BLAND, and "what an appropriate name that was". He starts repeating the conversation we just had, mocking me by giving me a low, guttural voice:

"And I said, 'can we leave the screens off?', and he said (in mocking voice) 'Well, the owners are hard to get a hold of. I want them back on...."

So all the while I'm just sitting here in silence listening to this, knowing that he called me back by mistake. He thinks he talking to one of his workers. It was a fascinating and awkward moment. Should I interrupt him? Should I wait for him to finish? Should I hang up? I admit I wasn't happy about what he was saying. It was a gross misinterpretation of our conversation and I had never been anything but professional to the guy.

I decided to let him finish, although I had no idea what I was going to say when he was done. What I ended up saying is, "You should probably pay attention to who you're calling."

Silence on the other end.

Then finally, "Oh man. I'm really sorry."

Me: "I'd be pretty embarrassed if I were you."

Him. "I am."

Then I started getting a little pissy with him. "I think if you remove the screens from our clients, they need to be put back on."

Then the groveling started, it was amusing in hindsight, although I was a bit steamed. I said goodbye fairly abruptly and hung up.

Then a text message: "I apologize and I'm truly embarrassed. Forgive me."

I ignored it. I wanted him to twist in the wind a bit longer.

Then another call, I sent it to voicemail. He left a message. It's 1 minute and 45 seconds of groveling. Poor guy. I suppose it could have happened to any of us.

I'm going to contact him by the end of the day to reassure him there's no hard feelings. He's suffered enough. He almost certainly learned a valuable lesson and so did I: be careful about what you say about people behind their backs. It can bite you in the ass.
Make him suffer Ox! Don't call him back until Monday.
 

WillGetIn

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Have fun with him. Do you have a sub that drives a vehicle that has graphics on it? Have em drive by this guys location, slow down, stop for a minute, then drive away. That should make a dude crap in his pants...
 

URGatorBait

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Have fun with him. Do you have a sub that drives a vehicle that has graphics on it? Have em drive by this guys location, slow down, stop for a minute, then drive away. That should make a dude crap in his pants...
:lol: that would be hilarious
 

pilot-in-fla

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I had a similar experience some years back when I was in the midst of negotiating a new car purchase. I was driving a pretty hard bargain and the salesman called me by mistake and made a number of comments about exactly what he thought about me. Obviously, he was freaked out when he realize it was me he was talking to. Since it was a pretty good deal, I still went through with it.
 

URGatorBait

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I had a similar experience some years back when I was in the midst of negotiating a new car purchase. I was driving a pretty hard bargain and the salesman called me by mistake and made a number of comments about exactly what he thought about me. Obviously, he was freaked out when he realize it was me he was talking to. Since it was a pretty good deal, I still went through with it.
Should have gotten another $500-$1000 off for that :lol:
 

pilot-in-fla

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Should have gotten another $500-$1000 off for that :lol:

It was already about that much better than any competing deal plus they were bringing the car in from Ft. Myers. But I might have been able to squeeze them a bit more or at least make the guy more uncomfortable by taking to the sales manager or at least threatening to do so.

What was surprising about the whole incident was that the interactions had all been pleasant and non-confrontation, kind of like Ox's experience.
 

oxrageous

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I called him this afternoon and we chatted for 20 minutes. He started apologizing again and I told him to stop. He said, "It wrecked my day." :lol:
He also said he learned some lessons today.

He's a good guy and now he feels he owes me for being so understanding, so I expect to get amazing service from now on.
 

GatorBart

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Hey guys, can you believe Ox let that guy off the hook so easy?
He acts all big and mighty as the owner of this site, threatening to ban people and doing drive-bys in the chat box at odd times, but he can't even string a guy out for a couple a days for making a mistake, albeit what that dude had to say was likely justified. :wink:
Talk about bringing the WEAKSAUCE!
 

NavetG8r

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I have a niece that's a paralegal. I'd probably have had her draw up defamation paperwork or something like that, just to really make him crap his pants.
 

bradgator2

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Hilarious. I've had something similar happen over email. Some douche hit "reply to all" by accident .... And that "unsend" button doesn't really work. :lol:

And then one time, my wife screwed up big time. A friend was over and they both talked to this one coworker on the phone they didnt really like. When they hungup, they proceeded to trash her. What she did not realize was she accidentally redialed the number and it went to her voicemail. After like 5 minutes she looked at her phone and realized what happened..... That their whole conversation was recorded onto that chick's voicemail.
 

crosscreekcooter

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I used to be VP of Construction for a multifamily development group and one of our deals was in a small town in Tennessee.
As usual, the development budget was tight, and it was my responsibility to find some creative way to get the deal built on time and under budget. I found a local modular home builder who was located about 30 miles away whose manufacturing line was slow. I had the plans revised so that the modules were all sized under 14' and could travel over the road on a flatbed. I spent a lot of time finding and cultivating this factory builder. He brought his assembly line factory to the table and I turned him on to a lumber broker and some other high volume vendors that I had previously worked with. While the sitework was underway and foundations were built, he could be busy building units and storing them at his plant ready for shipment.

We finally roughed out the bones of an agreement, but we were probably 75-100,000 away from my target. I decided to make another trip to his plant to try and finalize the numbers and I was bringing the project manager who would be overseeing the job with me. When we were probably 30 minutes away from his office, I asked Jim the project manager to call and let them know when we would arrive. The builder told Jim it looked as though he would be able to hit my budget and was really excited to start the process, and that it would employ a lot of local people. He was on speaker phone in his conference room with his staff. Everbody's happy and when we're finished with the conversation Jim sticks his phone in his shirt pocket and immediately begins congratulating me and laughing at how among other comments "you really pulled one over on those country bumpkins." About 5 minutes later my phone rings and it's the builder telling me that Jim never hung his phone up and everyone in his office heard everything he said. I was in total shock and didn't know what to say. The builder was really pretty cool about the whole thing, he just advised me that it wouldn't be a good idea to bring Jim to the meeting. I agreed and dropped Jim off at a restaurant and the builder sent his staff away while we met.
 

Delg8tor

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I used to be VP of Construction for a multifamily development group and one of our deals was in a small town in Tennessee.
As usual, the development budget was tight, and it was my responsibility to find some creative way to get the deal built on time and under budget. I found a local modular home builder who was located about 30 miles away whose manufacturing line was slow. I had the plans revised so that the modules were all sized under 14' and could travel over the road on a flatbed. I spent a lot of time finding and cultivating this factory builder. He brought his assembly line factory to the table and I turned him on to a lumber broker and some other high volume vendors that I had previously worked with. While the sitework was underway and foundations were built, he could be busy building units and storing them at his plant ready for shipment.

We finally roughed out the bones of an agreement, but we were probably 75-100,000 away from my target. I decided to make another trip to his plant to try and finalize the numbers and I was bringing the project manager who would be overseeing the job with me. When we were probably 30 minutes away from his office, I asked Jim the project manager to call and let them know when we would arrive. The builder told Jim it looked as though he would be able to hit my budget and was really excited to start the process, and that it would employ a lot of local people. He was on speaker phone in his conference room with his staff. Everbody's happy and when we're finished with the conversation Jim sticks his phone in his shirt pocket and immediately begins congratulating me and laughing at how among other comments "you really pulled one over on those country bumpkins." About 5 minutes later my phone rings and it's the builder telling me that Jim never hung his phone up and everyone in his office heard everything he said. I was in total shock and didn't know what to say. The builder was really pretty cool about the whole thing, he just advised me that it wouldn't be a good idea to bring Jim to the meeting. I agreed and dropped Jim off at a restaurant and the builder sent his staff away while we met.
Oops!
 

URGatorBait

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I used to be VP of Construction for a multifamily development group and one of our deals was in a small town in Tennessee.
As usual, the development budget was tight, and it was my responsibility to find some creative way to get the deal built on time and under budget. I found a local modular home builder who was located about 30 miles away whose manufacturing line was slow. I had the plans revised so that the modules were all sized under 14' and could travel over the road on a flatbed. I spent a lot of time finding and cultivating this factory builder. He brought his assembly line factory to the table and I turned him on to a lumber broker and some other high volume vendors that I had previously worked with. While the sitework was underway and foundations were built, he could be busy building units and storing them at his plant ready for shipment.

We finally roughed out the bones of an agreement, but we were probably 75-100,000 away from my target. I decided to make another trip to his plant to try and finalize the numbers and I was bringing the project manager who would be overseeing the job with me. When we were probably 30 minutes away from his office, I asked Jim the project manager to call and let them know when we would arrive. The builder told Jim it looked as though he would be able to hit my budget and was really excited to start the process, and that it would employ a lot of local people. He was on speaker phone in his conference room with his staff. Everbody's happy and when we're finished with the conversation Jim sticks his phone in his shirt pocket and immediately begins congratulating me and laughing at how among other comments "you really pulled one over on those country bumpkins." About 5 minutes later my phone rings and it's the builder telling me that Jim never hung his phone up and everyone in his office heard everything he said. I was in total shock and didn't know what to say. The builder was really pretty cool about the whole thing, he just advised me that it wouldn't be a good idea to bring Jim to the meeting. I agreed and dropped Jim off at a restaurant and the builder sent his staff away while we met.
:backout:
 

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