When News Happens...

Steph called with a knot in her gut. She told me the tale behind the sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. I'll just tell you, she's got good reason to feel like she's just received a kick. Before I re-tell, without any embellishment, I'll remind those of you who know Steph and alert those of you who don't know her very well yet, my sister is a crusader for truth, justice and excellent service. She has never been able to sit by and allow bad things to happen to innocent people. She has had the courage to call social services upon hearing a child being abused through the wall of our apartment. She has stood between a spousal abuser and his victim, no matter what the cost was to her. She refuses to put up with shoddy service and has developed very tactful ways to let people go, when they needed to be let go, like her first realtor in NH, when she and Ted needed to sell their house. She is not afraid to get in the muck, do the dirty work, be confrontational when it is required and make things right. She does what a lot of people will not or can not do. She is amazing.

So today, she called her contractor, who was hired to install rain gutters. She had been told by him last week that he would start this week. When pressed, he gave her an actual day. Wednesday.

Well.... Wednesday came and went and the contractor did not show and did not call. She did, however, speak to one of his workers, who said he is "like this"- saying he will be there but not coming or calling. Thursday came, and Steph was forced to face the fact that this guy was giving her shoddy service, so she set a time limit. If he didn't call or come over by noon, she would release him from their verbal contract. He did not show or call, so she left a pleasant message saying as much.

He called her around five and said he be over in the morning to do the job and so she had to tell him what she had said on the message, that she was sorry, but she was releasing him from his verbal contract. She added, "I don't know how you stay in business treating your customers this way, all it would have taken is a phone call to keep my business". This is where our little crusader gets her stomach kicked.... The guy calls her a "rich bitch" for not being more sympathetic.

He says she can "lick his ball sack".

He says something about "aren't you a good christian?" to which she replied, "I do not go to church" and he said,

" Well you need to find Jesus!"

Now, I am not a "christian" either. But I know enough about Jesus Christ to know that he would not approve of a person of business speaking in this manner to another human being, let alone a dissatisfied customer.

Our girl seems again, to be out there alone fighting the big fight.

People must have been putting up with this kind of service for a long time to generate a response like that from this man.

The big picture shows us that it takes a lot of guts to go against a bully of any kind.

It hurts and it's not fun.

Some of us just can't help ourselves though.

It's as if the fight was programmed into us, without our will, without the consent of our families and we have no choice.

Steph cried because she can't change the fact that she is a crusader, out there,

speaking up,

.... again.