Oh No I won't !!

 

Pantomime season will be among us soon, but I borrowed the title of this blog for an unfortunate different reason. It's a sad fact of life that there's a lot of  'Cannot Do' out there. We've all come across it and here's the deal, it's not going to stop. I find myself, more often than not, sitting on the boundary with people or indeed situations I find myself getting into, so I tend to attract my share of this negativity over the years. 

So before you read the piece below, which incidentally happened to me yesterday, I want to point out and make clear that in these situations, it's not about right or wrong, so you need to remove that perception from your mind straight away.  

It's more about doing the right thing, not necessarily in a jump to attention fashion.As I always say, beggers can't be choosers. Ask nicely, be polite, mindful they have and you want and generally things tend to work out. 

Or so you would think.. 

The Can't Do because I couldn't be bothered (or arsed) to:

Yesterday I had to make a phone call to a large organisation to request a particular document be emailed out to me. This was my second time to make this courtesy call, I did the same last month and received my file. 

But yesterday's request went a bit askew, with the same person from last month that took my call. I explained what I needed and that I was on sick leave hence I was not in a position to retrieve the document myself. 

All I got was a "hmmmm, aaaammmm, you know I can't  be doing this for you every time". 

This is a simple PDF single page file that I am asking to be forwarded, it's a 2, maybe 3 mouse click exercise. 

Why I asked, I'm calling the right department here, right ?

"This is the last time so, we are understaffed here"  I'm bluntly told. 

Don't get me wrong, I was not looking for special treatment here, this request was totally within the remit of the person I was asking.  I'm still waiting on it by the way, and it's financially related so reasonably important and definitely time sensitive for me. 

It was on the tip of my tongue to say to this person that I would gladly swap roles with them in a heartbeat and then qualify what I meant by disclosing my personal sick leave situation. 

I pulled back immediately!

My gut feeling told me to just stop. Back off. I was going to lower myself down to a new common denominator here if I wasn't careful. I have a 'Cannot Do' person here on the phone. These class of people are not of my makeup. 

And here's the rub, I ended the call by giving this individual a very helpful short cut process albeit back door pertinent to their dept that they never even knew existed and then they proceeding to tell me that "it couldn't be done".  Until I asked them to try it there and then. Viola "It worked" I'm told.  

This persons attitude didn't appear to change though, and No, I wasn't really expecting it to. I just wanted to prove my nature over theres and I think I done that !

'Can Do' will always win the day. 

As for this individual, they lost again and are totally oblivious to the fact. 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I suppose there's  a lesson in the above for us all, me included by the way !!

None of us know what's going on with that other person. 

That important order you are waiting on confirmation of ? Maybe that Mum or Dad looking after it for you just spent last night with there young child in hospital. 

That person you see getting out of their vehicle in a disabled carparking space, not all disabilities are 

visible, are they ? Nope !!

Thanks as always for reading this blog.