The Vine: May 27, 2009
About fifteen years ago, my parents split up. They did not divorce and I’ve never really asked why. About a decade ago my dad moved in with a woman I think of as my stepmother.
My mother is partially disabled and her income limited, so she has been living in the house while my father pays the mortgage. For the past few years, though, he has also been in poor health and his business has been borderline, so this is getting tougher for him to do.
My mother can’t pay the mortgage or rent on an apartment, and refuses to go to an income-contingent apartment for people who are disabled. She will not agree to sell because the value is so low, but it’s only going to get worse. Major repairs and redecorating are needed. She can do basic upkeep but she won’t. My dad can’t keep up both households.
About a year ago, we thought we had found a solution. My brother moved in with her and made a handshake rent-to-own deal. But last time I was there, there was an inch of dog hair and debris on the floor, the carpet was ruined, the oven door had fallen off, and there were moldering plates of food in Mom’s room. My brother and mother are barely on speaking terms and he plans to move out as soon as he can get an apartment to accept his credit.
We’re back to square one. I just can’t see any options. I live a couple states away and I can and do help financially, but not enough to support her. What gets me is how she just refuses to help herself or anyone else who is looking out for her. The house is going to fall around her ears, or foreclose, and then what?
What are our options here? Do you have any ideas? She’s a tough broad to live with, and I’d prefer it didn’t come to that, but I’ll do what I have to.
At least it’s my brother’s dog
Dear Least,
Think of it from her perspective.She’s at the mercy of the family, somewhat, and while some people do enjoy being taken care of, others chafe at it — and in any case, she’s not getting taken care of at the moment, really.
Your brother let the house devolve into a shithole; her husband, who functionally left her, can’t pay down that pain with a good standard of living anymore (I don’t know the circumstances of their split, obviously; I’m just thinking out loud here); she can no doubt sense that you want her to move into assisted living or a smaller place or whatever less-desirable situation she thinks you have in mind.
She feels out of control of her own life, maybe, is the point, and maybe refusing to accept reality (where you can see her doing it, anyway), or to ask for or tolerate help, is the only way she feels like she exists, like she’s not a burden or completely dependent.It’s the only active thing she can do, so that’s what she’s doing, and it seems stubborn and self-destructive from the outside — and chances are she knows that.She knows it’s the worst choice, but it’s her choice.
See if you can’t get her to a counselor of some sort — psychological, credit-bureau, any somewhat objective third party she can talk to so it doesn’t feel quite so much like nobody’s on her side.And try talking to her with these control issues in mind; if she’s not competent to take care of herself, that’s a different conversation, but if the real issue is that she has no real say in where she lives or with whom, so she’s going to resist until she does, well, she’s got a point, and working with her to find an alternative she picked out, at least partially, is a good goal.
My grandmother did this kind of thing, when she couldn’t live on her own anymore.She battled my father over a hospital lunch menu for close to an hour one time, just got so upset and mean over the fruit cup, and I could have done without how she talked to Dad, but at the same time, she knew the rest of the meals in her life would come to her on a tray.She couldn’t go get them.And she was pissed.And I don’t blame her.
(I’ve just realized it’s her birthday today.Wherever she is, I hope she’s making tapioca from scratch.Have a happy one, Grandma.)
Hi Sars,
I’ve come across a grammar question at work that has me stumped. Of course, this has occurred while I’m in the midst of moving and my copy of Garner is packed in a box a state away. I’ve looked online, but I cannot find a definitive answer ANYWHERE. So, I thought I’d come to you! Here it is.
There is great debate in the workplace over whether the following sentence requires a question mark at the end:
“Therefore, may we have a final draft of the document for review on April 30 and we will provide commentary by May 2?”
The team charged with editing the document claims the sentence does not need a question mark because it’s a compound sentence. This may be true — I haven’t come across this situation in close to a decade (and therefore cannot remember for sure whether that is correct).
My preference would be to break it up into two simpler sentences — one a question, the other a statement. But that doesn’t seem to be an option. So, could you weigh in? Question mark or period?
Many thanks!
Compound Interrogative?
Dear Comp,
For starters, the sentence needs a comma after “30” to qualify as compound.
To your main question: the question mark isn’t necessarily incorrect as written.If you consider both clauses questions, or as two parts of one larger question when taken together, I think the question mark is okay.
But understanding is that the sentence is asking only about when the final draft will show up, and the May 2 deadline is then a statement (assuming the April 30 deadline is met) — it’s an “if/then” pair, basically, except that the “if” part is a question and the “then” part is a statement premised on the answer to the “if” being “yes.”
…Helpful!Sorry, that was probably too confusing.I agree that it needs rewriting, basically, and if the team really can’t abide having two sentences, tweaking it to “April 30, so that we can provide” or “April 30, which allows us to provide” should do it.But if they just won’t change it, it’s not a horrible usage biff; it just implies something slightly different from what is intended.
Sars,
I have a problem with my local Whole Foods, and I want to complain about it. The trouble is, I have a friend who works there as an assistant manager. I don’t want to be the jerky friend who picks on her about her job, so I don’t want to go to her. But I also feel weird about complaining at all, with a friend working there.
Here’s the problem: the Whole Foods in question is the only one in my entire state, and they are basically a really excellent grocery store, except for at the cash registers. As far as I can tell, the concept of training is abandoned at the front of the store, where cashiers take forever to complete a transaction.
But that’s not the worst of it. Several times, I’ve returned home with my bag of food to find that the softest, most easily damaged produce was put at the bottom of the bag. It turns out that when you put a six-pack of beer on top of strawberries, the produce does not stand a chance.
Of course this is the somewhat more expensive Whole Foods produce, making the loss more painful. But mostly, it’s the inconvenience that makes me crazy, when I go home and find that my food has been damaged. The problem appears to be unique to this store. I go to any Publix in the state and ladies that look like Waffle House employees can bag an entire week’s worth of groceries in 10 seconds flat, without puncturing a single tomato. I go to Whole Foods, and a college girl that looks like one of Botticelli’s models stares vacantly out the window while slowly placing numerous bottles and cans on top of my bananas.
The quality and selection of the food at Whole Foods is much higher than at other stores, which is why I don’t just abandon the store altogether. I don’t want to be the jerk telling the cashier how to bag my groceries, or the jerk that goes through the groceries immediately after the purchase and goes to customer service to complain. And as I stated, I don’t want to be the jerk that gives my friend a hard time at or about her job.
But I also don’t want to have to think so damn hard about my groceries anymore.
Can’t a person have high quality produce, uncrushed food, and uncomplicated friendship at the same time?
In search of whole food at Whole Foods
Dear Whole,
You can’t have it both ways.It’s uncomfortable to tell the bagger that you want it done differently, but either you do it — politely, with a big deferential “so sorry to be That Guy about the tomatoes” smile — or you live with the flattened produce.
I just bag my own; it’s faster, it’s marginally less wasteful (more crap packed into fewer bags is easier for me to carry), and I get to decide whether to put the bleach and the bananas together.If that isn’t an option at Whole Foods, ask the baggers if they wouldn’t mind please putting your produce into the bags last, or if it’s okay if you just do it yourself, and if that doesn’t work, again, you can either live with mushed berries, or nut up and mention to customer service that the food got crushed, despite your specific and courteous intervention trying to avoid the problem.
Presumably the store has other assistant managers besides your friend.Wait until one of them is on duty to complain — or trust your friend to understand, as you should, that it is her job to address customer complaints.You don’t expect special treatment or discounts; you want what you paid for.
And leave the relative aesthetics of the baggers out of it.Venus herself wouldn’t put a ten-pound bag of potatoes on top of a carton of eggs; the issue isn’t that the girl is pretty, it’s that she’s a crappy packer.Focus on the issue.
Tags: etiquette friendships grammar retail the fam
@Judi – not all store set up lend themselves to you being able to lend a hand at bagging. For instance, Wal- mart with their stupid spinning things that always ensure that you forget something, and at my grocery store, there aren’t baggers or a belt behind the cashier for them to put things on, so there’s no chance to help the cashier/bagger. I’ve also had baggers get annoyed with me when I started packing my own stuff at past stores, so I don’t think people are automatically jerks for not helping out. Now, standing there doing nothing and looking annoyed while baggers are running around trying to get other customers handled and you could just as easily bag, that’s a different matter, but it doesn’t really sound like the dealio here.
And I’m a cart sorter, too. The people that bug me are the ones that just put the basket on the belt and don’t even take time to take their stuff out so it takes the cashier even longer to do it. I’ve been tempted to start doing to for them just to speed up the process.
@Isis- Big old WORD to your last paragraph.
I manage a restaurant, not a grocery store, so it’s not quite the same thing, but hey, it’s food-related so here’s my two cents. A good manager wants to know about an issue that is inconveniencing and annoying their customers, period. I’m sure that Whole isn’t the only shopper who has these complaints, and bringing them to her friend’s attention will help her do a more effective job of serving her customers. I would advise Whole to address the issue while her friend is at work (as opposed to during dinner out or at a party or over beers, etc.) and in as neutral a manner as possible. Or, bring it up with another manager if you’re not comfortable mixing business with friendship. But please, address it, because you are definitely doing the store a favor by doing so.
I’m with everyone else in arranging groceries on the conveyor belt in the order that I think they should be bagged. However, I also think that if Whole goes to her friend, while at the grocery store, and explains the customer service issues, preferably without any remarks about the employees’ educational attainment or attractiveness, it’s not going to cause any undue drama. You’re a paying customer and she’s at work. Also, if you thoughtfully pre-arrange your groceries and the cashier still mangles your produce, I don’t think it makes you a jerk to ask for a separate bag for your strawberries (or something), for example.
Least – My heart goes out to you; I was in a similar situation with my father, and it was tough. For years, he insisted on “managing” his living situation, and resisting my and my sister’s attempts to get him into a supervised residence, although he was disabled to the point where he could not even get up and make his own meals. He actually had a young couple move in with him to “take care” of him – unbeknownst to him, they were plotting to get him to sign his property over to them – and when I called or stopped by and urged him to consider alternatives, he would absolutely insist that he had everything under control. I could make no headway, and quit trying, until I got a call from his local Office for the Aging – from a caseworker who asked me “Did you know that your father doesn’t have any money to pay for his medicines?”
I went to see Dad and took him to the bank, where we discovered he was overdrawn by hundreds of dollars, with no money coming in for weeks; went shopping to make sure he had some food in the house, and then I took him out for lunch. I said, as kindly as I could, that I knew he’d wanted to managed things his way, and that worked for a while, but based on what we saw, it’s not working anymore. I asked him to start thinking about other options, and said I would work with him to figure out what they might be. It was a start. What finally pushed him over the hump was finally realizing that the young couple was up to no good; he called me to tell me about the property grab plan, and I basically kidnapped him from a doctor’s appointment, and took him home with me. From there, we eventually got him to a nursing home. He doesn’t love it, but it’s what he needed.
I agree that it’s all about personal control. Perhaps the local County/City Social Services Department can offer some help, as they did in my father’s case. If they have options for assisted living, and can help with counseling or even monetary assistance, it may be a good start. They can deal directly with her, and likely have the experience to do so creatively, so that she’s making some of the choices about her situation. Even a small bit of autonomy may help her come to grips with a solution. I wish you well.
@Least: I’d like to add that it’s possible that, in addition to what’s already been mentioned, your mother may be suffering from depression. Not being *able* to clean up is one thing – but you said that your mother just doesn’t care about keeping the house in a state where she can at least live in it, which sounds like at least a degree of depression to me. (Keeping in mind, of course, that I am not a doctor in any way, so yeah – grain of salt here, and get her checked out by a real doctor before doing anything about the depression that may or may not exist.)
As has already been mentioned, though, she probably feels like she’s lost control of her life, and that’s probably fueling the depression (if it exists).
You really do need to sit down with her, possibly with a counselor of some kind, and get this out in the open. Then you need to start helping her get some kind of control back – give her options to choose from.
Does she want to stay in the house? Okay – get estimates on how much it’ll cost to clean the place up and make it livable. Suggest that maybe someone from the local community college or high school should be hired to help with the parts of regular upkeep that your mom just can’t manage. (Trust me, there are dozens of kids in college who’ll cheerfully take on an everyday task like that, if it nets them enough that paying for food *and* that textbook the professor has made mandatory.)
Does she want to move somewhere more manageable? Look around with her, and see what’s available that would work for her.
Work with her on this. Because, yeah, you could move in with her – but you don’t really want to, and she’ll sense it, and things will just get that little bit worse.
@Least I looked at your letter again and this statement, “What gets me is how she just refuses to help herself or anyone else who is looking out for her” could go either way for me. When my dad was in the pits of a really bad depression (when we had to have him checked into the mental health unit), this could describe him (and oh boy, was it frustrating). On the other hand, it could describe someone who is really just being stubborn and/or complacent about the mess, money, etc. Not being there, I can’t say and I’m not trying to scare you. but it could be that your mom isn’t so much refusing as incapable at this moment. A social worker or nurse or someone else with a trained eye might be able to help make this determination. Is there any chance its time for your mom to go in for a physical (and that you could leave a message for the doctor to screen her very closely for depression or other mental illness)?
I appreciate all the recommendations regarding the lineup on the conveyor belt. I can’t believe I’ve never thought of that. I realize now that my produce is going on the belt first, because it is on top of all the other stuff in my cart so that I won’t crush it. It will take a little shuffling at the register to dig up the heavy stuff and put it on the belt first. However, perhaps this effort will demonstrate to the cashier that I’m concerned about my produce. I’m also going to start asking for separation of delicate items. As noted, it’s not that big of a deal to ask, especially if I’m polite enough to group them all together.
I’m going to talk to my friend, while she’s at work, minus rude comments that are unrelated to actual job performance. I decided I’d actually prefer to talk to someone I know than someone I don’t.
And as for those rude comments – I was being mean. I was really frustrated when I wrote Sars, and my thoughts were “why is it so hard for someone who is presumably partially college-educated to do this, when someone who is presumably not college-educated can do it so well?” But really, education doesn’t come into it. It’s most likely all about personal motivation to do a job well, and you tend to get less of that with people who don’t think of the job as a career.
I picked on the college girls because I was once a college girl working a cash register, and I did care about doing the job right. So I get annoyed at people who clearly don’t care. But I should drop that attitude, because it will just make me insane. Just don’t crush my fruit, lady. That’s all I ask.
I am going to have to show my husband all these replies regarding placement of groceries on the conveyor. He gives me a hard time about taking so long to unload that cart and can’t understand why I want all the cold stuff together, all the cans together, all the non food items together. Now I can show him that I am not a lone crazy person that wants to be particular about my groceries.
@ Whole: You acknowledged that you were being mean, so I’m sorry I said you were a jerk. It’s really nothing to ask for some things to be bagged separately.
@ René Chavis: Are you from Louisiana? Chavis is one of those names.
The letter re: Whole Foods baggers could have been written by me. I believe it’s a failing of the store’s policy with regard to “training” their baggers for I live in Colorado and have repeatedly left the store with bags full of smashed bread and produce.
The first time it happened, I thought very little of it and next week simply put the heavier items out first with the lighter weight items last. Out of the five bags I brought in with me, two were over-filled and incredibly heavy while the third contained nothing but the light-weight items and my two remaining bags. /sigh And this scenario has happened over and over and over again. I’ve asked for them to bag my groceries “properly” and get smiles with inadequate results. It’s as if I’d never said a word.
So now, I grumble quietly to myself and make my husband wait while rearrange my bags in the car so that no permanent harm happens to my pricey produce on the trip home.
AnnaN – if you’re actually telling people “please bag my groceries properly” then your results will undoubtedly be mixed. If not, disregard this, but I think it’s always important to keep in mind that people are much more likely to do something for you when asked in a way that says “hey, here’s what I need” and not “I already know you’re going to do this completely wrong so allow me to spell it out slowly.” In my book, telling someone to do something “properly” comes off as a not-so-subtle implication that you assume they are going to do it improperly. For that, they’ll hate you.
Maybe it’s just the way you worded your comment, in which case carry on.
@ Whole:
My husband did a stint in his younger days as a bagger, and whenever we go to the store he grumbles if the bagger does it wrong. So now we “help” by pulling things off after they’ve been scanned already and don’t need to be in a bag, or rearrange things so that the bagger will grab the berries next. Y’know, the stuff people already suggested. :)
You guys are a lot more kind than me – I will rearrange bags right in front of the person, and have been known to go so far as to reach into a bag they’re loading to fix an item.
I’ve found that dividing up the groceries (I keep my produce and bread in the seat area so that it’s easier to get to), combined with a hawk-like intensity to the checkout/bagging process leads to good results.
That and molding a clerk to your needs, and then always going through their line. But I’m neurotic. :)
@ René Chavis: In addition to showing your husband the list, if you are frustrated because he truly doesn’t understand why you’re rearranging the produce, you can always give him a Live Exhibit:
Make him a sandwich on bread which has been thoroughly mashed; or
Put some nice, fresh strawberries in a bowl, and mash them up with a bottle of beer. Serve him the Berries And Beer Bowl.
When he looks at you as if you’ve gone crazy, explain that THIS is what he’d be getting if you didn’t sort your groceries the way you do.
This should help make it clear. Or, if not, it should at least be fun for you to do.
I was a cashier in high school and lots of customers would micromanage how I bagged: “can you put all the frozen stuff together?” “I’d like all the fruit in the same bag, please.” etc. I had absolutely no problem as most customers were polite and told me how they wanted it BEFORE I started bagging it. Try that next time – it just might work.
@ Brother’s Dog – I work in a Home Health department. Trust me… we see this kind of thing a lot. If she goes to her Dr at all, call 1 hour before her next appointment and see if he can talk to her about her situation. (don’t bring up history, just her current standard of living) If she has a lot of trouble getting into and out of her house, she may be elig. for nurses to come to her. (and s ometimes that comes with chore service, as well)
Then… there is the level that we call Health and Safety. if her health/safety is at risk. Make an annon. call to the Adult Protective Services. They will come out and assess her. If she’s deemed that she can’t take care of herself, the state will step in, and while it’s a pain in the butt… it sounds like you need an impartial person to step in and either vindicate you and get things done, or to tell you that it’s all going to be ok, and she’s alright as is.
Good Luck!
Isis – It’s not a big deal. Sometimes a person needs to be told she’s being a jerk.
AnnaN – I feel your pain. And I honestly worry that all the “talking to management” in the world won’t change the situation. I wonder about the training too, because it’s not like I keep going back to the only lousy cashier over and over, hoping that this time she’ll do better. I’ve gotten crushed food from a great variety of cashiers. But having listened to what everyone here has to say about it, I think the basic principals of bagging should be clearly understood, regardless of training, by most people. At that point, I get the feeling that many of these cashiers just don’t want to make any effort at all, and my only option is to do lots of pre-checkout arranging, ask them to bag produce separately, etc.
@Whole, everytime I pay for my groceries, I will set out my stuff on the cash register according to when I want them packed. So I put out stuff in the order I want them packed, heavy stuff first, the middle stuff second and the fragile stuff last. This way, no one gets upset. It makes me look terribly anal, but I AM anal and nothing disturbs me more than messily placed purchases on a conveyor belt and the possibility of cross contamination, so *shrug*.
I just got back from the grocery store, where all the heavy cans went first, then the frozen/cold stuff, then the meat, then the produce, then the delicate items. It’s really no big deal, and everything is pretty much bagged the way I like it.
If you put stuff in your cart with this process in mind then it’s even easier at the check-out stand to unload your cart.
@ Whole: This is why I loved the idea of Whole Foods (I lived near the Whole Foods “world headquarters” up until very recently) finally toying with the idea of self-checkout. Sure it’s a pain in the ass to look up produce SKU, but once you get the hang of self-scanning (a Whole Foods clerk was nice enough to teach me how to do it, which is how I found out I had been doing it wrong at other chains for years), it’s totally worth it.
I’ve also found that bringing your own eco-friendly tote actually helps insofar as being able to guide the cashier as to how you want your stuff bagged, because most of them will actually let you hold the bag and allow you to rearrange stuff. Now, I just have to make a habit of always keeping it in the car. =P
Least: Hire a geriatric care manager to make an assessment of your mother’s situation. To find a good GCM, call around to law firms in your Mom’s neighborhood — look for law firms that specialize in probate, wills, trusts, estate planning, elder law — not real estate, not corporate, not personal injury, not divorce law — and ask for a recommendation.
GCMs typically are RNs who deal one-on-one with a client. They know public benefits available in the area, know who can help and how, are an independent and qualified advocate for your Mom. They take the family drama out of the equation. They typically charge by the hour.
A good GCM will figure out what your Mom is capable of, what type of living situation she can handle and what she wants to handle, and can pull together all of the moving parts. They are the best thing since sliced bread when dealing with your elders.
Here in the UK we pack all our shopping at supermarkets and we’re actively encouraged to bring our own bags (some of the supermarkets give extra loyalty points for doing this). I lived in Canada for a while where obviously there are packing staff, and it felt very odd having someone else bag everything up. We have 4 or 5 bags we re-use and as others have said, we group items together for ease of packing and unpacking. But you should say something – you won’t be the only one this is winding up and they should care enough to do something about it.
To Bria:
I should have been more specific in my comment and not put “properly” in quotation marks. The marks were to denote what I considered to be proper and not the actual use of the word. I said something along the lines of, “please don’t put the crushables at the bottom of the bag”.
I’ve decided to just bag my own and let the bagger drift down the line of registers and “help” someone else. Heee.
I guess I’m that guy…
I watched a kid load cans on top of a cake & before I even knew it was me making all that racket, I hollered “WE NEED A MANAGER OVER HERE RIGHT AWAY!” and showed her what happened. The kid was new, (and I’m sorry, but the kid was stupid -who doesn’t know better than to do this, really, who?) and the manager showed the kid what to do & then had him run to the bakery for a new cake. I don’t even feel badly about it. I don’t even feel as though I SHOULD feel badly about it. I’d’ve felt badly if I’d shoved that cake up his ass, but I restrained myself. Y’all are so much nicer than I am.
Least, my heart goes out to you. I would suggest “either/or” statements with your mom…narrow her choices to “this-or-that” decisions & let her make the decision. “Mend this right now, or throw it out?” “Hire the guy to fix the washing machine or have it hauled off & go to the laundromat?” – that sort of thing. Then these are her own decisions, broken down into bite-sized pieces. It helps a lot, in my experience. Best of luck to you!