I have needed to have several things contracted out at our home recently. It has been a struggle to work with their time frames … they are narrow and not so accommodating. As a result, in order to work with them, I had to cancel or shift around several of the things normally in my schedule. Which made me feel bad. Rude. Inconsiderate.
This began with a shed, which was part one of a hay effort; they told me there was a 3-5 WEEK wait; so I moved ahead with the other factor - I was going to have the hay delivered on time because we all know that you 'make hay while the sun shines'. And 'the early bird gets the worm' – translated, this means, if you don't buy your hay when it's available, it goes up in price and may actually run out before you get it.
So now I arrange for my hay to be delivered before the shed and rearrange my life to be there when it comes. The shed company calls and says, "We will be there Thursday sometime between 12 and 4." (which is in five DAYS, not weeks). Sigh. I cancel my cello lesson. I rearrange meetings. I postpone the hay. (Which, consequently means I now have to ration it, as I am very close to being out). I have to contact tractor-guy post-haste to level the ground, because shed-guys don't do that sort of thing.
Tractor-guy shows up a half hour early, which means I am not even home and I get to pay for the time he was waiting.
Shed-guys show up THE NIGHT BEFORE at dusk and ask if they can put it up at 7 AM? I say, "No, can you come back at 8?" They say, "NO".
Sigh once more. Now I cannot water my lawn / field, because their behemoth truck / trailer will destroy the ground if it is wet. However, we can only water every other day and we only have enough pressure from 3:00 am to 8:00 … furthermore, I should tell my cello teacher that I actually can come, because it is frustrating on her end for me to cancel and reschedule etc …
In the end, I got up at 6:30 and shed guys didn't come til 8:30. Then hay guy came three hours later, instead of three days later as scheduled.
When people say they will do something in a certain time frame, and then they don't, the ripple effect is pretty substantial. So their inconsideration now becomes MY inconsideration.
And I don't like how that feels.