How not to ask for favors |:-(

amother

Slateblue

Fri, Jan 27 2017, 12:23 am

Bizzydizzymommy wrote:

I had a neighbor ask me if DH was home, since she needed her couch to be moved and didn't want to ask her Chashuv kollel husband to do such menial work. I answered " Sorry, DH is not home" even though he was. People can seriously be rude with the "best" intentions. Or at least in their farkrumte mind it's the best of intentions.

Almost sounds like it could have been me.
I'd ask a neighbors if her husband could do a quick favor, and she'd question me why my husband isn't avail... I'd tell her cuz he is always learning and never has a chance to lets say move the couch, but I'd leave out his OCD part about his obsessive learning, and his using his learning as a means to escape life....

Aylat

Fri, Jan 27 2017, 6:27 am

Did she actually say, "I won't ask my husband to do it bec he's so chashuv"? Maybe he has a slipped disc or a medical condition that means he can't shlep things.

Aylat

Fri, Jan 27 2017, 6:36 am

I'm happy I apparently know people who are respectful and generous. I let my neighbour use our internet on the occasions she needs just as she kindly offered to let me use her washing machine when ours was out of commission for a fortnight. She has never spoken disparagingly about our choice to have internet. And we are from very different cultures and backgrounds, I could imagine her looking down on as 'less frum' - but she absolutely doesn't.

My BIL doesn't hold by certain eruvim (his wife and kids do - he doesn't impose his chumrot on them) and he has never asked us to carry things around for him.

Ditto family members who eat only certain hechsherim - always polite, never demanding.

I am grateful I haven't really encountered this other attitude people are talking about.

allthingsblue

Fri, Jan 27 2017, 7:13 am

amother wrote:

sixofwands- that's the halacha. I can't shlep with my husband but I can with someone else, I can't pass something to my husband but I can to someone else. I'm not saying it's not awkward but it is muttar so if you are desperate. Usually though the case would be that the husband would find another guy instead of his wife which doesn't work with the current story.
I happen to find the shlepping a really annoying harchaka. One month my dh said to me so after you come back from the mikvah later this week we will move x upstairs. My husband's handy so passing stuff with him, moving stuff with him is all very normal when I'm tahor.

Actually I'm pretty sure that if it's heavy furniture and there's no other way to do it, it's allowed.

amother

Silver

Fri, Jan 27 2017, 12:36 pm

I was referring to stuff that didn't need to be done just then, but I can ask for next time.

also I didn't get the other posters comment about what I wrote- can someone explain?

amother

Lawngreen

Fri, Jan 27 2017, 1:22 pm

Dh is in Hatzolah. Way too many examples!

- Wife didn't let her husband who was having a major appendix attack go into an ambulance on Shabbos. She wanted him to walk to the hospital!

- Mother who made her kid tell the dispatcher what was going on cuz she didn't want to talk on the phone on Shabbos! The dispatcher told the kid to give the phone to his mother. The kid answered that he can't cuz its Shabbos. Dispatcher answered "tell your mother it's also Shabbos for me!!"

Always interesting when people call Hatzolah but then don't want to do what they have to next cuz it's Shabbos. Kind of weird when you just got 2 members to come rushing with lights and sirens, one dispatcher on the phone, a rig pulled, and now you are worried about your shemiras Shabbos.

Of course, the Hatzolah members understand and even see the beauty in the fact that people are so sensitive to Shabbos, but they don't realize how it sounds to the Hatzolah members, like their shemiras Shabbos is not important.

amother

Royalblue

Sun, Jan 29 2017, 1:18 am

Chayalle wrote:

Someone once asked us if we could host a certain guest for Shabbos, whom she wasn't comfortable hosting around her kids.

whoa.
Dh once invited a young man whom I wasn't comfortable with. I sent my DC to sleep at the neighbors, not the guest.

amother

Coral

Sun, Jan 29 2017, 2:42 am

A stranger I conversed with asked me if she can make a phone call on my phone because her phone wasn't working. I hand it to her and she doesn't take it. Instead she says "how do I use it? can you dial for me?" so I do then I hand it to her and she is still standing with her hands at her side so I put it on speaker and held it near her mouth. For at least 6 calls! to different car services to find someone to pick her up at the out of the way location we were both at. It sounds long but it all happened so fast. I was so bewildered and couldn't figured out what was wrong until I realized that my phone is a SMART PHONE. (not a kosher phone) I felt used and stupid that I let someone make a fool of me like that.

salt

Sun, Jan 29 2017, 3:19 am

amother wrote:

I don't understand, she didn't know how to use it or handle it, so she asked you to dial, or she didn't want to contaminate herself by touching a non-kosher phone?

abound

Sun, Jan 29 2017, 3:26 am

amother wrote:

Just so you realize how it sounds, I understand why you are doing that. But in order not to make yourself or shalom bayis or husband look bad by saying, I keep asking him but he is not doing it and I really need it done, you are making yourself look great and her husband bad, by saying my husband learns all day and has no time to do things, your husband........well he has time.
I am not sure how you can word it so that no one looks bad... but try to think of something else.

amother

Coral

Sun, Jan 29 2017, 4:47 am

salt wrote:

I don't understand, she didn't know how to use it or handle it, so she asked you to dial, or she didn't want to contaminate herself by touching a non-kosher phone?

I thought she didn't know how to use it. Maybe she actually didn't but once I dialed and it rang all you need to do is take it and talk so I guess it was contaminated

FranticFrummie

Sun, Jan 29 2017, 5:45 am

amother wrote:

I thought she didn't know how to use it. Maybe she actually didn't but once I dialed and it rang all you need to do is take it and talk so I guess it was contaminated

I could have been that lady. I have a kosher phone. Not because I am so holy, but because smart phones confuse the heck out of me. Scratching Head

DD and DH have them, and every single time they hand one to me, one of my fingers accidentally touches the screen somewhere, I have no idea how, and the next thing I know I'm disconnected, I'm in some app, or I'm playing a video game! Honestly, I am HOPELESS with those things.

I know everyone says they can't live without them, but to me, it's some kind of scary devil-magic. I just want to push buttons and talk, without other things happening!

amother

Pink

Sun, Jan 29 2017, 8:10 am

amother wrote:

I thought she didn't know how to use it. Maybe she actually didn't but once I dialed and it rang all you need to do is take it and talk so I guess it was contaminated

Classic example of the way a lashon hara story mutates. Honestly, why would you extrapolate that from this story?
you did a favor for her, you leant her your phone, but she didn't know how to use it. Like you said, it took very short so what's the big deal? She was obviously stuck.

33055

Sun, Jan 29 2017, 8:33 am

amother wrote:

I totally get coral. I think her interpretation is right. I have been in that situation where people want the benefit but not the contamination. I have had that with my smart phone. People want the information but don't want to use it. I have had women say things like "my father doesn't let me touch" the phone.

livinginflatbus

Sun, Jan 29 2017, 9:17 am

This reminds me of a simcha in the family where everyone came in . They used the one aunt who holds by the eiruv to transport everyone's babies stuffed in a double stroller . She was so horrified she said she's never being the shabbos [gentile] again

sushilover

Sun, Jan 29 2017, 1:55 pm

a coworker spent literally months disparaging the fact that I have internet and then asked to come over and use mine.

I have absolutely no problem at all with someone not wanting internet in their own home and using mine when they need it. I only have a problem when they make you feel less frum while asking, like OP said.

I wouldn't have blinked if someone asking me to open a soda bottle, as long as they didn't accompany that request with "hey, sushi- you don't keep shabbos as beautifully as we do."

Ema of 5

Sun, Jan 29 2017, 2:00 pm

Bizzydizzymommy wrote:

My husband brought a gown home with him as a favor for someone. The wife asked me to take pictures and THEN she would decide if she wanted to keep it. I told her I couldn't. Then she asked if my husband could drop it off at her house because she didn't want to bother her husband to drive "all the way" to our house- it's a MAX 10 minute drive. He ended up taking it back without her ever attempting to come get it.

amother

Seagreen

Sun, Jan 29 2017, 2:14 pm

Hey op amother babypink

Is this what you intended by this thread? Because it was a cryptic comment to start with and you've had many replies but never came back to tell us. So just wondering how this thread turned out for you?

amother

Turquoise

Sun, Jan 29 2017, 2:32 pm

Squishy wrote:

on a KMR (just to tell you what the crowd was like - don't ask how we ended up there) someone asked my husband to take a video of him and send it to his son. so my husband tried passing him the phone so he could type in his son's email address. he refused to touch the phone lol. don't think dh ever ended up sending the video.