Friend says I treated her "like an errand boy".

[Anonymous]

Not that it matters but I wouldn't have gone to the post office. The line is always about 10 deep and moves very slowly. I would have just gone to FedEx since you were going to pay for it. But if she stood in line for 30 minutes on top of going to your house to find the item, put it in an envelope and address it she may have been a little annoyed at the hassle.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What was worth $250 to overnight that you couldn't just buy new?

+1 that's the bigger question here. Fill us in OP.

I'm not OP but I was thinking it was something along the lines of prescription medicine that wasn't ready for refill or a prescription nightguard (I can't sleep without mine and my teeth are jacked so the off-the-shelf ones don't work for me).

[Anonymous]

She sounds difficult.

I was expecting this to be something you had a habit of doing. I hope she doesn’t expect anyone to do anything for her in a similar situation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, I think we need to see the note you sent her asking for the favor.
Or did you call her?

I think her offense might have come from the way you asked.

I said, "Hey ____, I have a huge favor to ask and you can totally say no. Absolutely no worries if you do!" She said it was no problem and that she would be happy to help. I told her that the door code was still the same as last time and where to find the item.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op here,

This is the full message she sent:

"Larla, I got the cash app. Thanks. I just want to say in the future, please don't regard me as your errand boy."

FWIW, I sent the cash app before she even went to the PO. I just wanted it to be done so she wouldn't be waiting around for her reimbursement. Also, no there was no implication that she had to do it. I even said in the message, "if you can't, no worries at all!" and meant it because I have a few local friends I could ask.

I think you are overreacting to this. It sounds like she's annoyed. Perhaps the favor was more burdensome than you realize (maybe it took a lot longer than you think to find the item and get it shipped, maybe she ran into irritating challenges at the shipping place, maybe she was having a stressful day of her own when you asked it of her), and it turns out that it was a really disruptive favor. It's okay for her to express her frustration with that, especially if she thinks you may not realize it was a big deal.

And she's setting a boundary for the future -- next time, don't call her for something like this. Now you know. Sure, it would have been better if she'd just told you at the time "this is too much for me, can you ask someone else?" But maybe she thought it wouldn't be that bad, or maybe she really wanted to come through for you in that moment and only realized once she was in the middle of it that it was more burdensome than she thought.

At the end of the day, you are the one who made a mistake and needed her help. She's a little put out, she's let you know she can't help you next time. Just thank her again and move on.

This and once she committed to it, there was no need to throw a fit about it. Either do it or don't but don't get mad that you agreed to do something knowing the full story ahead of agreeing. She's acting like she was put upon but she signed up for it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, I think we need to see the note you sent her asking for the favor.
Or did you call her?

I think her offense might have come from the way you asked.

I said, "Hey ____, I have a huge favor to ask and you can totally say no. Absolutely no worries if you do!" She said it was no problem and that she would be happy to help. I told her that the door code was still the same as last time and where to find the item.

Not really making a strong argument against you treating her as an errand boy here.

Listen, you asked for a pretty big favor and said it's fine if she said no. Be true to your word that it's fine if, after doing you the favor, she now says no more.

[Anonymous]

What was the “item” OP?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If she was okay going to your house and doing this for you when you asked, then the social norm you broke was by paying her $100+ to do it above shipping cost. It's either a favor (repay the cost of shipping) or a TaskRabbit (pay them for their time).

Who gets mad about getting paid for being inconvenienced?

Someone who was doing a favor for a friend and made to feel cheap by the payment. This could be a particular problem in this friendship if OP has more money and throws it around regularly. Anyway, I don't see where it says she was mad, she just told OP how she made her feel. Cue everyone calling her names because she used her big girl words instead of stewing over it or going to DCUM to vent.

Yeah, one nonsensical sentence is really "big girl words". I'm sure this was really fun for you to come type out though.

Thanks for letting us know you don’t know what “nonsensical” means.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What was worth $250 to overnight that you couldn't just buy new?

+1 that's the bigger question here. Fill us in OP.

I'm not OP but I was thinking it was something along the lines of prescription medicine that wasn't ready for refill or a prescription nightguard (I can't sleep without mine and my teeth are jacked so the off-the-shelf ones don't work for me).

I would have thought medication, but there’s no way that costs anywhere near that much to send via the post office. Even overnight mail is in the $20-ish range.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is this that bad? I had to suddenly leave and go out of town. I realize that I left something important at home. I asked my friend if she could go to my house, get it, take it to the PO and overnight it to me. I told her I would of course pay for the shipping and compensate her for gas, etc. She agreed to do it and I cash app'd her $250. After she mailed it, she sent me the rec from the PO. It was $65 to ship. I thanked her profusely and confirmed that she got the cash app. Later that night she sent me a text saying how I treated her like an "errand boy". I'm confused as to what social norm I broke here?

She's a jerk. Sorry. If she didn't want to do it, she shoudl have said no. This is the type of things friends do for each other.

[Anonymous]

I don't think she's a jerk. I think we're getting one side of the story and OP should probably just reach out to her friend once she's back in town and see what's up. This is not a conversation to be had via text.

It's very possible that this favor was much more difficult to execute than OP had originally let on or than the friend realized at the time, and the annoyance is stemming from that. A friend once asked me to get something from her house and it was way more of a hassle than she let on -- she had key that stuck in the lock and required like five minutes of maneuvering to make work, while I was doing this her neighbor showed up and started hassling me because they thought I was breaking in, her house was a wreck, the item I was picking up wasn't where she said it would be, etc. It was annoying and would have been annoying even if she'd paid me for my trouble.

I'll also note that this friend had a tendency to ask for favors a lot, and I figure out (around the time as that errand to her house) that she was a super disorganized person who often leaned on other people to help fix messes she got herself in because she was very forgetful/irresponsible. She'd always be super nice about these requests but it wore thin after a while and I also had to set some boundaries similar to what OP's friend is saying here.

We are only getting OP's version of the story. There's a reason her friend is annoyed and it's not because she feels OP didn't give her enough money. It's something else OP either doesn't know about or isn't disclosing on purpose because it makes her look bad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, I think we need to see the note you sent her asking for the favor.
Or did you call her?

I think her offense might have come from the way you asked.

I said, "Hey ____, I have a huge favor to ask and you can totally say no. Absolutely no worries if you do!" She said it was no problem and that she would be happy to help. I told her that the door code was still the same as last time and where to find the item.

Not really making a strong argument against you treating her as an errand boy here.

Listen, you asked for a pretty big favor and said it's fine if she said no. Be true to your word that it's fine if, after doing you the favor, she now says no more.

Last time she came to my home when I wasn’t there was not to do me a favor. She was coming over and I was stuck in traffic so I told her to go in and I’d be there soon

[Anonymous]

Who the F gets mad at a generous thank you that is money? Y’all get so hung up about money. My best friend would have been like oh you did not have to do that! Hey let’s go to a fun dinner my treat. And “paid it back” so to speak.

There are two currencies in the world. Time and money. She spent time so OP paid her money.

[Anonymous]

[quote=Anonymous]Op here,

This is the full message she sent:

"Larla, I got the cash app. Thanks. I just want to say in the future, please don't regard me as your errand boy."

FWIW, I sent the cash app before she even went to the PO. I just wanted it to be done so she wouldn't be waiting around for her reimbursement. Also, no there was no implication that she had to do it. I even said in the message, "if you can't, no worries at all!" and meant it because I have a few local friends I could ask. [/quote]

I see nothing wrong with her text. You asked her to drop everything and do an immediate, time consuming task for you. To be clear, this wasn’t a favor, you paid her for it. You treated her like a paid assistant.

She apparently is a great friend and did it for you. Now she’s letting you know that she didn’t appreciate it and not to do it again.

I think she’s 100% within her right to let you know not to put her out like that again. You put her in a position where she basically couldn’t say no, so she complied with your request. But that was a big ask.

[Anonymous]

I don’t think this is such a “huge” favor. I would do it in a second for a friend, with zero resentment. But it sounds like she was having a crappy day (maybe someone else asked her to do something? Maybe her parents always treated her like an errand boy?) so I would just apologize and move on.