difficult children need to get together and write a novel called "Classic manipulations." My son went a bit farther in his manipulation. His old workplace had a boss who never allowed anyone to take a day off of work unless it was a family emergency. He did not give vacation time or paid sick days. He believed you come to work unless you were dead, which gave difficult child ideas.
Apparently, on top of his bosses ridicules time off rules, he was a big "family man" and bragged that he lived with his parents until he was forty????!!!!! and his twins who were 25 lived at home and got toys as if they were two years old. So the only way Son could get a day off was to claim a family emergency. And it had better be good.
Can you guess what he said? It worked.
Probably not.
He told his boss that his father died. There is something really perverse about this, in my mind. His father used to call him at work, but he was not able to after that and his father was also puzzled and ticked off. But Son wanted time off and he got it, along with sympathy that he didn't deserve. Did Son think of maybe looking for another job? Well, yes, but to be fair, he spent three years looking, the economy was horrible, and he couldn't get one and he NEEDED time off to destress.
I agree with Son that his boss was nuts and his no-vacation rule was goofy, although he paid Son very well. However, saying your father is DEAD???? Really???????? Not sick. Not maybe dying. Not on his last leg. DEAD????
I think both of these lies come under "You know you are a difficult child if...."
MWM and Lil have recently mentioned the phone calls from their children that come one after the other until they finally answer the phone. My son engages in this most annoying, frustrating and immature habit. The fact that he is in jail has curtailed this bombardment of annoying calls. He only gets 50 min. of calls a month. This month he ran out of min. by the 15th of the month. Leave it to a difficult child to find a way to get around the rules. I was at dinner with my mother at a really nice restaurant, having a lovely evening, when my phone rang. I looked at caller id and answered thinking because of the late hour and the phone # it could be an emergency. His case manager said that she was going to allow difficult child a couple of min. on the phone because he was so worried about me since I was in the hospital and deathly ill. I was $%%^$. He got on the phone and I let him have it. I also let his case manager know about his manipulation. If he would just put that much thought and effort into doing the right thing ....Geesh.
list! Even if he did manage to talk me into calling her cell, once I heard the non-hospital back ground noise I would then question her about what was going on. If she stated that she was in the hospital, I'd then get the information from her to re-verify that she was actually in the hospital. We regularly have family members who assist with the scams. If I couldn't verify this, the offender would then receive a Conduct Violation for Giving False Information and Theft by Deceit and I would talk to his case manager and see about getting him charged for the phone call anyway!
