Having ADD or ADHD is irritating just in the fact that you have to HAVE something. I HAVE ADD. When I would start to tell people I had ADD (During happy hour yesterday, I announced to a bunch of Jason's co-workers that I had an ADD blog) I would feel stupid. I would feel like I was sporting the latest and coolest THING to have. I just assumed that with all the psycho babble mumbo jumbo flying around these days, people would assume that I had self described myself as having ADD and that it was just an excuse for being lazy or rude or both...
“Oh, I'm sorry... I know I was babysitting your two year old and she's now lost... but, well, I have ADD... sorry.”
“Oh... did the house just burn down? Oops! Well, I have ADD...”
“I know, I wasn't paying attention, we should have gone south instead of north... so this is Canada?”
On a serious level, there are MANY times that Jason has apparantly told me some information, nescessary info and I didn't hear him. It was and is VERY frustrating for him. Just now, I was going through a huge stack of papers and shit on my desk and I found (so far) TWO letters to him that got shuffled into MY pile somehow or another. One of them was a birthday card unopened. I knew he would be mad. I just don't like to think that he is mad at me or thinks that I did it on purpouse. Jason is pretty good and laying a guilt trip. I just feel really STUPID, yes, stupid that I did that. Jason looks at me kind of scared. “I just wonder what ELSE is in there.” Yes, the ominous ADD pile... the black hole... it actually HAS gravitational pull.
But he knows that I have ADD and that I didn't do it on purpouse. But still, it is scary. But my question is... can I use ADD AS an excuse? Going through my papers, I just found the temporary Car registration I am supposed to keep in my car. So if I got pulled over and a cop was going to then give me a ticket for not being able to prove registration, could I say, “I am sorry officer I left it at home. I have ADD.” Would I be pardoned for having ADD?
We bought a table from IKEA, dragged it all the way back from Schaumburg, hauled it up the stairs... (Jason hauled it) and when he was putting it together he found that the hinges had broken. At first I thought we could just get replacement hinges at Ace Hardware, but these were round hinges, inlaid perfectly... very specific. Jason said that we would just have to take it back to the store. But I thought that because it was broken, we shouldn't have to haul it back, they should either deliver a new one or give us replacement hinges.
I put it on my things to do and SEVERAL days later got around to calling them.
HORRID customer service. The only way they could send me replacement hinges was if I had the receipt. But the receipt was gone. It wasn't in my wallet, not in the car, not in the pocket of the pants I wore that day (still laying on the floor... sigh) and not on Jason's desk, NOWHERE at all.
Without the receipt the robotic customer service agent said that there was nothing that could be done. Eventually I learned that I could go back to Schaumburg and with my credit card prove that I bought the table, but I really, truly didn't want to have to go all the way out there again. And who knows if there was a time limit... I didn't want to be screwed out of 70 bucks.
So, my point is, they would not accept my excuse of just losing the receipt, but if I told them I had clinical ADD would THAT give me any leverage?
Eventually, and this is the thing I loathe about customer service these days, after calling about four or five times, and having the buck passed back and forth, I FINALLY got to talk to a manager (who originally I was told was not EVER available to speak to customers because they were so busy... nice) SHE could look up my credit card info and “whala!” the hinges are being sent.
Why do we have to go to battle though anytime we want decent customer service. The IKEA people were so placid, so rude, so insincere... and not ONE swedish accent! Apparantly they were from the Baltimore office, which means, INDIA.
The experience DID send me into a downward spiral. Yes, by the fourth time I talked to one of these folks, I was yelling at them. My inner dialogue was, “do you know how frustrating it is to have lost that receipt. Do you know how helpless I feel sometimes? Do you know how angry I am to have to HAVE something like this?”
I feel that if I use ADD as an excuse, people will think just that, it is a lame excuse. I am using something I heard on Oprah to make an excuse. But it is not an excuse. Ask Jason, he knows.