Dealing with unreasonable people

captainbrass

I'm currently dealing at work with a dispute between a lady who's applied to register a right of way over some land and another lady who owns said land and objects to this. Last week, a guy who lives near them both wrote in with a bunch of arguments why the first lady shouldn't have her right of way. I explained to him that I couldn't copy this diatribe to the tribunal to which these disputes all eventually get referred, like he wanted, because I would only be sending it a brief summary of the case and it was then up to the parties to the dispute (i.e. not him) to advance their detailed arguments.

He then wrote back to complain that the applicant had wrongly told another public body that we had approved her right of way (to judge by her letter, she hadn't really done this). I resisted the temptation to warn him that as a tell-tale tit, his tongue might split, and just wrote back to say that my department couldn't get involved in any wider dispute.

Result - another e-mail from him today in which he complained that I was assuming there was a wider dispute and also, how dare I copy his letters to the applicant. Because it's totally fair and unbiased not to tell someone involved a dispute what someone else is saying about them. And writing to complain about someone else's activities is, of course, not a sign of a dispute. Anyway, this (a) shows how childish adults can sometimes get and (b) is an example of a further reason I can't take internet drama too seriously (see earlier thread).

I mean, whatever you think about anyone who's been banned from this site, they ain't likely to write lengthy letters of complaint, involve their lawyers or start court proceedings. Some of the people I deal with at work will. 

MadassAlex

Similarly, it was amusing at my old telemarketing job when people assumed I had access to high-level company information and could solve all their problems then and there. While some information was rightly out of my reach, it did reveal some glaring flaws in the information I was given.

But then again, that company forbade my from taking any and all steps to improve my own efficiency as a worker and then gave me contradictory training, so whatever. Jobs. Hah.

Gelzo

Unreasonable people are unreasonable.

captainbrass

^^ The bit about thinking you can solve all their problems over the phone bit rings true for me too. Generally, it's easier to deal with people's lawyers, but unfortunately even if they live in big, expensive houses in fancy neighbourhoods, they're still prone to say that they can't afford lawyers.