To think I had to cancel this?

[lorelei9here]

I have to change a social arrangement with a friend tomorrow night. I have been asked to do overtime as a matter of urgency (3 out of team of 6 off sick for rest of week).y

My friend doesn't have a mobile. I've left a message on her home phone but I know she normally spends Monday nights with her partner. I dont have his number. She is retired so there is no work number.

Worst case, if she doesn't hear the message, she will be waiting at the pub tomorrow night and have to ring me to find out it's off. I will actually be helping with some meetings so might not even be able to take the call. She will have travelled from Essex to central London, though she does usually do other stuff in the day when she comes in to meet friends.

But I dont think I have any other options? No email, no mobile - there isn't anything more I can do is there? I can't really call a very busy pub and ask them to look for a woman matching her description....! Well I could, but it seems unfair to the staff.

If she says I should have turned down the overtime I will be annoyed. I told my boss yes today and I've been trying to call the friend ever since. I guess the AIBU is, should I have waited to speak to my friend but I don't think that would have been right.

Whay happened?

Did she get your message or did she end up at the pub?

Bugger, to late now, but I have a friend in a similar situation. I knew on Thursday morning that I could not meet her on Friday night, with no way of getting in touch immediately.

I went all old fashioned and posted (through the mail, with a stamp and everything), a card telling her I could not make it.

It got there in time and she got the message. Don't forget the post if stuck again☺

*Too!!

What happened OP?

Oh dear, it all seems so complicated without a mobile doesn't it! What happened op?

Too old, what use is a letter if the person isn't at their home to get it?

It didn't turn out well
I never heard from her. I was fretting in the office and a colleague (who wasn't working late because he starts at 7) very kindly offered to go and see her at the pub to explain, saying "oh it's only ten mins walk and on my way home etc he is a gem (I bought him some chocolate to say thanks)

He texted me to say "your friend is REALLY PISSED OFF" just so with those caps. I didn't manage to speak to her till lunchtime today. She said something that made it clear she thought I'd taken the overtime for cash, which I explained in several answer phone messages was not the case. When it finally sunk in she said "you shouldn't have agreed without getting in touch with me". I asked if she never checks messages remotely and she said "no but if I thought I was meeting someone flakey I might have rung them to check it was still on". Frankly I feel like I'm being criticised fir being reliable.
She did do some shopping first luckily.

I started this thread really worried I'd made the wrong choice in a moral dilemma but now I'm less bothered tbh. She was apparently at her partners from Friday.

Sorry Lorelei, I thought you had left an answerphone so assumed she was going home before meeting you.

It was only a suggestion. I'll get my coat.

I wouldn't take it too hard. You did what you could to get in touch with her. Hopefully she has learnt from this experience to check her messages a bit more often.

I don't think that people without mobiles, who can't get home to check their answer machine and aren't giving out an Email address, can't moan in situations like this, tbh.

This, and I speak as someone who doesn't have a mobile. She has a lot of nerve calling you flakey, particularly as she seems to stay at her partner's place and is unreachable. She strikes me as flaky.

I can understand why she is pissed off tbh. You knew she wasn't likely to get home to receive your message so to leave her to travel and sit in a pub on her own waiting for you was really shitty.

I don't have a mobile, but then I'm on FB.

Just seems very unfortunate to me.

Presumably you tried to contact from as soon as you knew that you couldn't make it.

Unfortunate that she was out/at her boyfriends.

If you had been ill, the same would have happened.

Perhaps she should think about confirming closer to the time?

I mean we used to manage without mobiles, didn't we, & I don't think that it was a regular thing that people ended up in a pub waiting for someone who wouldn't be arriving?

Xici, I know she spends Monday night with her BF usually but I honestly did think nearly 36 hours warning of a cancellation was enough for someone to check messages.

To those who don't check messages would you feel the same about this? What if I'd been unwell or something?

OP you did your best. She is being U, and possibly knows that.

Diddl I've had a mobile since late teens so I don't really know. I have zero experience of adult life without one.

FFS keeping your job is more important than a social engagement. Stuff happens and if she is this hard to contact that's her problem.

she'll cope.

Wow I think she sounds very rude to me. I think you did all you could and is she is determined to be uncontactable for days and days on end, then she should expect things like this to happen

just seen update. She didn't cope and that is her problem. Silly fool. Tell her to go buy a £10 mobile if this kind of thing bothers her so much.

I just don't think that I would have not turned up without speaking to her knowing she would be sat there wondering where I was. Granted, she has made it very difficult for you to contact her if plans change so she should take some responsibility. Maybe suggest in future that you check in with each other the night before to confirm plans.

You did everything you could. It was just one of those things. She's acting very immaturely in my opinion

Xici, just to check because it can be hard to read whole threads....the work thing and the way my boss was with dads hopsitalisation has no impact on your view?

I feel she has been unreasonable. 36 hours is plenty of notice. To be honest I would be pointing that out and telling her I didn't appreciate the grief. You need to work for a living unlike her and made the decision that was necessary in your work position. If she chooses not to have a mobile phone and be easily contactable, then she needs to take steps to prevent problems like this. Anything could have come up op, you could have been ill, had a family emergency, car crash whatever and she still would have been in the same situation. I wouldn't appreciate being called flakey either.

Can't you understand that it may not be that she 'didn't' check messages, but that maybe she 'can't'?

I can't check my landline messages remotely.

I cannot understand why she doesn't want a mobile even a £10 one for emergencies on PAYG

Mind you, if she had one, she couldn't have a go at you could she?

She is being unreasonable, even my 80 year old mother, who has never sent a text has a mobile for emergencies. She can dial a number and answer a call, that's it.

Alice if she can't check them remotely then that really is where I lose pateince. Some people wouldn't remember that she has this activity and stays with her partner on Monday, I'm not her secretary. Btw she lives about ten minutes walk away from him so she could pop back to get them.

At least you know what to get her for Christmas, a ten pound mobile and a ten pound top up!