To have not gone over to my neighbour's with her parcel?

[CowboyJoanna]

So the other day, a deliveryman pulled up on the street with a parcel for my neighbour who lives across the way. She's a slobby stay at home mum so she was in the house at the time, but for some reason never collected it. None of the neighbours either side of her were in, so the deliveryman brought it over to my house and asked me to take it in for her. I asked the deliveryman to leave a note for my neighbour to come and collect, but I don't think he understood (he was an eastern european bloke with broken english).

Anyway, I kept the parcel in the hall all day, waiting for my neighbour to collect it. But it became abundantly clear the deliveryman had not left a note, because she was sat on the sofa all day. When my DH got home from work, he asked me about the parcel and I explained it was a neighbour's. He said to me "leave it there and if she so wants it she'll come over. The deliverymen always leave notes". So we left it there.

Nothing came the next day. Neighbour was still in the house all day, as always.
But this morning we got a bang on the door.

It was the neighbour, and she proceeded to hurl a mouthful of abuse at me. "The fuck's your problem? Why didn't you bring me over my fucking parcel you cheeky bitch? That was my daughter's fucking birthday present and I was losing my fucking mind over it getting lost". I told her it wasn't my fault because I asked the deliveryman to leave her a note and I assumed she would come and collect it if she so wanted it. But she shouted "I got the note yeah but it's MY FUCKING PARCEL AND YOU JUST SAT THERE WITH IT".

It's not like I opened it or anything, but I'm wondering should I have gone over? I thought to myself, it's her parcel so if she wants it so badly she should've answered the door instead of sitting in front of the telly. And she didn't need to be so bloody rude.

There you go again, embellishing to try and shore up your position because it won’t hold up against what I actually wrote.

The kind act is simply taking in the parcel for the neighbour. Nothing else.

A kind act is doing something with good intentions behind it. E.g. you can see someone giving a slice of peanut cake to someone and weather it is a kind act or not - you simply cannot tell just based on observing the cake being handed.
Now read the op's posts again focusing on the feelings and intentions - just those that she chose to share, maybe inadvertently idk... Where is the kindness or am I blind?

@ElbiTut the kindness is in taking in the parcel and asking that a note is left with the neighbour explaining where the parcel was. The note, which the ungrateful neighbour admitted they received, read and didn’t act upon straight away. The op saved the ungrateful neighbour having to organise a redelivery of the parcel days later, keeping the parcel ready for collection in the dry and safe from potential theft. Her intention was one of kindness. Her feelings are due to the ungrateful neighbours subsequent entitledness and rudeness. The op could not have been kinder. As for feelings - there are no feelings police, people are allowed to feel how they do.

To answer your own question, yes you are blind! However English, by your own admission isn’t your first language, so maybe the kindness and intent has been lost in translation - It happens.

I think you are blind. Her intention was to keep the parcel safe for the neighbour so the neighbour didn’t have to go traipsing to the depot to pick it up. There is no other motive in her post for taking the parcel in. You can be kind to people you aren’t friendly with, even to people you dislike. In someways it’s more kind, because it’s motivated by the intention to do right by them despite not having a social relationship she wanted to strengthen (i.e. kinder as more altruistic).

@Alphabet1spaghetti2
I am not sure why I keep engaging with you but ok... Kindly...
So these are OP's words from the first post:
"I asked the deliveryman to leave a note for my neighbour to come and collect, but I don't think he understood (he was an eastern european bloke with broken english).

Anyway, I kept the parcel in the hall all day, waiting for my neighbour to collect it. But it became abundantly clear the deliveryman had not left a note, because she was sat on the sofa all day. "

As you say english is not my first language so please enlighten me. Did I not just read that not only she assumed the postman didn't understand he should be leaving the note but it also became clear to her that he in fact did not do it.
What turns out to be true later, when the neighbour finally arrives (note or no note left) - does not matter. The fact remains there was a moment in time when the op not just suspected - but was convinced - that no note was left (or am I misunderstanding the above written paragraph).
Yet she decided to not go over to her neighbour and let her know she has her parcel.
Now explain to me in plain english - in what world does that particular decision at that time (when she is still unaware the neighbour has a note and is thinking the opposite is true) to not inform her her neighbour about the package equates to intention of "saving the neighbour having to reorganise the delivery". I cannot emphasize enough that I am talking about intention here - and that makes the difference (I think) in the way we see this situation.
Wow.

@ElbiTut you need to read the original post from the op right at the start of the post. You CLEARLY haven’t read the post correctly. The ungrateful neighbour admitted that she DID get a message from the courier stating CLEARLY where the parcel was left.

The op wasn’t convinced a note had been left, she SUSPECTED that it hadn’t been left. But that is immaterial because a note had been left. The op post is about her interaction with the ungrateful neighbour, and the ungrateful neighbours actions and response on the op door step. Nothing more or less.

Yes, you are misunderstanding just about everything the op has written, her intentions and what happened. Even worse, you are putting words into the initial post which are not even there, thus creating an entirely different narrative to that which was originally posted.

Or to put it your way - wow!

I think there is a strong argument that if OP became convinced no note had been left, then she should have taken it over or posted her own note when it was convenient.

That she didn’t does not mean taking the parcel in was not done out of kindness, though.

And if it was not convenient before her DH got home and convinced her (correctly, as it turns out) that the delivery man would have left a note, then her decisions were all in keeping with saving the neighbour hassle.

If the neighbour came to collect her parcel she simply múst have gotten the card, how else would she know where to ring? Maybe she didn't go to the frontdoor (or wherever her letterbox is situated) the whole day and so missed the card untill much later. Where I live we accept parcels for each other from the mailman ánd other deliveryservices. Most of us have a re-usable note on our frontdoor when we need to go out, " please deliver to xxx at nr.xxx". When we come back we then pop in at our neighbour's to collect our parcel. We don't expect a neighbour who is w.f.h. to play mailman to the whole street.

I’m always mortified if a neighbour brings round a parcel before I’ve had chance to collect it. I don’t expect anyone to be out out for me especially if the parcel is particularly large.

How rude you are. Why should she take the parcel over?

I'm happy to take in parcels for any of my neighbours but I would never consider it my responsibility to deliver them to the neighbours when they get home. And if someone else is kind enough to take in a parcel for me, I go to collect it as soon as I get home.

What's ridiculous is people thinking that you should take her parcel to her. Let her come and get it, you're not a servant. Never take in another for her. She is unhinged.

I literally copied part of her post. Copy - paste.
It leaves very little to free interpretation.
But really there is no point trying to reason with you. You cannot defend her decisions with arguments that are not even there at the time when the decisions are made.

Decision: OP decides to not pop over to let her neighbour know she has her package

Your argument: But but but the neighbour got the note!!!

Time of decision: Before the neighbour came by which means that the decision maker did not know the fact you stated as argument.

You do not understand basic concepts of argumentation. I don't expect you to agree with me, I genuinely think you simply cannot grasp this 🤷🏼‍♀️

You copied and pasted bits but you left out a critical piece.

OP initially didn’t pop over because she was cautiously optimistic that the neighbour had received the note. When the neighbour did not turn up for the parcel despite obviously being in, OP did not immediately nip out to deliver the parcel, but that does not mean she decided she wouldn’t. Just that she hadn’t at that point. It may have been inconvenient, she may have been working from home, still in her PJs, sick, with a baby asleep in a cot, binge watching her favourite TV, etc. Or she may have thought she’d go over later when she had plans to be out anyway. Nothing about OP’s post said she decided that, even though she thought the neighbour definitely hadn’t got a note, she absolutely was not going to let her know about it.

You left it there - at the point where OP had pondered that the neighbour can’t have got a note because she hadn’t come round and took that to mean the OP was maliciously keeping the parcel knowing the neighbour would have no idea where it was.

But you missed out the next piece of OP’s post. The next sentence. Where she tells us her DH came home and convinced her that the delivery guy would have left note. It was at this point - when she had been convinced the delivery man would have left the note - that they decided not to take it and to leave it for her to come and collect.

The point of mentioning that she did get the note is to emphasize that it wasn’t an unreasonable assumption. That their reasoning was sound, not based on a self-serving expectation that was never going to be true.

@ElbiTut no you didn’t copy and paste. No you didn’t read and understand what was originally written. You are also making assumptions which just are not in the original post to make.

I understand written English and how to argue a lot better than you do.

This is why I always refuse to take in parcels for anyone else.

You are perfectly right to have waited for her to come and pick up her parcels.

You are not her maid.

Her reaction just showed that she is just lazy, entitled trash...

😂 oh it's about that...ok all is forgiven.
Ofcourse you do. Good for you 🙋🏼‍♀️

Because she says in her op that she didn’t think the delivery driver left a note.. it could have been stuck inside the letterbox for all we know.

Either way, it makes sense that he didn’t leave it or she didn’t get it during those 2 days otherwise I’m pretty sure she would have come over for it seeing as she was so worried about where it had gone.

OP knew where it was and who it was for and didn’t take it because she is petty, the receiver didn’t realise where it was u til 2 days later, either she found the note or looked online and saw a picture of it as proof of delivery.

if you don’t want to take a parcel and give it to the person it belongs to them just refuse to take it.. it’s not hard.

Firstly thank you for understanding my post. Because there is quite a bit of gaslighting on this thread going on with regards to my ability to understand or write in english 😂

I didn't miss the bit with the husband, it is just that I didn't think it is relevant at all (and definitely not crucial). This is because unless her husband has a crystal ball, his opinion on this matter carried zero value that evening. Why you may ask...

We have (I assume) a grown up woman who had a conversation with a postman, decided to take on a parcel, perhaps observed her neighbour's house to see if she is coming over...she had some thoughts about the note...
And then arrives the man - who was away - and did not see the postman or talked to him, or talked to the neighbour, or had anything to do with the entire package circus. Yet somehow he convinces the op that the note is there and his opinion holds enough weight for the OP to ditch any doubt she had about the note...
I think there is a lot to unpack there...but that's not the topic here...

I understand you may feel different and think that at the point where the husband declares the note has been left - that this is in fact the moment when the OP knows for sure that the note was delivered.
I still think that she could have only known about the note being there when the neighbour herself had confirmed this.

Look, everyone is different. If I was in this situation and there was a single shred of doubt that my neighbour has no idea I have her package - I would have gone over to let her know.
Why so many people here feel that it's the wrong thing to do - is beyond me.
I think this is all I have to say about this topic.

I don’t there’s anything much to “unpick” with OP having her doubts eased by her husband reminding her that delivery drivers in their area always leave a note. You make an assumption; it gets challenged by something, you reassess; you get reminded of something else, you reassess; and on and on. It happens all the time for most people. Life isn’t black and white where you make a quick judgement on incomplete information and it never changes most people are more flexible than that.

I don’t have an issue with someone having a different view of what they’d do in these circumstances or of reading things differently. I don’t think anyone on here has said that taking the package over would have been “the wrong thing to do”. If you would do that, that’s fine. It’s not wrong. You aren’t being slated for saying you would do things differently, or even for saying you think OP should have.

What I took issue with was the way you embellished your own version of what happened at odds with OP’s post in order to provide a foundation for your nasty judgement of her. I think this is the first post where you haven’t ignored or rewritten something OP has posted in order to justify your position.

That you seem to be unable to grasp that people might do things differently to you and be okay with it may be at the root of why you’ve had such difficulty taking the OP’s words at face value.

Completely bizarre. Why not just take it straight there? 5 minutes of your time. If you have an issue doing that, refuse to take delivery.

I am happy to take in parcels but I'm not the delivery person, come and collect it. If you don't in a few days I'll drop a whatsapp. The OP did nothing wrong.

What's with all these people defending your neighbour who is too lazy to answer her own door when she's expecting an important delivery? I used to take in parcels for a neighbour during lockdown because I assumed they couldn't answer the door because they were WFH. I felt sorry for the deliverers. But NDN never collected the parcels, just waited for me to take them round, so I stopped doing it.

Your screen play needs work.

Oh it's you here to trollhunt again. A bit late to the party sorry, especially given it happened last year