AIBU, I'm wondering if the rules have changed from what I've always known?
If someone asks me to pass on a message to someone else, from them (because they can't do it directly atm for whatever reason), do I expect that once I've passed the message on, that the receiver of that message will get back to the person concerned and not me?
It's happening a lot lately. A friend on holiday asked me to call somewhere to cancel, leave a message, explain they are on holiday. This place has all their details, yet they still called me back, at 7.30am when I'm trying to get ready for work, saying my friend hadn't cancelled with them and she should have been there and generally trying to argue with me about it. I ended up saying there was no reason to call me about it, I was just passing on a message and they could contact my friend directly next week as I'd stated in the message, they already had the details. The negative energy coming off that woman on the phone was seriously not my problem. And for the record my friend HAD cancelled with them, even had a name for who they spoken to etc.
I'd say this was a one off but it's happened a few times recently and even once I called an ambulance and the ambulance lady would not let me get off the phone. It was like because I called, suddenly the whole situation was MY responsibility and not their's. In this instance a woman was sat in the middle of the road after having had an argument with her partner, they were both drunk. I immediately called an ambulance because she was saying she couldn't walk, was on a bend and likely to be road kill in minutes. But once ambulance called she was saying she didn't need it (while still not being able to walk or stand and still sitting in the middle of the f'ing road on a bend, excuse my language, just getting a little fed up with people), but refused to speak to the ambulance person on the phone. So this person kept me on the phone. I said the police have arrived to deal with the situation so I'll have to go now. Ambulance woman told me to hand my phone over to the police so she could talk to them. I tried. Police too busy dealing with the woman. I told ambulance person they are not taking the phone. Someone told me to just put the phone down. So I did. The police were there, the woman was safe, they'd blocked the traffic. Ambulance woman called me back sounding very angry and saying she needed to ascertain if an ambulance is needed. I said if one is the police will now call it. That the woman is saying no. She kept on saying I needed to get her to speak to a police officer, so I collared one of them, he talked to her on my phone but seemed unable to deal with the call and handed it back to me. I said to the woman I have to go now but she kept saying she was not clear if an ambulance is needed. I said it's no longer my responsibility, the woman in the road is saying no, she's conscious, talking to the police, the police are not calling an ambulance so I need to go now. She asked me to hang on and wait to see if the ambulance is needed. I don't know, I was just passing on the message.......and had told her no one seemed to want it now. What else was I supposed to do? It was not my responsiblity anymore, surely?
Happy to receive various viewpoints but this post is really about ordinary passing on of messages, rather than the ambulance really (it just reminded me of that as well).
If you pass on a message from someone to someone. And the recipient of that message has the details of the person who the message is originally from, don't they go back to that person?
It was always that way, but seems to have changed and the messenger is the one responsible. I'm getting to the stage where I feel like saying no, I can't pass on any messages because then I become the point of contact from then on. Rant over. Thanks for reading.