Are You Guilty of Ignoring People?

Ignoring people, a good topic for today. Do you like to be ignored? Under any circumstances? I mean, if somebody is gonna ignore you, it doesn’t help if they’re a friend or a stranger. It’s just as bad, regardless, to be a person ignored. Whether or not you know the person, not relevant. How about if you’re the customer and the company’s representative is guilty of ignoring people? But you like the guy. His heart is in the right place, you know that, but he has a nasty habit of ignoring people when he gets overwhelmed. Plus, he’s just doing a job. A job he gets paid to do because it beats being unemployed. Not like me, not a Sacramento Realtor who loves her job and would almost do it for free.

Since the middle of last week, I sent 5 follow-up emails about a trip to New Zealand and Tasmania for 2020 to my travel agent. Rather than tell me he is too busy to handle our requests, he ignored my emails. When I finally accused him of ignoring people, he offered to send us to a specialist in another city. Because, get this, he didn’t want to make us to wait any longer. No grass grows under my feet. Of course, I booked the trip without him. This is not some stranger. This is a guy who has booked many trips for us, and we’ve even traveled WITH him. But this is also not new behavior for him. Same spots, same dog.

My sprinkler repair guy at Kona Pride Irrigation Repair has gone missing in action, too. Always there for me previously. He made an appointment to come over the day I left earlier this month, and then didn’t show up. Didn’t call. Didn’t answer his phone. Sent all calls to voice mail. Basically must have decided he was better off ignoring people. I contacted a different sprinkler company through Yelp and got no response there, either. So, I look at myself. Am I invisible? What did I do to justify this kind of behavior? Nothing.

What do guys who are guilty of ignoring people think to themselves? How do they rationalize that kind of rude and insulting behavior? Do they tell themselves: well, after several attempts to reach me, if she’s unsuccessful, she’ll figure out I am not accessible and stop. Ha, you are talking to a Sacramento Realtor. I never give up. If a person contacts me about selling a home in Sacramento, you can bet I will do my best to connect. I will call, leave a voice mail, send a text and email. Then do it again the next day. Because not everybody can be me.

Also, because life is unpredictable. People can end up in the hospital, on a plane, in an accident, breaking up a relationship, bonding with a new baby, overdosing on drugs, landing in jail, or otherwise engaged for at least a 24-hour period, I try to give people a bit of space. They get a break. But after 3 days of trying to contact a person to offer the assistance they inquired about in the first place and getting nowhere, it can be a bit confusing.

Finally, the other day, I just laid it on the line to a potential seller in Bridgeway Lakes. I emailed the following: The Referring Company asked me again this morning whether we have connected, and I let them know I have emailed you several times and have not received a response. Would you like me to stop emailing you? Would you like to talk? See, I do not know the answer to either of those questions.

I got an answer right away! Imagine that. The answer was he had an agent. Did he have an agent when he contacted the Referring Company? Does he just want me to stop bothering him? Is he a real buyer? None of those things matter. The point is I got him to respond. Small victory.

Ignoring people. It shouldn’t be like this.