Get yo' shit togetha, lady.

This is gonna be a judgmental post - more of a vent/rant. Just a warning that this blog might be a little mean-spirited today. Because I'm crabby. And you'll see why.

I just dealt with this woman who must have been the most incompetent person ever. Ok, not the most incompetent ever, but it was frustrating.

I need to sublease my apartment from August 1st till September, when my lease is up. This woman calls me incessantly and wants to come see the apartment during times when I'm not in. This was essentially the conversation, via a combination of a couple emails and a couple phone calls:

Her: When can I come see it?
Me: Friday afternoon or early evening.
Her: I can't come then. Um, can I come this weekend?
Me: I'm not going to be around until Sunday late evening. You can come on Monday too.
Her: Well, can I come Saturday morning?

What did I just say?! (BTW, her whole "can I come Saturday morning" bit was left via phone message...TWICE)

Ok, whatever, the reason why I didn't want anyone here Saturday morning is because I planned on being asleep. So I told her, fine, thinking to myself that I can just get a couple hours less sleep than I'd like.

We planned on meeting at 10am. So this morning, I got up at 9:30am (this is REALLY early for me, folks), showered, got all presentable, and waited. And waited. 10:30 rolls around, and I get a call from someone else who's interested. They said they'd be here in before 11 to check out the apartment. At least I wasn't awake for no good reason.

Right after they called, she calls me and says she'll be another 20 minutes, and asks which subway to take. I couldn't understand her too well (she speaks with an accent), and asked for clarification, at which point she abruptly hangs up on me. WTF, lady. You're already going to be an hour late. Did you know that's an extra hour of sleep I could have gotten?

So, I texted her the cross street and the subway stop.

The other people interested came and went - right on time. I waited around more and watched Dexter while waiting for this woman to call. At 11:15, OVER AN HOUR after the original scheduled time, she finally calls to say she's downstairs.

Ok, here's the thing. If I schedule something, and I'm even ten minutes late, I'll apologize. She was...a lot later than that. Not a single word of apology. That made me simmer even more. Seriously, have the decency to realize you're taking someone's time. And if you're an hour late, you've wasted an hour of it. It's called being POLITE.

As we're walking up, and she comes up with the excuse that the trains were not stopping at local stops. The COPE part of me comes out a little here - the part that wants things to be clear and efficient. So I asked her again, and she said, yes, the train was only making express stops.

"So," I asked, "you got off at..."

"59th Columbus Circle," she responded.

I asked if she took the 1 train. Yes, she responded. (ok, at this point, I realize I'm probably unfairly grilling her, but seriously, over an HOUR after? I was crabby, oh, and I just checked the NYCT Service Advisory for today and the 1 train is running normally, which means stopping at all local stops)

"59th isn't an express stop. It's a local stop." At this point, I just want her to go away. I've already concluded that I'm not renting out my place to her because she's clearly not that reliable, and seems kind of confused. I even went as far as to ask her if she lives in New York. Which she did. Ok...

Finally, we get to the apartment, and she's looking around, and I show her the bedroom. I said I'd leave the AC window unit in, and in an attempt to move things along (since she wasn't asking any questions or anything), I asked, "So how long would you need the apartment for?" I was prepared to give her information about renewing the lease in September if she needed it more than the month.

"Until the end of July."

I wasn't sure I heard her correctly. "What? No, when do you need it?"

"Now, and until the end of July."

"Uh...did you read the posting? It said this apartment wouldn't be available until August 1st."

At this point, she didn't BELIEVE me. She kept saying how she emailed me dates that she needed to stay. Bullshit. I pulled up the original post (which, as you can see, clearly states the date), as well as her first email to me, which reads as such:

"Hello,

"I am very interested in renting your apt, posted at Craiglist.com, located in midtown.

"Your date fits for me too.
I'd like to see as soon as possible.
I'll be available to come today.

"Please let me now as soon as possible.
You may call at ******** or email *************

NOWHERE in any other email did she mention that she needed the apartment right away. I told her that the office might have sublets available, but at that point, I just wanted to get on with my day. And I'm already sleep deprived and tired, and I have a long day.

Look, I feel like I'm pretty fair (even nice) when it comes to doing business and whatnot, but I have a really hard time tolerating incompetence, inefficiency, not doing your homework beforehand (especially if it's something you care about, and she did care about this --- just look at how many times she called me), and not having respect for other people's time and efforts (ok, I realize I can be late a lot, so I definitely need to work on this myself, but at least I APOLOGIZE. And I feel really bad about it.) So, read the fucking post, lady. And stop wasting my time.

This also came on the heels of someone who said they wanted my toaster and just never showed up yesterday. No call, no email. Ok, that's just RUDE.