As the oldest of my parents' children, I have been thrust into the role of surrogate parent to my brothers now that both of our parents have died. Last year, I learned that my dad's maternal grandmother had a trust fund set up for her grandchildren, to be settled after all of Lillie's children passed away. Unfortunately, the person handling the fund retired, and her successors didn't follow up on the settlement until last month (July).
I received a request from the bank for me to send copies of tax forms from my three brothers and myself to the new person at the bank. It should have been a simple thing for all of them to do; print out a W-9 form, fill it out, sign it, and send it to me. To protect my brothers, I made it a point to talk to them about the trust fund directly, just in case there were marital problems that would be made worse by an unexpected monetary windfall. With my youngest two brothers, there weren't any problems. I contacted them both, explained the situation, and received the paperwork within a week. My oldest brother, Jim, who is four years younger than me, was hardest to reach. His wife acted very angry towards me for not telling her why I needed to talk to my brother, and I had the feeling that she wasn't passing on my messages. None of my e-mail messages seemed to be reaching him, either. I finally had my second brother, who works for the same company (but in a different state), page Jim at work to have him call me.
Jim finally called me, and although I explained to him the necessity of the forms and the reason for my caution about this subject, he seemed angry with me. Weeks went by, and I finally sent him an e-mail to ask if he had gotten the form mailed yet. He sent me a nasty reply, to which I simply responded "never mind." It wasn't worth fighting over, and I was just going to tell the bank that I couldn't reach him. After all, that was close to the truth, and his reply made me very angry. I was doing the best I could to take care of his interests; if someone had told my ex-husband that I was about to get a trust fund during the worst of our marital problems, I would have been extremely angry at that person. I didn't want to do that to any of my brothers, but I guess Jim didn't see it that way. Jim sent me more negative e-mail messages that day, but I used my Macintosh Mail program's ability to "bounce back" the messages after I read them. He finally sent me an e-mail to apologize for his "snarky" e-mails, saying that he had gotten less than four hours of sleep that night, and he was unusually tired and grumpy.
He finally did send the form to me, but I haven't communicated with him since then.
This goes back to Wood & Smith chapter four, which covers the impersonal aspect of online communication. If I had seen Jim in person (he lives in Portland, I live in Omaha), I would have known that he was extremely tired and irritable, and I wouldn't have taken his nasty comments as personally as I did. Of course, this also extends to society at large, and how common it is for e-mail messages to be difficult to interpret in the absence of body language and tone of voice.
I'll let my brother make the next move.
5 comments:
The wild card is interesting to me because the couple of posts that I have read, have to do with family members, along with my own blog. Not with friends or some stranger or boyfriend/girlfriend. Very interesting. I would like to say that I'm sorry to hear about you and your brothers loss. What a very messy situation, and I agree with you that e-mail can definitely muck up a situation worse than it already is! For some reason I am hesitant to say my opinion on this blog, I suppose it is because it is very personal, so saying anything would make me feel a little rude. I will say good luck with your brother and I hope everything works out in the end.
Your situation sounds similar to the situation I am in with my father, but in many cases I am on the other end where I hid behind the internet to protect myself. I think that in many cases the internet is informal and people who use it feel that they have the right to be short or even rude in their emails. I remember in this past year I emailed my mom about something I was going through with my siblings, both step and my brother, and I emailed her to ask her what I should do. Instead of responding like a normal letter my mom wrote back and said, "wow, so formal." I thought that was rather odd considering that I didn't think I was being any less or more formal than I would have been had I called her on the phone.
Good post, I hope that the situation works out for the best for you.
I also want to say i'm sorry for your loss and your brothers. Emailing, instant messaging and texting can all come out in the wrong way and the situation can turn into something that you never expected, just as yours has. I hope everything works out!
It is amazing how one’s text can be perceived in so many ways. I had a similar situation and I guess it is just important to remember that maybe we are misinterpreting the message. This happens more often with me through text messaging but with the ability to call someone directly I often just opt to do that and see what emotion they are having. Hope that you can disregard this situation and good luck next time! Life is short!
Best.
Thanks, everyone! Things will be okay, I think. Jim is pretty easy going, as long as his wife doesn't spend the next ten years being mad at me about this (she tends to hold grudges, which puts Jim in a bad position).
Right now, I'm just concentrating on my own life. Jim can write to me when he's ready to move on, although it's more likely that I'll end up contacting him again sometime in the future. Life is too short to be angry at family members.
Hugs to all! :)
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