Tag: delegating responsibility

A loved one asked us
to find a used car
for him.

We spent weeks
finding and evaluating cars.
(The market is TIGHT.)
We finally found one
we thought was suitable.
We told him about it.
He agreed we should buy it
for him.

Then hours later,
he sent us
several listings for cars
he was interested in.

We had already bought
the car
(as mentioned,
the market is fierce).

But he knew that.
And he knew
what he was doing
when he sent those listings.

He was setting
the situation up
so if anything went wrong
with the purchased car,
he could point to those other listings
and say he knew
we should have bought
one of THOSE cars.

He was abdicating all responsibility
for the purchase.

I recognized this
because it happens
with almost every decision.

There’s always
some jacka$$
who waits
until the decision is made
or almost made
to offer alternatives.

They don’t really want
us to choose those alternatives.
If we did that,
they would responsible for the results
and they DON’T want that.
But they also don’t want
to be responsible
for any other choice.

Ignore those people
and ignore their ‘alternatives.’

They are noise
and they weren’t planning
to ever fully support
your decision anyway.