'AITA for telling my elderly neighbor that I'm not his personal Apple genius?'
"AITA for not wanting to help my elderly neighbor with his smartphone problems?"
RonaldoComebackSZN writes:
I live in an apartment complex and my next-door neighbor is an elderly and, frankly, frail guy. He's close to 80 years old, and his health is mediocre at best. He's exhibiting symptoms of Parkinson's disease and has slurred speech, which makes me feel bad for him.
I'm in my 20s and I work from home, but due to the nature of my job, my work takes place in what you would call a graveyard shift, usually 1–2 AM to 7–8 AM, so I am nocturnal and end up sleeping throughout the day until evening.
This is where the problem began. My neighbor has a basic smartphone with written directions on how to use it, mostly for calls through WhatsApp. From what I've seen, he has remembered a pattern on how to enter the application and make a call.
He once rang my doorbell and asked for help since his "phone stopped working." I ended up restarting it for him and all was good. That was about two months ago, and since then he has rung the doorbell a few times, which obviously wakes me up and interrupts my sleep (I am a light sleeper).
All the times it was like, "Can you remove this message for me?" or "Phone isn't working," which usually requires a reboot. I told him politely that if it's not urgent, not to wake me up since I'm nocturnal due to my job.
After that, he was respectful for a week, and then a few days ago he rang the doorbell two days in a row during the daytime because "his application doesn't look the same" and the "call button is not where it should be, fix it please."
I did fix it for him, but on the second day I was pissed off that he woke me up for a trivial thing and, without yelling or raising my voice, told him, "Please dude, for f&#k's sake, if it's not something urgent, do not ring the doorbell and wake me up. I get up at 7–8 PM and I'll help you with anything, but please, if there is no need, do not ring the damn doorbell." He apologized and went on his way.
Well, this morning he ambushed me as I was leaving my apartment and asked me to "delete myself from his contacts" so he doesn't have to "upset or disturb" me again (I gave him my number some time ago) and that he "doesn't want to piss me off." He did it in a regretful fashion. I feel like I am getting guilt-tripped? Or did I really act like an a&#%ole and should apologize to the old guy?
Here are the top rated comments.
theadverbnoun says:
NTA, mostly. Do keep in mind that what feels trivial to you might be “urgent” to him. But much more importantly, that is one manipulative old dude. I don’t see how deleting yourself from his contacts stops him from physically ringing your doorbell. That’s a guilt trip for sure. You can’t stop him from ringing the doorbell and interrupting your sleep, but if you stop answering the door when he does that, he might stop coming over. Maybe.
sassy_vixen says:
NAH. Honestly I feel that none of you are a^#&oles, you're not one because your job requires you to work at odd hours and you're entitled to schedule your sleeping hours accordingly. Albeit the old man ain't an a*#@ole too, because this poor guy lives alone, and as you mentioned has symptoms of Parkinson's, he might have issues with remembering things maybe, since old age makes you forget literally everything.
EzAeMy says:
I work with old veterans. He’s doing the best he can. I don’t know if you used the same language that you wrote in your story, but if you did, you didn’t need to. I’m not going to say you are the a&*#ole, but I feel more sorry for him than you. Sounds like he’s having memory issues.
Kaiisim says:
NTA. I work with old people. They are the most entitled people in the world. Most didn't end up alone without any support by accident . If you don't put up boundaries they will not leave you alone.
No one at work is ever allowed to know where I live or my personal number as they were attempt to enslave me. When they experience cognitive decline they start to lose patience, and especially when they have nothing to do all day. So yeah definitely set boundaries. Tell him the hours you're available to help.
What do you think?