“Open Pod Building Management, how may I help you?”
“Yes, I just arrived at my new apartment, and it’s definitely not in a livable condition and I’d like to terminate my lease.”
“Ah, could you tell me what’s wrong with it?”
“Oh, gosh, I’m not sure where to begin… well, for starters, it’s on fire.”
“Ah, I’m sorry to hear that. But could you tell us all of the problems with it? We need to know in order to evaluate whether there is something we should do to fix it.”
“Hm, more than it being on fire? Well, I suppose that while I was in there I noticed a lot of problems, like the tiles being cracked and the faucet having a leak.”
“Oh, well, I’ll definitely need more information about that. Which specific tiles were cracked, and how did you determine that?”
“Um… I’m not sure, just like. A bunch of them?”
“That’s not enough for us to take action on. Also, you mentioned a leaky faucet, are you certain that it’s leaky and not that you simply don’t know how to shut it off?”
“Don’t know how to… shut it off? I’ve used plenty of faucets before. I’m pretty sure I know how to turn this one off.”
“Oh, don’t use your other faucet experience as a judge of whether you can turn these off. They are made for very advanced users, and they are much more flexible than normal faucets, so of course someone who isn’t experienced with them may see them as having a leak.”
“Um… okay, well, regardless, I can’t really use the faucets anyway. On account of the, you know. Fire.”
“Well, that’s just typical, a new resident showing up out of nowhere and thinking they know what’s better for things, but not even being willing to give it a proper time to see if it works for them.”
“I mean, I’d love to, like ideologically I agree with what you’re trying to achieve, it’s just… you know. The fire makes it somewhat difficult to live here, but even without that, I mean. The fact the toilet is in the middle of the kitchen is a bit alarming, as well.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way, but someday you’ll come to appreciate what we’re building. But in the meantime, I highly suggest that whenever you talk about the burning apartment, it does everyone a favor if you could actually go into detail about all of your issues and be clear about when and how you experienced them, so that others don’t get the wrong impression of whether this is a current issue or not.”
