Sister issues

LegacyUser

Hi guys, can I have some advice on the following.

Long story short I had agreed to go to Sydney to mind my sisters dog for a month while she was away on her honeymoon. This meant I would be using my annual leave and unpaid leave to go for the 5 weeks. I was then let go by my  company in question and was in a bit of a hoop so I decided to stay put and not put myself through the added expense of booking flights while unemployed. Thankfully I found a new job in the meantime, but I'm still not in a situation to travel, as i dipped low into savings.  

She is beyond pissed at me and won't respond to phonecalls, emails or txt msgs. I know I've left her in the lurch and she's horribly inconvenienced, what can I do to make this up?

DoctorMedicine

Hold on a second-you were about to travel half-way around the world to mind your sister's dog???

Kimia

Few more details needed to fully understand why your sister is so annoyed - where is she getting married? Are you missing that too? Did you cancel on her last minute or something?

From what you've said it sounds like she's being unreasonable. You were putting yourself out hugely to fly over and mind the dog although yes you probably were going to use it as a big holiday too. Can she not hire someone or look into kennels?

Dr Turk Turkelton

DoctorMedicine wrote: »

Hold on a second-you were about to travel half way around the world to mind your sister's dog???

This needs more love!

ashes79

Surely she should have been at least willing to pay your flights etc if you were travelling over as a favour for her? To be honest I do think that sisters expect far more of each other than reasonable humans would (speaking from experience). There is no way she would expect a friend to do this so why should she expect you to? Just let her cool off. I am sure she will come to realise she is unreasonable eventually.

Penn

Doesn't she know anyone IN Australia that could mind the dog?

Expecting you to fly halfway across the world, at your own expense, to mind your sister's dog (which means you're travelling to Australia where your sister lives, and your sister won't even be there), even after you lost your job, dipped into your savings and have just started a new job....

She's not horribly inconvenienced. She's crazy to expect that of you and you should leave her alone until she comes to her senses.

Beruthiel

sisterwoes wrote: »

She is beyond pissed at me and won't respond to phonecalls, emails or txt msgs. I know I've left her in the lurch and she's horribly inconvenienced

Maybe so, BUT, you lost your job!
You were dead lucky to find another one and you cannot disappear from a new job for 5 weeks.
If she doesn't understand that, then she's one hell of a selfish person.

As for leaving her in the lurch, there are kennels which will take a dog in for her time away.
Hardly the end of the world and certainly a hell of a lot cheaper than you splashing out a fortune on plane tickets to Oz.
Leave her to her sulk I say!

Are you in Australia right now, OP? It seems ludicrous that she would ask anyone to travel halfway across the world to mind a dog. Even if she didn't know anyone there that could, I'm sure there must be some form of kennel service that could look after it.

seamus

As someone who would never put my dog into a kennel (my wife would cancel a holiday rather than do so), I can understand your sister being annoyed by the circumstances. But given that it's something over which you had no control and the fact that you were doing her a favour, she has no right or reason to feel annoyed at you.

Presumably you weren't just travelling to mind her dog, it was a holiday for you. If you just decided to change your plans at late notice, she might be somewhat reasonably aggrieved, but in these circumstances and given the fact that you were coming across the planet, she has no right to be annoyed at you, whatsoever.

Just ignore her and don't bother contacting her. Eventually she'll end her childish strop.

LegacyUser

Thanks all for your responses.
Her wedding which was in Sydney was about 6 mths ago and they needed to figure out their time off to work out a 5 week trip around Europe stopping off in Ireland for a fair chunk of it.

Like, I know I had agreed to going out there for a holiday to mind the house and the dog but I couldn't help what happened with work, and I cannot just ask for holidays for 5 weeks after just starting. And I definitely cannot afford to take unpaid leave.

I just don't know why she can't see it from my situation, or am I just being selfish?

ABajaninCork

Someone's being selfish. And it isn't you OP!

Are you seriously telling me your sister cannot get a dog minder/kennels for the 5 weeks she'll be away???

tinkerbell

OP, that is NUTS. I can't believe your sister is pissed off at you that you can no longer do a 24 hour flight to mind her dog. FFS it is crazy that you offered in the first place!!! You need to tell your sister to get a grip, she is living in cuckoo land if she thinks it's perfectly reasonable to make her sister travel from Ireland to Australia to mind her dog.