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Closing the inheritance work + Handling a disruptive email
Hi Guys,
this follows-up on this thread where I mentioned that I was assisting my parents and other relatives in an inheritance matter.
Context
My parents signed an order to the bank, that I had prepared together with the director, to close the matter and finally distribute the inheritance.
One month after the order, the bank director phoned me and told me that there was a small problem with a certificate, worth very little, which could not be sold. He suggested that my parents could transfer the certificate to themselves and pay its little value to the other heirs. I asked him to send me an email about this.
However, before I could think about this and then decide how to proceed, my father shot out an email, without telling me in advance, to the bank director's boss (ie: to the boss of the person I have been dealing with all this time!), putting me in copy:
Father: Gooday director, I received this letter from your bank but I can't see the corresponding moneys.
Please do check and communicate the result to me.
In addition, last ..., we signed an order in relation to the inheritance.
As of today we have received no communication from you yet.
Since three years have passed from the death of ..., we ask you when you will comply with your obligations and duties.
Interpretation
I immediately thought that this email was basically written to disrespect me and my work, and subcommunicate that I was not in charge of this but my father really was.
Sending this email without telling me was a way to diminish my status and communicate to everyone involved that I didn't count. Plus, my father's very aggressive tone to disrupt everything (including my potential work relationship with the bank's director) even further.
The day after my father's email, the bank director sent my father an anwer where he - without putting me in copy - repeated to him what he had told me about the issue with the certificate, and said he awaited instructions.
Then, my father forwarded this last email to me, without saying anything.
I was beyond pissed.
My response
I thought about my options:
- call my parents and tell them this is unacceptable (already did this many times in the past to no avail)
- ignore everybody and leave my parents to deal with what to do
- take control
I chose to take control.
So I wrote an email to everybody, copying my parents, in response not to my father's email and not to the director's last email, but to the original email the director had sent me on the matter.
This is my email:
Me: Dear Director,
please let's proceed with the wire transfers provided for in the order signed last ..., which require no authorization; once done, the Bank will be able to define directly with the main heirs [ie my parents] the outcome of this certificate, in relation to which the heirs – who read us in copy - will be able to ask for transfer on their own account and then pay back the other persons involved.
If instead the Bank should need that this certificate of a small value is defined before proceeding, I am sure the main heirs will have no problem to send you an email to authorize you as above, or even to come to your office to sign whatever is needed.
At conclusion, I ask you the courtesy to send me the documentation of these operations so that I may keep a copy.
Yours truly
My reading of my own subcommunication:
Me: Dear Director,
please let's proceed with the wire transfers provided for in the order signed last ..., which require no authorization (I direct this, I'm the one who has done all the work and call the last shots; my father is just posturing); once done, the Bank will be able to define directly with the main heirs [ie my parents] the outcome of this certificate (you deal with this by yourselves now, I am out and will not be dragged into this), in relation to which the heirs – who read us in copy - will be able to ask for transfer on their own account and then pay back the other persons involved (father, you chose to shoot out an email without telling me in advance: now you enjoy the same from me, and plus I'm adding telling you what to do while speaking with the director and not with you).
If instead the Bank should need that this certificate of a small value is defined before proceeding, I am sure the main heirs will have no problem to send you an email to authorize you as above, or even to come to your office to sign whatever is needed (reinforcing the above concept and leaving the choice to the bank: do you want to see my parents again? Then see them by yourselves).
At conclusion, I ask you the courtesy to send me the documentation of these operations so that I may keep a copy (I am the person who did effective work on this matter, so I am the one who will keep the documentation; my father was, again, just posturing).
Yours truly
Outcome
After sending the email, I felt sad.
But, I see no other way to deal with my parents from now on.
Want to behave like assholes? Fine, you'll have the same back from me - and plus, I really know what I'm writing, including under the law.
The outcome was this:
Director's email: Good evening,
we await the heirs' authorization to proceed in this way, which can be given by email also.
My father's email: Good evening,
we authorize the bank to proceed.
I'm not in the best spot to interpret how this went because I'm involved deeply, but still my feeling is that the correct status and behavior of those involved was reestablished for all to see.
And that maybe I was successful in regaining some respect.
Thanking me
Then, the next morning, my father sent me an email where he said
We thank you for the big work you did and hug you.
Frankly I see this as a way to reinforce the "good samaritan" frame where I continued to do all this work for free for them.
But I see no point in responding in any way, since from now on they're basically on their own, and whatever he writes will not change this fact.
I'm finally out. Now I can concentrate on my own life.
Some additional thoughts on this:
- the reason why my father wrote to the "higher level boss" was to subcommunicate that "he dealt with the bigger level stuff at the bigger level of the people who decide", unlike me who "was a low-level executor dealing with a lower level employee";
- one risk I considered here was that I could come out as "in agreement with my father" to the bank's personnel. In other words, depending on how I interacted with this, the bank director could have thought my father's email was a ruse, agreed in advance between my father and me;
- that's also one of the reasons why I didn't interact with my father in any way before responding, and I made it clear to the director and to everybody that I was telling my father what to do without speaking with him directly;
- in other words, my email made it clear (I hope) that I had not spoken with my father after his email. So it was a way to subcommunicate "I'm not in agreement with my father and I take distance from him, I hope you'll understand that he's just playing big shot for his own ego reasons".
- "I am sure the heirs will..." = I have not spoken with them
The equivalent of what Lucio taught me about "not looking directly at people while talking to them" to subcommunicate superiority/displeasure.
Sounds to me like you absolutely beasted this one, Bel.
Thank you so much Lucio.
Your words really mean a lot for me to be sure that I handled this correctly.
