flowers

[David]

Seems to me like it would have to be a very paranoid women to charge stalking in such an incident. I would venture to guess she most likely needs psychiatric help rather then a lawyer.

[SparrowHawk62]

Originally posted by sealady Yes, it is a sad commentary that when your intent was to bring a bit of joy into someone's life that you could get sued for it.
I'm sure the florist regretted the extra income, but it would not have been worth the hassle of someone getting "offended" by a flower. What I would like to know is what shark of an attorney would even accept such a complaint?

Here in New York, stones throw from the sewer (city) I can give you a phone books worth of them!

I do tend to enclose a card when I send flowers, I gonna try not doing it next time and see what happens..

[revwardoc]

Even delivering flowers in person can have unforseen consequences. I had been working 60 hour weeks for several months for a small division of a company (about 60 employees, 40 some odd of them, women). Having some extra cash and it being Christmas, I bought each of them a single red rose and a piece of fancy-ass Swiss chocolate. They loved it...but some husbands didn't! That night I had 5 messages on my answering machine telling me, in no uncertain terms, to never "...give my wife flowers again, you f***in' a**hole!" or variations of that theme. Two of them even threatened me at work after the Christmas break. It was a sad end to what I thought was a nice gesture.

[DMZ-LT]

Rev , not even the smallest gesture of goodness ever goes unpunished. ( Did ya get any ?)

[Dragon Lady]

We have very tight security at our company and you can't get past the receptionist unless you have an escort with an electronic swipe card.

Well we had this one vendor that was in the lobby one day when a young lady from Accounting was leaving. In the 15 seconds that it took for her to get through the lobby this guy decided that she would be the next Mrs. Stalker.

He nonchallantly asked the receptionist the name of the young lady and unfortunately our receptionist was caught off guard and gave out the name.
That was the "in" he needed. He managed his way through our automated phone system (not an easy feate) and started calling her several times a day.
He then started finding reasons to come to the labs and we soon found that we could no longer leave him alone to do his work. We had to pay an employee to babysit this guy and make sure he ONLY came in, worked and left, immediately. Our security guys would extend their day just so they could escort her to her car and make sure she drove away unharmed.

His final step was to start sending flowers ever single day. They were very pretty and we used them to decorate the lobby instead of sending them to the young lady since she was visibly upset by them.

She had to spend time and money to hire a lawyer, get a restraining order, and change her driving routes to and from work (added fuel cost there). Our company was forced to break the vending contract (he was an owner/operator) and hire another company to handle our very expensive glassware orders. The company even took out an additional restraining order on this maniac.
We had to change her extension, and put out a general notice that if this man was seen we were to call Security at once.

The cost involved in this man not being able to take a simple no for an answer is astounding...not to mention that this young lady rarely feels safe anywhere she goes while the rest of us rarely give it a thought.

It is indeed a very sad state of affairs when we come to this.

Although Dan...if you had given the ladies a white rose the reception might have been a little different. Red roses are the flower of love after all. Besides, you made those guys look bad 'cause they didn't think of it first.

I remind my husband every year to pick something up for the ladies in his office. I would do the shopping but I think something like this should come from him.

And that's my 2 cents worth.
DL

[MORTARDUDE]

sheeesh...stories about flowers.. there are some real sick puppies around..

DL :

Did anyone do a background check on this stalker dude ? Chances are he had been doing this before and probably got into trouble and may have even been on probation.

Rev :

Wow !! Some mighty insecure males, I would say....sad.
Did any of those folks ever apologize to you ?

Larry

[revwardoc]

DMZ-Lt,

Nope, I didn't get any. I wasn't even trying for it. It was strictly a "Peace On Earth, Goodwill To Men (in this case, Women)" seasonal gesture (and, NO, it's not PIECE on earth! ;-)

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Dragon Lady,

Hey, I'm a guy! I didn't know squat about which color roses are associated with what emotion. I personally like red roses and thought everyone did. Now I know enough to check for small craft warnings before I put out to the sea of sensitivity.

[Dragon Lady]

Larry,
To be honest this was nearly two years ago and I wasn't involved with the cops on the issue. I only knew about this much because at the time I was assisting in covering the desk and they needed to brief me on the situation. I found out the other details about the company cost and all that...about a week ago when I saw the girl again. She no longer works for our company. She just couldn't take the thought that he would show up again.

Dan, you do know that I was just yanking your chain there buddy, right? I do think there might be small craft advisories out for today though.

DL

[Keith_Hixson]

This is a good one:

Jesus as a stalker. A young lady started attending a church. She became quite involved in the activities of the church. One day the pastor had a visit from her husband.
This young fellow comes into the pastor's office angry. And he says that because of the church his wife is having an affair with some guy in the church. The pastor asks him if he knew who it was. And he blurted out, "Its some guy by the name of Jesus." "All she ever talks about is this Jesus and how much she loves him." Then he said, "If I ever get my hands on him I'll kill him.' At that the pastor said, "They did 2000 years ago." And explained to him about Jesus.

Keith

P.S. This is suppose to be a true story.

[Andy]

Had a woman who reported a sexual assault. The guy was arrested an got to move into the gray bar motel for a couple of years.

He came from a large, close knit family. The woman started receiving all sort of unwanted gifts, including flowers. An investigation began. However the woman was stressed enough she moved, she moved out of state due to fear she would become of victim again.

Some people, usually women, have some real baggage. If you don't know their history and you have no reason to, a well intentioned gift may not get the result you were looking for.

Dan, had something similar happen. I had a victim who was very happy when the perp was arrested. That Christmas I sent what my wife and I thought was a very "up lifting" Christmas card. Her boyfriend, who I think was Jewish, reported me to the Mayor accusing me of all sort of evil things. I smile and a kind word is the best way to go unless your sure no one will be offended.
It's still pretty sad.

Stay healthy,
Andy