My boyfriend (24M) lets me (23F) run a single vending machine at his shop. We’ve been dating for almost two years. He is the manager of a car repair shop, so he let me put my vending machine in his shop to make money. My job: I refill the machine and I take care of the machine if there are any problems.
This morning, the credit card reader wasn’t working. So he called me 10 times from 8:37 am to 10:10 am. I didn’t answer because I was reading my book, chilling out, and I didn’t have my phone on. I finally saw all his texts and calls at 11 am.
He is really angry with me. He is really stressed out at work because the shop is extremely busy from 7 am to 6 pm. He’s had to take over one of his coworker’s jobs too because she has been sick for a while, so he’s basically working two people’s jobs. He said that he doesn’t need this extra stress with the vending machine problems and the fact that I didn’t answer him until 2 hours and 23 minutes later caused his anxiety to spike.
I’ve apologized to him several times. He is still extremely angry. I’m not looking forward to him coming home tonight because I just feel like he’s going to stonewall me or yell at me or break up with me. How can I calm him down?
Update:
This is the text I sent to my boyfriend just now:
“I understand that me leaving my phone on silent probably made you look bad in front of your coworkers and customers, and I know this is my fault. I’m sorry and I’ll try to do better. I’ll try to do better about answering the vending machine related phone calls. I will do my best to leave my phone on so you can reach me and be available during business hours. I understand that this was an added stress. We need to come up with a troubleshooting system in the fall for when I’m unavailable because I’ll be busy teaching and I cannot accept phone calls/texts while teaching. From now on, if I cannot be reached, I can make you an Out of Order sign and you can just tape it to the machine so no one will bother you about it. Does that sound fair to you?”
I’ll probably repeat it to him when he gets home too.
How can I make this fair to him? How can I make him NOT feel used?
41 comments
Did he say if a lot of customers were complaining about it?
Regardless you can say, “I understand how upset you are and I’m sorry the machine broke and caused a lot of stress with extra work. I did not see your call or messages or else I would’ve come to help. If this happens again where the machine breaks, how about I make a sign you can on it that says **out of order, will be fixed tomorrow** so no one ask you about it?”
Just apologize for missing the calls. Maybe people were continuously telling him it was broken and he was already stressed out. Just say you’re sorry.. and if you’re supposed to be available during business hours to troubleshoot any problems then tell him you’ll make sure your phone is on in the future. At the end of the day he let you put your machines there so you guys have to work out a system for troubleshooting. People are allowed to get upset and be angry, I know sometimes I get really pissed with my husband and need to not talk to him or things can get heated. If you’re humble then I think you can work it out.
I don’t know what to do about your BF but if you want to run a business and you have no employees, you should be available during business hours to answer phone calls if things go wrong or have an answering service. If he had used a diff company would he have had to wait 2.5 hours for someone to respond to a service call? You think it’s no big deal but he’s the shop manager and shop operation or lack thereof reflects badly and is on him.
I mean you gotta suck it up and apologize. If I ignore multiple phone calls from a client for a couple hours and tell my boss I was busy reading and relaxing. I would be fired or put on probation.
You’re running a business and need to be available during work hours. Relaxing isn’t an excuse, you need to say you’ll do better
He will probably be less angry when he gets home. Especially if someone else messes up at work too lol.
I’d just apologize and acknowledge his feelings. That you can imagine how stressful it was taking care of customers, doing repairs and then having people ask him about the machine every few minutes. That it was irresponsible of you to have your phone off and in the future you will make sure it’s not on silent.
Also I agree with what someone else says. In the heat of the stressful moment I’d probably forget but putting an out of order sign may have helped a little.
I do get where he is coming from though cause I manage a lot of stuff at work and I’d be mad if something broke and the person I needed, who was in charge of it was just chilling at home la di da di daing around.
if you can’t run the business and it affects someone else, you shouldn’t be running it. sorry. but also, you shouldn’t be this scared of your bf either.
As an owner of a vending machine business actually, one thing you may want to try, if you trust your bf is give him a spare key to the machine so he can open it up and get the customers their items if their money is eaten, especially until your credit card reader is fixed. If you aren’t going to have time to handle these machines while working, it’s time to sell though! They are a commitment for sure, my locations will call me and in the next hour I WILL be there no matter what, it’s a service business and you have to serve your locations just like they are people
he’s freaking out to you about a machine that makes $60 a month? seriously? that basically one or two purchases a day. you’re telling me someone was badgering him hard enough to call you 10 times? somebody really needed some cheez its that bad? he can easily make an out or order sign while he waits for your response. the snack machine in my building has been out for 2 weeks now. it happens.
Running a business is so much harder than people realize.
Yes, he hyper-focused on the machine. We all do it in times of stress.
Just comfort him!! Speak his LL. Give him the remote and a beer. Leave him alone and say I’m sorry. Nothing more.
Today is NOT the time to discuss solutions
Anybody else remember the days when you didn’t have to be connected 24/7? The world still turned and people still made money. Guess it’s a sign of the times my dudes.
If ya ask me he should worry about hiring more people than a vending machine, vending machines in an auto repair shop arnt priority he shouldn’t be stressing that bad over a vending machine.
It’s just a vending machine… He shouldn’t be getting so angry. His business can exist without the machine there. If he is really taking this to heart and doesn’t accept a simple apology then let him be angry. He can go throw his tantrum and you can keep living your life. If he yells at you for this then he seriously has some issues.
I don’t see why this is that big of a deal for him. Just put an out of order sign on it and call it a day? I feel like 1/3 of the vending machines I see are out of order already. It’s a car repair shop not a drink shop.
I don’t see how a vending machine issue is critical for a shop unless his business is your vending machine.
Sounds like he doesn’t know how to manage stress and probably does the same to his team, which is why they are leaving.
If you don’t have a legal contract with his shop business, you need an SLA response time of the normal 24-48 hours.
If he had time to call you so much, he had time to tape a piece of paper to the machine and go back to work.
He’s wrong and he needs to apologize. You need a contract to outline this so that if this happens with other clients, they are aware of the expectation.
I used to work at a department store and we had about six vending machines in our break room. A lot of people got lunch from them.
The service man came once a week. If it broke before he came back, they put a sign on it and he fixed it the next week. It’s sincerely not that serious.
If you really believe he would break up with you over this then this man is too anxious and demanding for a relationship. It’s not that hard to slap an out of order sign and move on with his day. I’m having a hard time even believing he’s sooo busy if he had the time to call you that many times over a broken vending machine. Is he normally this unreasonable?
That said though, it doesn’t sound like this setup is worth all this – for $60 a month. You’re probably better off just calling this off.
Your boyfriend appears to be mental love. It’s a vending machine for christs sake
Is he not an adult? Can he not figure out how to make an “out of order” sign and tape it on there, then walk away? If a vending machine is making him anxious, how does he operate a business? Jfc.
I always worry about this kind of situation most days my phone is on and next to me. I’m ready to check and respond to any notifications.
But there are occasional times when I’m away from the phone for her extended amount of time and sometimes things happen and somebody was really needing to get in touch with me.
Anyway many people are currently saying that you should have handled that and of course you would have if you had seen the text.
But the other thing that needs to happen is that when your boyfriend cannot get in touch with you immediately whether it’s before you start working as a teacher or after you start working as a teacher he needs to just put up a out of order sign.
That should be the end of his stress.
Anyone anywhere, who approaches a vending machine that does not work, will just make another choice of how to get food or snacks. This is not a vital emergency piece of machinery or equipment that needs immediate response to fix.
he’s a dick, this isn’t your job this is an investment, and it wasn’t a fucking emergency. a piece of paper saying “broken” and some tape would have sufficed.
People in these comments thinking customers are entitled to a car mechanic’s vending machine for their survival. Lol
This is a first time you left your phone off; shouldn’t be that big a deal. Also, vending machine service calls are not this prompt; if you weren’t his GF and he called a company, the company would tell him they’d send someone over “between 11 am and 4 pm” or potentially the next day or late in the week.
Just apologize for forgetting the ringer was off. The out-of-order sign is all that is needed.
Is he projecting his insecurities about the relationship on to the vending machine? Has there been any accusations of suspicion of infidelity in the past? Sounds like a control freak, a vending machine can’t be that large of a Cornerstone of his business to have that type of response.
Break up with him
[You admit he violently throws shit when he’s angry and sometimes it hits you](https://www.reddit.com/r/relationship_advice/comments/vnpadc/i_took_2_hours_23_min_to_respond_to_boyfriends/ie8tr9x/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3)
Sell him the vending machine and then break up. No wonder people are leaving his car shop, if he chucks shit at you when he gets angry I bet you he also chucks shit around at work when things aren’t going right.
There is this possibility: he stuck his neck out with his boss to put his girlfriend’s vending machine in, instead of going with a bigger company. Then, when it breaks down, various eyes are on him thinking perhaps trusting him with this matter was the wrong thing to do. This can hurt his reputation on the job. This is yet another reason not to mix family/friends with business. Situations like this can come up.
He “lets” you? Is that saying he lets you have that specific vending machine or that he lets you work in General? The answer to that be question could be very concerning
This is a bit ridiculous. He could have written out of order on a piece of paper and taped it up. I understand he might be stressed but the problem has a simple solution and he spiraled. Personally if a bf of mine acted so angry over something so small he would be an ex bf. You’ve apologized enough
Your text reads like groveling a bit hard. People miss calls. A vending machine breakdown is not like someone WAS DYING and you, A DOCTOR, failed to respond & now their dead, ffs.
>I can make you an Out of Order sign
He’s a big boy. He has pens, paper, and tape at his shop. He could very well make his own sign, slapped it on there, and called it a day. He needs to manage his anxiety better, not you. He’s taking his personal stress out on you, and you need to have some boundaries on being willing to accept so much responsibility for it.
I don’t know if this was mentioned in other comments, but he could also have been super anxious because you didn’t answer a bunch of calls and texts for over 2 hours when he assumed you’d be available. (Did you mention you’d be turning your phone on silent?) On top of the added stress of working the shop, he was probably wondering of you were okay and if something had happened to you!
The text is good and I hope he understands that you’re sorry for making him worry.
When you say YOUR vending machine, is it YOUR revenue? If so he’s got nothing to be pissed about, just a minor inconvenience.
Plus it sounds like you still managed to deal with it the same day?
I’m really concerned about the reaction you fear from him. Is he normally explosive?
I don’t understand what you did wrong. He needs to respect your time. Vending machines go out of service all the time. All he needed to do was put up a sign that says out of service until you’re able to tend to it.
A part of me wonders if he was panicking so much because he planned to use the vending machine for food/drink. Then it stopped working when he was slammed at work, and he wasn’t able to access something to eat/drink. But even then, it’s a vending machine and things aren’t always 100% reliable.
He couldn’t have just put up an “out of order” sign in the 2.5 hours he spent being mad at you? What would he have done if he weren’t dating the owner of the vending machine?
It sucks that he’s stressed out at work. He is taking that out on you and overreacting about something that is just not that big of a deal. I personally would not be apologizing this much — apologizing for missing his calls and a promise to try to do better is fine, but don’t act like you need to be his emotional punching bag over it. Half the point of a vending machine business is you don’t need to be on call 24/7 because it’s just sodas/snacks, not critical commerce infrastructure.
I’m not really sure how a vending machine would cause him stress. Its as simple as putting an out of order sign on it, or not and just leaving it be. But, it sounds to me like all the work stress is making him need to unload it all somewhere, and this just happens to be you.
I’m a therapist working with highly suicidal people. Sometimes I miss their calls if I’m busy with other clients or taking a lunch (there’s a plan in place if this were to happen). I definitely don’t take calls outside of my working hours. I’ve never had anyone be angry at me because I couldn’t attend an actual EMERGENCY for a few hours.
You shouldn’t apologize and the anger is uncalled for. If this is something that’s truly important for his business then agree on times that you’re available and come up with a plan in case you’re not able to attend to it. No need for so much stress, it’s just a vending machine. Take a deep breath and stop the placating.
He’s a manager and his decision was to waste his time calling you 10x instead of 30 seconds to write and tape an “out of order” note on the machine? And now he’s going to come home and freak out some more? Holy overreaction Batman.
You should not ever assume the responsibility /take ownership of managing his anxiety. Slippery slope. He needs to step up and get his shit together.
Honestly, if he feels “used” by something so insignificant in the grand scheme of life, reconsider if he’s the right partner for you.
Yeaaaah… sounds like you need another business for your machine with a signed service contract and a new boyfriend. Your comments about the aggression and the excuses you’re making for it don’t pass the sniff test. You should be able to leave your phone off for a few hours to do what you want without him manufacturing an emergency around something he convinced you to take on as a partner and then just immediately assigned it to you.
Like no thanks, I would lose all interest in this guy, I don’t scream and punch and fit when I have stress and it sounds like you don’t either so I don’t know why you’d volunteer to be around this.
He’s massively overreacting to this.
I’d tell him to stick a sign on it and let me know ONCE and I’ll fix it when I am able.
People miss calls sometimes. It’s normal. Has he never missed a call or text from you? I doubt it. It’s a fucking vending machine. He can get over it. Did those two hours where it wasn’t working make his business go under?
It’s a vending machine.. just tell them it’s out of order and will be fixed later. It’s unreasonable to think that if he a company hired to run that he would expect that kind of response time. He’s taking out stress on you. Why TF was he so focused on a broken vending machine at an auto body shop?
Based on your title, I thought he had gotten into a car accident or something and was dying. So 2.5 hours would’ve been really bad in that case.
I feel like it’s probably more about the missed calls than the vending machine. My husband gets upset when I don’t pick up his calls ASAP, even when I call back within 15 minutes. And none of his calls are urgent either. He’s just upset that I’m not readily available when I’m not working.