Have you ever noticed that when people are in an extreme emotional state of mind, they take the message out of context?
A message might have been conveyed, as an FYI, or 'did you know?', but can be taken to mean something entirely different, and regurgitated to make the person seem brash and uneducated.
As an example, a statement could be made to express a dislike, or unfavorable characteristic of another person. A situation is presented to convey this characteristic, or dislike. Yet in speaking you realize that the person you are telling has a more intimate relationship with the person of which you are speaking, and is thus unable to picture why this characteristic, or dislike is unfavorable. This person takes this piece of knowledge to heart, and is unable to see it from anything but his own perspective. Of course, it is also at this moment, that you realize... you're not only speaking of another person, but this very person you are speaking to displays this very characteristic. (No wonder this person doesn't understand, wouldn't understand.
He takes this piece of information that you presented to him, in anger, and regurgitate what you did not say, not even once. This piece of information then becomes not just a piece of information, but an act, an act that is unfavorable. Yet at no time during the conversation did you suggest that it was an act that you were speaking of, but only the characteristic which was conveyed that is unfavorable, and utterly intolerable.
At this point, the only thing you can do is let it go. The other person is already angry, and any other explanations you give will only go in one ear, and out the other.
Tell me, how often has that happened?
Words. Not everyone understands them. Not everyone listens.
AND we live in America.
Tuesday, June 24
Jun 24, 2008
I was sitting on the top floor of my office building, staring out the giant windows across the San Francisco bay during my supposed lunch break - at 2PM. About 15 feet away sat two women, one Caucasian, another Russian. Their training course was taking a 15 minute break, and most people had stepped out of the room to stare out into the abyss.
I paid little attention, or tried not to anyway, with a lukewarm, medium cup of coffee with a mix of soy milk. I was only 20 minutes into my break, but already I was starting to feel like I was sitting back at my own cubicle. The people chatted as though everyone up there was dying to talk, while I, on the other hand, had gone up to escape all the noise.
At first the two women didn't seem to be talking about anything in particular, anything worthy of being overheard. As they trailed into the conversation, one of the two, the Russian, exclaims, thoroughly proud, because you really could hear it in her voice, "I'm use to doing 10 things at once, now I just sit in my cubicle all day - bored." She trails off a bit, and the next thing I hear is, "People in my office complain when they have one problem, I'm use to juggling 10 problems at once, and I think 'man, that's nothing'." The woman seemed only to think that she's the one able to juggle ten things at once, and I presume, and I'd presume almost correctly, that her ten things is really just a mere four or five, but in exaggerating she used ten, because ten sounds good. Maybe she didn't think that there are various sorts of people of all caliber in the work world, some able to juggle a million things, and others barely able to handle one. Yet her tone of voice seemed to suggest that she thought she's the only one able to juggle more than one, because she use to be a real estate agent. As though being a real estate agent meant that she's that much more capable than say anyone else.
If she had been talking to me about being a real estate agent, I would have proposed that being a medical doctor, physician of sorts would require that much more attention to detail, and ability to handle madness. I mean, for all it's worth, our office/cubicle work is much more tamed. The chaos that people imagine, or think they can conjure up are all within scope, yet I truly believe that nothing is more tough than having to work all shifts to save the lives of people - not being able to predict the injuries that people suffer, to come into work not knowing what you'll face. At least office work has some guidelines, or a general pattern to follow, but with medicine - everything goes.
This wasn't the only topic they breached, somehow they had changed subjects and how the "universe gives them [the negative people] what they deserve". The Russian woman again exclaims with extreme pride that she reads a lot, if the other woman couldn't tell. And she repeats a bit of knowledge, and proceeds to explain why she didn't agree with the author's logic that people don't get to choose what is dealt them.
To that I say, the woman's choice of words did her no justice.
In all seriousness, when people have a negative view on life, their views are biased towards that, so instead of, as the Russian woman would say 'the universe gives them what they deserve', the people choose to pick out the negatives in life, instead of seeing the positive. Everything in life is about choices, whether they be how people react to situations, or how they deal with failure.
People can see failure in two ways:
(1) that they've failed and that they were stupid to have tried at all, or
(2) that they can alter the way they handle a situation, so that a better outcome results - something of a second chance
This works with everything in life, as the saying goes, "if life gives you lemons, make lemonade".
The woman might have thought about it and maybe meant to express it the way that I thought she didn't, and I'm not saying she's entirely closed-minded, but her choice of words did not convey that ultimate message.
Words matter.
I paid little attention, or tried not to anyway, with a lukewarm, medium cup of coffee with a mix of soy milk. I was only 20 minutes into my break, but already I was starting to feel like I was sitting back at my own cubicle. The people chatted as though everyone up there was dying to talk, while I, on the other hand, had gone up to escape all the noise.
At first the two women didn't seem to be talking about anything in particular, anything worthy of being overheard. As they trailed into the conversation, one of the two, the Russian, exclaims, thoroughly proud, because you really could hear it in her voice, "I'm use to doing 10 things at once, now I just sit in my cubicle all day - bored." She trails off a bit, and the next thing I hear is, "People in my office complain when they have one problem, I'm use to juggling 10 problems at once, and I think 'man, that's nothing'." The woman seemed only to think that she's the one able to juggle ten things at once, and I presume, and I'd presume almost correctly, that her ten things is really just a mere four or five, but in exaggerating she used ten, because ten sounds good. Maybe she didn't think that there are various sorts of people of all caliber in the work world, some able to juggle a million things, and others barely able to handle one. Yet her tone of voice seemed to suggest that she thought she's the only one able to juggle more than one, because she use to be a real estate agent. As though being a real estate agent meant that she's that much more capable than say anyone else.
If she had been talking to me about being a real estate agent, I would have proposed that being a medical doctor, physician of sorts would require that much more attention to detail, and ability to handle madness. I mean, for all it's worth, our office/cubicle work is much more tamed. The chaos that people imagine, or think they can conjure up are all within scope, yet I truly believe that nothing is more tough than having to work all shifts to save the lives of people - not being able to predict the injuries that people suffer, to come into work not knowing what you'll face. At least office work has some guidelines, or a general pattern to follow, but with medicine - everything goes.
This wasn't the only topic they breached, somehow they had changed subjects and how the "universe gives them [the negative people] what they deserve". The Russian woman again exclaims with extreme pride that she reads a lot, if the other woman couldn't tell. And she repeats a bit of knowledge, and proceeds to explain why she didn't agree with the author's logic that people don't get to choose what is dealt them.
To that I say, the woman's choice of words did her no justice.
In all seriousness, when people have a negative view on life, their views are biased towards that, so instead of, as the Russian woman would say 'the universe gives them what they deserve', the people choose to pick out the negatives in life, instead of seeing the positive. Everything in life is about choices, whether they be how people react to situations, or how they deal with failure.
People can see failure in two ways:
(1) that they've failed and that they were stupid to have tried at all, or
(2) that they can alter the way they handle a situation, so that a better outcome results - something of a second chance
This works with everything in life, as the saying goes, "if life gives you lemons, make lemonade".
The woman might have thought about it and maybe meant to express it the way that I thought she didn't, and I'm not saying she's entirely closed-minded, but her choice of words did not convey that ultimate message.
Words matter.
Wednesday, June 18
Jun 18, 2008
I think there is a correlation between traffic jams and assertiveness, of course give or take the mindset of the people involved.
I was coming into work this morning on my usual carpool route. 10-15 minutes of waiting at the curbsite in front of a Longs Drug pharmacy, and 2 cars later, I jump into the front seat of a silver compact car. The driver, a woman, says, "Bad traffic on the bridge, there was an accident".
Most of the time you'd presume what's told to you to be true, I mean why would someoen consciously deceive you about something like that at 6 in the morning. Yet, I had a side thought, like "yeah, RIGHT.", but only in mind.
What was different about today was the large number of people waiting for carpool, never had I seen that many people wait when I get there so early in the morning. I didn't take much notice to it, other than that I wouldn't get in at the time I had hoped. The same was true of the traffic on the freeway. I had never seen so many cars at 6AM, let alone close to 7AM, yet there were plenty of cars. I thought it was strange, but brushed it off. We're cruising along, and as we approach the crazy maze, cars were sitting at a standstill.
And this is where the thought of assertiveness came into play this morning.
We're sitting on the left most lane on the freeway, the one lane that moved about 3 car lengths every two times that the lane next to us moved 5 car lengths. I'm sitting there, and I'm literally watching the cars zoom by me. Yet, it never occurred to the driver next to me that the lanes next to us were moving much faster. Maybe it was that she liked sitting in traffic, but the argument is that most people wait until the very last of minutes to go to work, to get that extra 5 minutes of sleep. I'd assume no different for a lot of people. Not only is this woman sitting in the same standstill traffic as I, but she would have to drop the two of us passengers off, before finally heading into work. Possibly much later than when I woudl get into office, especially since I work literally across the street from the passenger drop off.
The woman never moved. She sat in the traffic, listening to slow music that almost lulled me to sleep.
Maybe that's not a point by point paper on why traffic jams are correlated to assertiveness, because maybe the woman wanted to sit in the traffic, and didn't have to get into work until 10AM, and was really enjoying the traffic. Yet if that was not her mindset, then it could potentially suggest that she was not assertive enough to take charge and change lanes. It might also suggest that she was not bright enough to realize that the lane we were sitting in wasn't moving nearly as fast as any of the other lanes.
Whatever it was, it definitely had my antennas up.
I was coming into work this morning on my usual carpool route. 10-15 minutes of waiting at the curbsite in front of a Longs Drug pharmacy, and 2 cars later, I jump into the front seat of a silver compact car. The driver, a woman, says, "Bad traffic on the bridge, there was an accident".
Most of the time you'd presume what's told to you to be true, I mean why would someoen consciously deceive you about something like that at 6 in the morning. Yet, I had a side thought, like "yeah, RIGHT.", but only in mind.
What was different about today was the large number of people waiting for carpool, never had I seen that many people wait when I get there so early in the morning. I didn't take much notice to it, other than that I wouldn't get in at the time I had hoped. The same was true of the traffic on the freeway. I had never seen so many cars at 6AM, let alone close to 7AM, yet there were plenty of cars. I thought it was strange, but brushed it off. We're cruising along, and as we approach the crazy maze, cars were sitting at a standstill.
And this is where the thought of assertiveness came into play this morning.
We're sitting on the left most lane on the freeway, the one lane that moved about 3 car lengths every two times that the lane next to us moved 5 car lengths. I'm sitting there, and I'm literally watching the cars zoom by me. Yet, it never occurred to the driver next to me that the lanes next to us were moving much faster. Maybe it was that she liked sitting in traffic, but the argument is that most people wait until the very last of minutes to go to work, to get that extra 5 minutes of sleep. I'd assume no different for a lot of people. Not only is this woman sitting in the same standstill traffic as I, but she would have to drop the two of us passengers off, before finally heading into work. Possibly much later than when I woudl get into office, especially since I work literally across the street from the passenger drop off.
The woman never moved. She sat in the traffic, listening to slow music that almost lulled me to sleep.
Maybe that's not a point by point paper on why traffic jams are correlated to assertiveness, because maybe the woman wanted to sit in the traffic, and didn't have to get into work until 10AM, and was really enjoying the traffic. Yet if that was not her mindset, then it could potentially suggest that she was not assertive enough to take charge and change lanes. It might also suggest that she was not bright enough to realize that the lane we were sitting in wasn't moving nearly as fast as any of the other lanes.
Whatever it was, it definitely had my antennas up.
Monday, June 16
Jun 16, 2008
It's okay to be nice to some people, but then you approach every other person you encounter with that same demeanor, but they don't yield to that same courtesy, and YOU don't get the same results.
So what do you do?
You adjust.
You become more brash, and more demanding as a result of being denied. And with each following inquiry that receives that same rejection comes an equally demanding and assertive attempt, if not more so, to get what you didn't get in that first failed attempt. A reminder of how it had felt in that initial attempt.
Angered, and entirely NOT clear-headed.
----
You start to plot aggressively for the other party to become subservient, so much so that you start seething in the mouth. Only to calm a bit after listening to a good song or two. Of course, this wasn't the only thing making you seeth at the mouth, your superior has decided that she'd test the waters.
She sends you a message via an office messenger for you to see her at her desk.
It sounds important!
So even before you decide to go on lunch, you decide you'd head over after all your other mandatory tasks. You feared that it had something to do with your performance or something equally frightening...
...only you get over to her desk, and see several stacks of paper-clipped papers.
She pulls one. Flips the pages, and explains the scenario for which she will next task you. She tells you about the recent conversion, and what had been done.
Aha! You realize - it had nothing to do with you. It was about her, so, you agree. That's what good subordinates do. And that's what good managers do - delegate. Delegate all of their own tasks, so they can sit on their loins while you work for them, and THEY can sit and chit-chat in so-called "meetings" all day. That is how it works, isn't it??
You, too, flip the pages she has just handed you. You're relieved. It's only 4 pages. Four calls. Four different companies. How hard could it be?
----
Yet, you didn't realize that when you decided to fully commit yourself, that you pulled yourself into something that would make you even more angered.
----
You hang up with the last of the four companies.
Head over to let your superior know that you've accomplished the task, and declared the results of the task.
But wait! There's more...
She starts, "I wasn't able to...", and you knew it. She pulls a second stack of papers, and hands them to you. It's 12:55PM now. You figure another stack couldn't hold you too much longer, so again you approach this stack as you had the first. You bring the papers back to her, and you're fairly confident you'd head to lunch soon.
Ah.. you underestimated her, again.
She pulls yet another stack, and uses the same line, "Seems, these weren't on there either... could you...". This time you're thinking you're an idiot to not have said no. What could she have done?? Nothing. Because although she is your superior, she cannot demand your time, when you, too, have your own daily tasks.
Why, then, did you agree?
The only way to learn more is to take more.
What was surprising was that you didn't realize all the while that she would give you just one more stack, each time you returned, using the same line. You're almost convinced she intended to give you all 4 stacks, but to make the task seem lighter, she had given them to you one at a time, for a good hour and a half. When you finally had a breather it was 2:30PM. What's the point of going to lunch then?
So if you don't eat, people pretend to care that you didn't eat, but do they really? Did SHE care that you didn't eat much all day? Not particularly, and MAYBE the only reason she cared at all was not so much that you didn't eat, but that since you started working there you had been consistently losing weight, looking more and more lean, while she had been putting on more, and more, AND more weight. She only cared enough because next to you, she looked less healthy.
It's the crab in a bucket theory. You step too far ahead, and the other crabs grab at you, until you're in line with the others. Brilliant, no?
So what do you do?
You adjust.
You become more brash, and more demanding as a result of being denied. And with each following inquiry that receives that same rejection comes an equally demanding and assertive attempt, if not more so, to get what you didn't get in that first failed attempt. A reminder of how it had felt in that initial attempt.
Angered, and entirely NOT clear-headed.
----
You start to plot aggressively for the other party to become subservient, so much so that you start seething in the mouth. Only to calm a bit after listening to a good song or two. Of course, this wasn't the only thing making you seeth at the mouth, your superior has decided that she'd test the waters.
She sends you a message via an office messenger for you to see her at her desk.
It sounds important!
So even before you decide to go on lunch, you decide you'd head over after all your other mandatory tasks. You feared that it had something to do with your performance or something equally frightening...
...only you get over to her desk, and see several stacks of paper-clipped papers.
She pulls one. Flips the pages, and explains the scenario for which she will next task you. She tells you about the recent conversion, and what had been done.
Aha! You realize - it had nothing to do with you. It was about her, so, you agree. That's what good subordinates do. And that's what good managers do - delegate. Delegate all of their own tasks, so they can sit on their loins while you work for them, and THEY can sit and chit-chat in so-called "meetings" all day. That is how it works, isn't it??
You, too, flip the pages she has just handed you. You're relieved. It's only 4 pages. Four calls. Four different companies. How hard could it be?
----
Yet, you didn't realize that when you decided to fully commit yourself, that you pulled yourself into something that would make you even more angered.
----
You hang up with the last of the four companies.
Head over to let your superior know that you've accomplished the task, and declared the results of the task.
But wait! There's more...
She starts, "I wasn't able to...", and you knew it. She pulls a second stack of papers, and hands them to you. It's 12:55PM now. You figure another stack couldn't hold you too much longer, so again you approach this stack as you had the first. You bring the papers back to her, and you're fairly confident you'd head to lunch soon.
Ah.. you underestimated her, again.
She pulls yet another stack, and uses the same line, "Seems, these weren't on there either... could you...". This time you're thinking you're an idiot to not have said no. What could she have done?? Nothing. Because although she is your superior, she cannot demand your time, when you, too, have your own daily tasks.
Why, then, did you agree?
The only way to learn more is to take more.
What was surprising was that you didn't realize all the while that she would give you just one more stack, each time you returned, using the same line. You're almost convinced she intended to give you all 4 stacks, but to make the task seem lighter, she had given them to you one at a time, for a good hour and a half. When you finally had a breather it was 2:30PM. What's the point of going to lunch then?
So if you don't eat, people pretend to care that you didn't eat, but do they really? Did SHE care that you didn't eat much all day? Not particularly, and MAYBE the only reason she cared at all was not so much that you didn't eat, but that since you started working there you had been consistently losing weight, looking more and more lean, while she had been putting on more, and more, AND more weight. She only cared enough because next to you, she looked less healthy.
It's the crab in a bucket theory. You step too far ahead, and the other crabs grab at you, until you're in line with the others. Brilliant, no?
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