Split personality and public relations
When you provide a service for people you frequently need to keep a tight rein on your mouth. You need to do this more so in a position where you deal with an external client but even when you are in a support role internally you cannot just let loose.
This is not always as easy as it seems.
Do any job long enough and someone will do something so asinine, incredibly stupid that not only is keeping your cool tricky but you have to restrain yourself from actually squeezing the life from them.
It's at this point that you should stop. Remember that everything works along a probability curve. Sooner or later you are going to hit the crazy end of it. The low probability tip of the bell curve. Too many standard deviations from the mean. Sooner or later everyone will score a direct hit on the unlikely end of the curve.
Working with people is hard. You either turn into one of those officious bitter people (think British Rail) or you will mellow into an almost zen state. Buddha wasn't a god, he just used to work in customer service for AOL.
With me it's still touch and go. Some days I float though my job like a cross between a Warrior monk and the fonze. My outlook is calm and I am at peace. No problem is too big or too small for the wisdom I have attained. There is, in fact, no spoon.
Other days? Well they are not as good. When I have to deal with the person who filled their laptop up with a mixture of heavily sugared coffee and yoghurt and yet is still trying to tell me how it's my fault there most certainly is a fucking spoon and that spoon is sharpened into a prison shank.
So far all I have learned to do is fake it. My face looks as calm and helpful in either state. the only difference is that in the second state my eyes seem to be screaming and when I get somewhere private I curl into a ball and whimper while I suck my thumb.
When faced with the hard of thinking hold on to that mask, keep all sharp items out of reach, smile. The alternative just leads to your neighbours on the news saying things like, "He always kept himself to himself", or, "He was always so quiet".
One day I am going to write a survival guide to dealing with people.
This is not always as easy as it seems.
Do any job long enough and someone will do something so asinine, incredibly stupid that not only is keeping your cool tricky but you have to restrain yourself from actually squeezing the life from them.
It's at this point that you should stop. Remember that everything works along a probability curve. Sooner or later you are going to hit the crazy end of it. The low probability tip of the bell curve. Too many standard deviations from the mean. Sooner or later everyone will score a direct hit on the unlikely end of the curve.
Working with people is hard. You either turn into one of those officious bitter people (think British Rail) or you will mellow into an almost zen state. Buddha wasn't a god, he just used to work in customer service for AOL.
With me it's still touch and go. Some days I float though my job like a cross between a Warrior monk and the fonze. My outlook is calm and I am at peace. No problem is too big or too small for the wisdom I have attained. There is, in fact, no spoon.
Other days? Well they are not as good. When I have to deal with the person who filled their laptop up with a mixture of heavily sugared coffee and yoghurt and yet is still trying to tell me how it's my fault there most certainly is a fucking spoon and that spoon is sharpened into a prison shank.
So far all I have learned to do is fake it. My face looks as calm and helpful in either state. the only difference is that in the second state my eyes seem to be screaming and when I get somewhere private I curl into a ball and whimper while I suck my thumb.
When faced with the hard of thinking hold on to that mask, keep all sharp items out of reach, smile. The alternative just leads to your neighbours on the news saying things like, "He always kept himself to himself", or, "He was always so quiet".
One day I am going to write a survival guide to dealing with people.
posted by Student at 1:36 pm
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