Thursday, September 27, 2012

Work is fun.


Sometimes people are so defensive and worried that they need to prove they’ve done nothing wrong that they will go to extreme lengths to “prove” their infallibility.  I find this frustrating, especially in the business scenario.  There is nothing to be gained in arguing with a customer that disagrees with a way you handled it. And when you turn that defensiveness toward an innocent coworker you’ve made it twice as bad.   Perhaps that coworker significantly softened the tone of the complaint, and recognized that you didn’t mean to come across as you did.  I’m pretty sure the right thing to do there is not call that person a liar and demand the produce proof of the customer’s disagreement.  I think right there you just called your coworker a liar.  And then don’t get madder when the email you asked for has a lot more difficult pills to swallow than what your well-meaning colleague conveyed to you.  You’ve taken a person that understood the situation and was trying to be delicate about it and made them in to someone that now understands the extent of your venom and probably has no real desire to do things with you anymore.  Good Lord. 

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