Reverb14: Biting Back

Very interesting #Reverb14 prompt from Brad aka GeekinHard:

Despite our usually sunny dispositions and dedication to the practice of “assuming positive intent,” we all occasionally find ourselves having to deal with an incredibly unpleasant individual.

While I’m sure you always handle it with the tact and finesse for which you’ve become so well known, I’m going to ask you to step outside yourself for just a moment.

Think back to such a situation: if the gloves were off, how you really would have liked to have dealt with them?

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You know after an encounter with an unpleasant individual, I try to let it go as quickly as possible. That being said, I find it a bit hard to think of a time when I was with someone who was incredibly unpleasant, but do find this prompt very interesting to think about.   I do recall a time this year at work when I had an email exchange with an organization we worked with. I was in the middle of moving to a different state and transitioning out of this position. We had been in an email exchange about some important issues with some of our accounts and the other person was overlooking certain things I was clearly stating in the email. In the last exchange, she clearly felt my frustration and said that she understood my concern and that is was probably due to my upcoming move. I sent her an email politely letting her know that her inability to clearly answer my question, not stress from my move, was causing my frustration. In many ways, I did deal with it, but you know what? I wish I would have picked up the phone and called her. In that situation, I felt like sending the email was the tactful thing,  but if I had to bite back, I would have called and had a less than tactful conversation.

K