A healthy dose of compassion helps too. No matter how impatient I feel I look for the opportunity to turn stress points into something less. Sounds odd maybe, but it just seems to me like everybody is wrapped pretty tight these days--like maybe we ALL are carrying a lot of stress and upset.
I was at the grocery store the other day and there was a man ahead of me in the checkout lane. A woman was ahead of the man and she wrote a check to pay for a bunch of groceries. Some kind of message came up on the computer that told the checker not to accept the check. The clerk did a fine job of being discrete with the lady, but I could just FEEL that lady's embarrassment and upset rolling off of her in almost waves. The clerk was getting progressively more worked up and worried that the rest of the line was gonna get peeved and escalate the situation even further. The guy ahead of me turned around to look at me like he was unsure of what to do, and I just kind of smiled at him and nodded my head. I made some joke about the steaks he had in his cart--that dinner looked pretty good and what time should we show up...
In the meantime, the service manager came over and they got the lady out of the line and took her over to the service desk.
The checker promptly apologized to the people in line for making us wait and I piped up with a compliment to her at how well she had handled the situation--how diplomatic I thought she'd been in a situation that had to be terribly awkward for that lady. The man ahead of me turned around and smiled at me like he was relieved. When he left everybody was still smiling, and he wished me a nice day. Turns out that the lady behind me in the line was a trainer for the store and SHE complimented the checker as well. Everybody was on an even keel by the time I paid and got out of there.
Could have been a LOT worse, and had anybody wanted to be an ass...
Laura
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