Give 'em a break.

No you have not entered a construction site, just a little piece of my inner monologue. I am no different than you, the first time I saw one of those construction signs I laughed to myself (maybe even out loud). The truth is construction sites are like call centers. We as observers feel like we already know the people that are either working construction or answering the phones are incompetent and actually trying to slow us down.

How did that entitlement come about? When did it become OK to assume people in service industries are intentionally trying to do things wrong or make situations difficult? Why do we as consumers assume that anyone who is paid to help us is trying to scam us or deliberately charge up our account so that we are getting charged more than we wanted to spend?

This is mind boggling to me. As a society I think we give people way too much credit of malice and forethought. In my minimal experience, most people just want to do their jobs and do them well. This should lead to continued and even profitable employment. As employees we do not seek joy in other's misery as a part of the job. Even more probable are people that do things that are hurtful completly via ignorance or even more frequently simple human error. What causes the real issue are people's fear of admitting mistakes and then making it right. So we as the affected party are then righteously indignant to any who will listen.

I frequently find myself frustrated with people as you will recall from yesterday's post. Reminding myself of this position that most people are not purposefully trying to do things wrong helps give me some perspective. If I take some time to understand where they are coming from I might understand that I am really not the priority for a legitimate reason and will "give them a break" on the deadline now that I understand, or work with them to alieviate what other issues are standing in their way of success.

I will admit that there are people out there that just don't care, or are truly that disconnected. You have to have realistic expectations of them. In a sense "give them a break" they are who they are and you aren't going to do anything to change that. If you are their manager you have a little power, but you can only change you and simply attempt to influence other people.

When you feel your blood boiling determine if you are shooting the messenger or not? For instance my daughter is still experiencing many things for the first time. However, it is very easy for me to forget that and say something very insensitive like "This is very simple, I don't know what is so hard about this." Well, it's hard because she has never done it before.

I am not condoning the idea of people just not listening, or generally disregarding instructions or their jobs. Simply that as a leader you need to have a good understanding of the whole story before getting your attitude in a bunch. If there are legitamate reasons for a behavior maybe you should just give 'em a break.