So my boss said something off the cuff the other day that really applied to me. He told me that I “can’t slap the stupid out of everyone”. He didn’t realize it at the time, but it really cut to my core. You see, I’m not always the best at hiding my emotions or covering up my feelings, so when someone says or does something dumb, I have trouble masking my annoyance. I always got in trouble as a kid not for saying the wrong things, but instead because of the way I said them.

The genesis of this comment happened after a phone conversation between myself and an employee from another store. He called with a request for us to expidite some work for him, saying that he had a customer waiting. I got frustrated and told him that “we are busy”, and that “everything we do has a customer waiting (for it)”. I wasn’t wrong, but he could tell how annoyed I was by the tone of my voice. He understandably called my supervisor to complain.

Turns out that I was sceduled to work at this gentleman’s store last Saturday, so my supervisor requested that I speak with him and smooth the situation over. So I found him, apologized, and explained why I was frustrated. I could have just as easily done this over the phone and avoided a complaint to my boss, but my reaction was to be annoyed, and as a result the situation made me look immature.

Sometimes you’ve just got to smile and be nice, even though the other person is wrong, rude, or selfish. Sometimes your non-verbal communication means far more than what you are saying. Just because I had a million things going on, doesn’t mean that I have a right to be rude to this individual. It would have taken less time to be polite than it did for me to shut him off the way I did. Little things like this can very easily hold someone back from taking the next career step.

I guess I just got the stupid slapped out of me.