I did something that make the people around me say “thank you,”
yesterday and I thought I’d share it with you so you can do it and get
thanked, too.
Christmas is meant to be about peace and love and all that, but our focus on getting things has turned it into a season of stress for many. And with stress comes bullying.
I was standing in a long-and-getting-longer line at the stationery store behind a woman who was barking at busy store employees to meet her every demand. She insisted a store employee bring a box of paper in a cart for her (of course, she wouldn’t deign to push the cart herself). She had the number of another branch and was insisting the employees telephone that number to make sure that an item she needed was in stock there. The demands added up, all in an imperative, over-assertive tone, and completely devoid of any gratitude.
“And I will need carry out,” she continued. Not “would carry out be possible?” or “Could you please find someone to help me carry this heavy box to my car?” but “I need carry out,” the same as she had said “I need x item from the other store.”
Eventually, I spoke up in a voice loud enough to penetrate her narcissism. “Excuse me,” I interrupted her. “But these people deserve please and thank you. They are all being extremely accommodating for you, and I have not heard you say one please or thank you the entire time that I have been here.”
She looked over in surprise and with a sickly sweet voice, clearly “trained” in the right words, said “yes, I know that.”
“It’s a very stressful day for me today,” she said.
“I know,” I said. “It’s very stressful for all of the employees here, too.”
But she didn’t turn to apologize. She just stood smugly waiting for the employees to complete all of her demands.
The woman in front of me turned to say, “I’m staying neutral, but you’re right. I am glad you spoke up.”
The only way to be part of the solution with bullying is to stand on the side of the victim, and that usually means speaking out or even just raising your eyes in a way to let the bully know that they are watched and you do not approve.
If you stand passively by without saying anything, you are actually, with your non-choice, choosing to support the bully.
When I got to the cashier, I asked if he had double, or triple, the normal amount of customers today, and he said “you’re the first person today to ask that.” He sincerely thanked me for speaking up to the woman who had been harassing him.
In a way, I’m sorry for bully-woman. I wanted to follow her into the parking lot and explain that her stress levels would decrease instantly if she would think of what other people are handling, instead of focussing on her own to-do list. It really would. Instead, all she knows how to do is glare people down and tap her foot while she waits.
If you run into these people this season, and ‘tis likely you will, because our consumer culture has taught us that the customer is always right, please speak up.
If you don’t speak up, you’re building their power.
You can defuse their power by apologizing to their victims for them later, but if you can find the courage, please speak up right in front of the audience they’ve gathered with their loud, rude behaviour, and let them know their behaviour isn’t acceptable.
And, if you have the time and courage, help them by sympathetically explaining that their lives really will get better if they start to become aware of what everyone else is going through, too.
Give a gift of courage to those around you. Because you do have time to make the world a better place.
Christmas is meant to be about peace and love and all that, but our focus on getting things has turned it into a season of stress for many. And with stress comes bullying.
I was standing in a long-and-getting-longer line at the stationery store behind a woman who was barking at busy store employees to meet her every demand. She insisted a store employee bring a box of paper in a cart for her (of course, she wouldn’t deign to push the cart herself). She had the number of another branch and was insisting the employees telephone that number to make sure that an item she needed was in stock there. The demands added up, all in an imperative, over-assertive tone, and completely devoid of any gratitude.
“And I will need carry out,” she continued. Not “would carry out be possible?” or “Could you please find someone to help me carry this heavy box to my car?” but “I need carry out,” the same as she had said “I need x item from the other store.”
Eventually, I spoke up in a voice loud enough to penetrate her narcissism. “Excuse me,” I interrupted her. “But these people deserve please and thank you. They are all being extremely accommodating for you, and I have not heard you say one please or thank you the entire time that I have been here.”
She looked over in surprise and with a sickly sweet voice, clearly “trained” in the right words, said “yes, I know that.”
“It’s a very stressful day for me today,” she said.
“I know,” I said. “It’s very stressful for all of the employees here, too.”
But she didn’t turn to apologize. She just stood smugly waiting for the employees to complete all of her demands.
The woman in front of me turned to say, “I’m staying neutral, but you’re right. I am glad you spoke up.”
The only way to be part of the solution with bullying is to stand on the side of the victim, and that usually means speaking out or even just raising your eyes in a way to let the bully know that they are watched and you do not approve.
If you stand passively by without saying anything, you are actually, with your non-choice, choosing to support the bully.
When I got to the cashier, I asked if he had double, or triple, the normal amount of customers today, and he said “you’re the first person today to ask that.” He sincerely thanked me for speaking up to the woman who had been harassing him.
In a way, I’m sorry for bully-woman. I wanted to follow her into the parking lot and explain that her stress levels would decrease instantly if she would think of what other people are handling, instead of focussing on her own to-do list. It really would. Instead, all she knows how to do is glare people down and tap her foot while she waits.
If you run into these people this season, and ‘tis likely you will, because our consumer culture has taught us that the customer is always right, please speak up.
If you don’t speak up, you’re building their power.
You can defuse their power by apologizing to their victims for them later, but if you can find the courage, please speak up right in front of the audience they’ve gathered with their loud, rude behaviour, and let them know their behaviour isn’t acceptable.
And, if you have the time and courage, help them by sympathetically explaining that their lives really will get better if they start to become aware of what everyone else is going through, too.
Give a gift of courage to those around you. Because you do have time to make the world a better place.
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