*photo: me and baby Leia
Have you ever met that one person who takes up more space than the majority of people you've met? You know who I am talking about… those people that give you a certain stare and a tilt of their chin and move right in front of you in line or cut in front of you on the freeway and go as fast or as slow as they want no matter what the rules are.
You can tell a lot about a person about how they stand in line and wait their turn.
Today I encountered a woman on the job who called in from an employee group that we service calls for. I work in health insurance. This person works in a different company of health insurance. She called from a doctor's office trying to get what she thought would be a simple answer to her question. Now, I get it… don't you think it should be easy to make sure that your doctors are participating with your insurance? In a perfect world it would be! But if there's one thing I know for sure, right now we do not live in a perfect world and insurance is never simple.
I am glad that I don't encounter very many callers like her. Chances are I would be looking for another job, post haste!
The call took twice as long to resolve because this women had brought preconceived notions to our call regarding what my job means to her rather than ask appropriate questions of me.
Fortunately, I'm a veteran at this work and I've served people in some fashion my entire adult life. I've dealt with narcissistic people and I recognize at the greeting what manner of person I am dealing with. A degree in speech communications is the last thing that prepared me for this type of issue. I raised three children before I got any degree and I taught Sunday school for over a decade and homeschooled for four years. I got you, sister.
It may surprise you to learn that adults could throw tantrums that would make a two-year-old jealous.
Don't be that person. How do you handle this type of bully? By using kindness you can disarm a bully and they move over.
Would you like to win a conversation or do you need to accomplish a goal with a conversation? The best way to glean information is to ask questions and then allow time for the person to answer you. This is why we call professionals and it seems pretty basic, doesn't it?
Unfortunately, the more you know the less you seem to bring into the conversation.
Help others to help you by
excepting your own role in a two way conversation and, voila, win=win!
This is my five
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