Friday, August 08, 2008

Life Lesson for the Day

I just came back from talking to a secretary about her computer woes. She was very upset that, once a month, the computer does it's automatic updates and forces a reboot after a certain period of time (after warning them lots of times that the machine needs to reboot).

I listened to her for a good 10 minutes, figuring she probably needed to vent. Then I got a little tired of it, and offered her a couple useful suggestions that have worked in other departments.

She did NOT want to hear it. She wanted to keep complaining to the phone support people, she wants to talk to their supervisor, wants to talk to the head person at corporate who made this decision, etc.

I came away from this encounter today with the realization that I have to be careful about my attitude and how I approach change. Either you fight against what has happened, or you get yourself an attitude adjustment. Looking for solutions, rather than focusing on the problem, seems to make the difference between productive behavior vs. being stuck in the same place.

1 comment:

Mrs. C. said...

I think the wise comment went something like "better to light a candle than curse the darkness.."

It's good you could find an epiphany for yourself in someone else's anger! Sometimes we only want that other person to shut up and don't get anything meaningful from the contact. There's always something there..

Happy Tuesday!