plato.
I have a Plato quotation in my email signature: "Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle."
It's true, you know. Everyone is at war of some kind, fighting battles on all fronts: battles against themselves and their own insecurities; battles against family members and ever-present memories of abuse or abandonment; battles against people they love and feelings of rejection, desire, and inadequacy. Then of course there are the battles against bosses and coworkers, against the liberal or conservative media agenda, against the president, against the former president, against racism, socialism, indifference, health care, aging, censorship...
I bring this up because a woman yelled at me on the phone on Tuesday. She is frustrated that her custom textbook is taking so long to create (it is ~1500 pages of text for which we have no existing files, so every word must be retyped). Her book is a collection of readings about public policy in higher education. She has a Ph.D. She has excelled in the field of education which, in my experience, necessitates patience, flexibility, and a desire to constructively channel errors into success at every student level. However, she had none of this. I tried to speak patiently, I tried to appreciate her frustrations, and I asked her what steps I could take to make her feel more comfortable. She snapped that having the project done that day would make her feel more comfortable, and that it was completely unreasonable of me/my company to expect that she review pages of the text while she went out of the country on sabbatical to work on "her own projects." I waited a quiet moment, then said, "Have a nice day," then slammed down the phone and took a walk around the building to cool off.
Here's what went through my head, in approximate order:
1 - "Jerk! How dare you speak to me as if I'm five years old, as if I haven't been working tirelessly on your project for weeks, as if I don't have a master's degree, as if I don't have my own issues, as if I don't already battle against the fact that despite all the progress of women's lib, I am still a woman fighting to make it in a man's world, and you are too, snooty professor lady. And don't they have internet access in any country that you'd consider spending your sabbatical? How lovely of you to have a sabbatical while we toil away at your books, books about education and teaching. I'm glad you were never my teacher. Jerk!"
2 - "Calm down, Dianna. She doesn't know you. She couldn't have known that you often put up a front of confidence to hide the fact that sometimes you feel incompetent, inadequate, and everything you used to feel when you sat in AP classes at your fancy prep school while everyone tried to outdo each other with their incredible intelligence and stories of spending summers in Europe for advanced educational programs while you worked at day camps."
3 - "Jerk!"
4 - "Jerk!"
5 - "Plato. Deep breath. Plato."
I forgive this woman for belittling me. I forgive her for her arrogance and her assumption that the working world revolves around her. I forgive her for taking sabbaticals out of the country. I forgive her because she is fighting plenty of her own battles that I don't know about, battles that started long before I was assigned as the editor to her project, battles that won't be resolved before new battles begin. And the sick feeling I get when I know someone is truly disappointed in me (or worse, angry) confirms that I don't want to fight. I won't be one of her battles. I will have to be kind.
It's true, you know. Everyone is at war of some kind, fighting battles on all fronts: battles against themselves and their own insecurities; battles against family members and ever-present memories of abuse or abandonment; battles against people they love and feelings of rejection, desire, and inadequacy. Then of course there are the battles against bosses and coworkers, against the liberal or conservative media agenda, against the president, against the former president, against racism, socialism, indifference, health care, aging, censorship...
I bring this up because a woman yelled at me on the phone on Tuesday. She is frustrated that her custom textbook is taking so long to create (it is ~1500 pages of text for which we have no existing files, so every word must be retyped). Her book is a collection of readings about public policy in higher education. She has a Ph.D. She has excelled in the field of education which, in my experience, necessitates patience, flexibility, and a desire to constructively channel errors into success at every student level. However, she had none of this. I tried to speak patiently, I tried to appreciate her frustrations, and I asked her what steps I could take to make her feel more comfortable. She snapped that having the project done that day would make her feel more comfortable, and that it was completely unreasonable of me/my company to expect that she review pages of the text while she went out of the country on sabbatical to work on "her own projects." I waited a quiet moment, then said, "Have a nice day," then slammed down the phone and took a walk around the building to cool off.
Here's what went through my head, in approximate order:
1 - "Jerk! How dare you speak to me as if I'm five years old, as if I haven't been working tirelessly on your project for weeks, as if I don't have a master's degree, as if I don't have my own issues, as if I don't already battle against the fact that despite all the progress of women's lib, I am still a woman fighting to make it in a man's world, and you are too, snooty professor lady. And don't they have internet access in any country that you'd consider spending your sabbatical? How lovely of you to have a sabbatical while we toil away at your books, books about education and teaching. I'm glad you were never my teacher. Jerk!"
2 - "Calm down, Dianna. She doesn't know you. She couldn't have known that you often put up a front of confidence to hide the fact that sometimes you feel incompetent, inadequate, and everything you used to feel when you sat in AP classes at your fancy prep school while everyone tried to outdo each other with their incredible intelligence and stories of spending summers in Europe for advanced educational programs while you worked at day camps."
3 - "Jerk!"
4 - "Jerk!"
5 - "Plato. Deep breath. Plato."
I forgive this woman for belittling me. I forgive her for her arrogance and her assumption that the working world revolves around her. I forgive her for taking sabbaticals out of the country. I forgive her because she is fighting plenty of her own battles that I don't know about, battles that started long before I was assigned as the editor to her project, battles that won't be resolved before new battles begin. And the sick feeling I get when I know someone is truly disappointed in me (or worse, angry) confirms that I don't want to fight. I won't be one of her battles. I will have to be kind.