Well, if you have not guessed it, today I had a trying day [it would be quite silly and illogical of me to talk about bad days if in fact I had a wonderful one... ]. Where I work I manage print and direct mail campaigns. I basically work for a print brokerage, but we don't really like to say those words. The company I work for also does not use the term "junk mail." Working in a stressful environment there are A LOT of bad words - all of which are not even on the same level of vulgarity as muttering those two little words above "junk mail". The "SGi" politically correct term to use is "direct mail". So please, make note of this in your daily diction when cursing the masses amounts of "direct mail" received unecessarily and of little effectiveness (oh, just an FYI - the average "direct mail" campaign at most generates a 2% response rate while spending litterally hundreds of thousands of dollar usually).
Okay, okay, okay... enough explaining. I manage print projects. I don't love it, but that's only because I am filling the stocking the copier and tracking 5,231 UPS packages more so than I am doing any actual "management" of said projects. Anywhoooo... I had to cover some jobs for a coworker who took the day off. The jobs are by no means difficult or challenging, but this combined with my own deadlines and work to complete made it quite difficult to stay sane. And yes, I was actually "managing" projects today [ yip-pee :) ]. As always, when she was explaining to me [aka talking down to me about what I HAD to do for her all without a simple "thanks" or "thank you" at then end of her schpeel] she forgot to mention a few items that would have been quite helpful just after lunch came around. She forgot to let me know that one of her projects was not running on-time. And furthermore that there was a truck scheduled to pick up this job of over 60,000 pieces for one of our biggest clients! Soo... today I got a call from one of our vendors telling me this! I was trilled - and not to mention literally exhausted from all the emailing and phone dialing I had to do to figure out what in heaven's name was going on! For the next 2 hours I was being pulled back and forth into my bosses office to discuss what we could do and go... all the while that my own projects sit motionless in their little manilla folders on my desk. This was a very trying day...
At first I handled it all very well. I was calm, cool, collected... until I realized all the other work I had to accomplish by the end of the day, then I just became depressed.
Is it not justified to assume that when you respect another individual you should receive that same respect from them? Is this thought wrong. No, I only think this thought is human - from an actual person who cares how they interact with the world and the impact they understand that they have upon other people. I believe that people can take two routes when pursuing what they want. A. Courteously, clear, respectful, understanding yet assertive. Or B. Disrespect, very much not understanding, rude and a b*&tch. I choose the first and I am completely aware that I am in the minority where I work. I refuse to yell at vendors to get what I want. I try my best to not be condescending. However, I always say thank you [actually it is a compulsion of mine - I must say it or I will have trouble not thinking about the fact that I did not say "thank you".] And most importantly I understand that we are NOT perfect machines, but merely human. We are human when we speak out of line. We are human when we get into a fender-bender. We are human when we hurt the ones we love. WE are ALL human. Perfection is not an option or choice but a unreasonable expectation- at least not for me or anyone I've ever encountered.
I may be called weak and a "pushover," but my soul will not allow me to stomach or tolerate rudeness or vulgar language of myself in order to get what I need or what. I'm sorry, but I just will not do it. End of story. No, really... end of story.
hugs to all :)
erica
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