How to Avoid "Negative Waves" When Dealing With The Public
One of my favorite movies is Kelly's Heroes. The Clint Eastwood gold stealing from the Nazi's caper amuses me to no end. How could you not love a movie where there are sing-a-long 70's chorus-flavored songs, a hippie tank commander that shoots paint out of his tank's gun to "paint pretty pictures," a supply Sargent nicknamed Crapgame (his disposition is too sweet), and Telly freakin Savalas!
My husband grew up in the inner city, then he spent a good chunk of his military career in recon, and finally wrapped things up as a recruiter. Let's just say his outlook regarding his fellow humans is rather dim. He has lived life slathered in the ugliness wrought by the worst of human behavior, so it of course makes sense that he married one of the biggest Pollyanna's of all time when it comes to overall optimism about life and people in general.
I grew up surrounded by societal outcasts. Many of the people that worked in the logging and fishing industries in Alaska had a past that could be considered ugly. The people I was surrounded with lived a life of constant turmoil, their every day interactions weighed down by the never-ending series of "interesting" choices that they made. Drugs, prostitution, fighting, conning, thievery, a real baker's dozen of vice and misery colored their existence. Even though I was surrounded by all that negativity, for some strange reason I always tended (and still do) to cast my vision on the good side of observation. My nephew likes to joke that I am chemically unbalanced to always be happy. Heh. If the shoe fits.
Returning to Kelly's Heroes, there is a character, a tank mechanic named Moriarty that always seems to be looking on the not so bright side of life. His commander, a lovely, positive creature named Oddall is always on him for throwing out them "negative waves." The whole concept of having a positive attitude really resonates with me, and whenever my husband is a little to down on a certain situation, I love to throw out a, "Always with the negative waves, Moriarty, always with them negative waves." line on him.
Well, yesterday I found myself in a customer service scenario for most of the day, and there were a couple of moments where my propensity for "positive waves" really helped out. In the beginning of my tenure at the library I worked on the front lines, manning the counter and dealing with the patrons one on one. Over the last couple years it was discovered by management that I was fairly adept at helping Youth Services with their programs, creating adult programming, and more than fairly decent at book surgery and other library materials processing stuff. What does that mean? It means that I was conscripted from the front lines of customer service and found myself spending more time in the non-public areas of the library. Our branch is small, so throughout the day I might wander out and check out a book or too, but these days it is far more common for me to be reviewing my manager's upcoming board report or constructing a Power Point for an herb hydrosol how-to class.
However, one of my co-workers went on vacation this week, and I got the running of the front counter to myself! Here's a couple of the inter-personal interaction reminders that were handed to me that day:
Unruly children exist. Instead of getting your sensible knickers in a twist about it, find a way to enjoy the situation.
While I was in the middle of washing the latest James Patterson page turner, a mother walked in with her child. Normally I would just smile, greet them, and continue washing the what I hoped was pancake syrup off the front of whatever book I was cleaning. This mother however, was one that was familiar to me, and her spawn is an unruly creature of legend.
He began his trip through our doors with a chant, "I DON"T WANT TO READ! I DON"T TO READ!" I have to hand it to him, there was some rhythm to his stated mantra, but the volume level exceeded standards of civility.
His mother grabbed a hold of his arm and dragged the insolent creature, whom at this point was thrashing like a worm in hot ashes, out of the library for what I assumed was a tete-a-tete. They returned a few minutes later and before I knew it the boy had entered the no-fly zone of the library. If you are not a librarian, you do NOT go behind the counter. This kid knows this, but today was apparently be a heathen day. I stuck my arm out and barred his process to our office.
"I'm going to see what's back there!" he announced defiantly.
"No, you're not." was all I said in return.
Now this kid is legend in our community for being somewhat of a challenge so when he ran into my arm trying to get past, I found myself smiling with some positive waves. I bent down and gazed right into Wreck It Ralph's eyes.
"I want to see what's back there," he screeched.
"I don't care." I whispered menacingly in return.
It's important to note at this point that I was having a marvelous time, for front desk work is more repetitive in nature and tends feeds the OCD bit of one's soul. This interaction allowed me to trot out the animal-whisperer part of my personality. I always knew there was a reason that I was given my rather large, manga-ish green eyes. With unruly livestock, young humans included, you have to mean what you say with every fiber of your being. My children and animals know when I get to the tipping point of doom, and so did this boy, for he didn't say another word and vacated quickly.
Like a crocodile pursuing Captain Hook did that child flee from me!
He resumed harassing his mother, but as he resembled what I like to call pest pustule, he wasn't just content with making his primary source of misery miserable, and moved on to trashing the children's area.
I calmly walked over and looked him in the eye again,
"Sir," I began, "You are more than welcome to play with anything in this area, but you are not allowed to throw the toys and you have to pick up your mess."
"But I want to throw this stuff." he brayed loudly at me, a defiant twinkle in his chaos-causing eye.
I knelt down and looked him in the eyes and again whispered, "I don't care."
Once again he got the message and proceeded to pick up his mess. I also might have gazed at him with just a slight amount of discomforting menace, just for fun.
The point that I am trying to make here is this: I could have gotten all flustered at the prospect of dealing with an unruly kid, his unfortunate mother, and the whole situation could have turned out differently. Don't let a potentially bad situation own you, jump on that horse and ride it. There are countless scenarios in life that pop up for me to deal with, and quite honestly there are days that I don't want to deal with them, but if I decide in the moment to just roll with it, nine times out of ten that confident attitude works wonders in how I handle what could be a soul-crushing moment.
Item Two: Give yourself permission to go out of your way to be nice!
Sometimes I tend to get too wrapped up in all of the things that I need to take care of. My to do lists are legendary, for I have multiples both in digital and paper form. There will always be something to do, but the problem with picking at all of that life dandruff is that you sometimes miss engaging in the little moments that matter the most.
An elderly woman with a cane came through the front doors, and I greeted her like I do everyone that graces our presence. However, I usually move on with whatever I am working on after that initial greeting, unless that person needs help with something. This lady just looked lost. She wasn't even looking my direction, for instead she was pondering the copier and the signs on our doors that announce upcoming library events. I could have just went about my business, but there was this sadness emanating off of this lady that pricked at my conscience, so I wandered over and asked if I could help her with anything.
It turns out that her husband is starting down the end path of life. She saw a flyer at the senior center just down the block for care-giver training for family members or friends of a loved one who wasn't quite ready for hospice care. She thought we might have the same flyer and just wanted a copy for the class times. We didn't have that flyer. I told her to wait a minute, notified my manager that I'd be right back, and trotted down the street to the senior center. The nice ladies there laughed at the thought of me borrowing that flyer and making a copy at the library before returning it, so they made me a copy to give to the woman. The cane bearing lady was so shocked that I would go out of my way to do such a thing for her, and while it felt good to bring her a little bit of joy, I also felt a bit melancholy at that moment, for her reaction to my small action is one I have experienced before. Are random small acts of kindness truly so uncommon?
The Precious is always emanating positive waves, er...purrs.
In the end, it seems to me the world would be a touch more enjoyable if we were all a bit more Oddball and just a little less Moriarty.
And as always, all of the images, unless otherwise cited, were taken on the author's steadfast and positive wave bearing iPhone.