Taking out the Garbage

I had an interesting experience today at work, and it began with finding I had become a scapegoat. See, it is my custom to answer the phone cheerfully; I do this partly because it tends to make the whole conversation pleasant, and partly because I feel like everyone deserves at least one cheerful greeting a day.. Even my charms, however, were not enough to sweeten the irate customer from this morning.

From the split second that he knew a live, breathing person was listening on the other end, this person began a torrent of complaints, questions, and demands. It was such an intense outpouring of frustration, I had no chance to answer his complaints with a solution. Every idea I had was deemed wrong or stupid (although as it turned out, they were neither). I understand that sometimes a person just has to vent, but this stood out as going beyond the line.

After, I thought: "How often do we all do this?" We get frustrated at something in our lives and take it out on the nearest person. It doesn't all have to be as extreme as my example. It could be as simple as honking the horn to say "go faster or get out of the way", when we know that if we were not late for a meeting we would be content to trundle along behind. Or being curt to a salesperson when our feet hurt, the kids are misbehaving, we're tired and we don't want to hear that without the receipt it's store credit only.

Everyone deals with this kind of thing sooner or later, but the sadder thing is that we probably all deal it out as well. What have we become, such that we would rather make someone join us in misery than feel uplifted by their contentment? And, what have we become such that we would rather label those people jerks than acknowledge their hardships or our own lapses in courtesy?

Sometimes, people think I am too soft and that I make excuses for such behavior. Rather, I like to think that we can still hold people accountable for their actions without losing compassion. Because when it is our turn to step over the line, for whatever reason, the value of that compassion is immeasurable.