I wrote yesterday that my Dr. Pepper exploded during my flight to Nashville.  Well I was flying home today and my Dr. Pepper exploded on this flight, too.  This annoyed me a bit at first, but then it caused me to start a conversation with the flight attendant.  I always like hearing about other people’s worlds.  This particular attendant shared with me some interesting stories.  Here are the top three.

1. A passenger ran into some unexplained difficulty in the bathroom at the front of the plane and fell out of the bathroom with his pants around his ankles.  He promptly stood up, flashing all of first class, and calmly pulled up his pants and returned to his seat.
2. A passenger on a flight to St. Maarten asked if they would be flying over water.
3. A passenger asked her how much the complimentary beverages cost.

These at least made me feel better about exploding my Dr. Pepper (twice).

I sat next to two women who work for a big box store on my flight to Nashville.  We got to talking over our complimentary beverages.  (My Dr. Pepper exploded on me – not my smoothest moment.)  They told me about their work, what they liked and what made things tough for them.  They said that by far the most challenging part of their job was dealing with irate customers.  They described example after example of customers who had berated them, yelled at other customers, even forced them to call the police.

I found this very sad, but I could relate.  After college I got the kind of job that makes sense for a liberal arts grad with a major in psychology.  I waited tables.  Not only did I wait tables, I did so for a Pizzeria Uno’s situated between Fenway Park and Boston University.  My customers consisted almost entirely of drunk, angry Red Sox fans or poor, drunk college students.  Sometimes they were both.

My fellow waiters and waitresses and I did not always get treated well.  We were snapped at, ordered around and tipped abysmally.  However, I had the good fortune to work for a manager who stood up for his employees.  When a customer stepped over the line and became abusive, my manager would step in.  He made it clear that such behavior was unwelcome and would not be tolerated.

I was fortunate to have him there to manage these situations.  These two women were generally on their own, doing their best to handle their angry customers with no training for how to do so.

If you ever have to deal with someone who is angry, I offer the following tips to keep calm and not let these situations get to you.

• Tell a story about the person that evokes sympathy.  My new friends told themselves stories that made them angrier: these customers are mean people or entitled or don’t care about other people.  Instead, turn this around.  What if the angry customers are in pain?  (My new friends worked in the pharmacy.)  What if they are afraid that they won’t be able to afford their medication?  The stories you tell to explain others’ actions can generate anger or sympathy (or lots of other responses).  The sympathetic story makes it a lot easier to keep your cool and stay positive.
• Take one good long look at yourself.  Take responsibility for what you own.  Then let the rest go.  My new friends were kind, well-intentioned women, but they repeatedly looked back at themselves to ask, “What could I have done differently?”  Well, that question can be valuable in order to learn.  However, once you’ve learned what you can, it’s important to let go.  Remind yourself that the irate customer isn’t about you.  Even if you made them wait or made a mistake, unless you got angry first, it’s not about you.  It’s about the other person’s ability to deal with their own anxiety.  So learn first.  Then let go.
• Learn to calm yourself down.  One of my favorite books is Three Deep Breaths, by Thomas Crum.  If you want to feel greater calm in a stressed out world, then this book is for you. I recommend it to almost all of my clients, friends, people I meet on the street. It is an easy read – 100 pages of a fable about a guy who learns to take three deep breaths to reduce his stress. It sounds simple, and the beauty of it is that it is both simple and effective. I use the techniques almost every day, and I’m calmer and happier for it.

It is an incredible pain to have to deal with angry people all the time.  When you do, it’s nice to have some techniques to keep your calm.  Good luck.  Stay cool.

Welcome to my blog! You’ve probably read plenty of first blog entries with the welcome speech. So let’s skip that and get right to my first real entry.