Well, I am back to work. Didn't really want to come in today. Still feeling a bit under the weather, but I remembered this morning that I didn't do my time sheet, and they are due today. Whatever happened to time clocks? Do they still exist? To me, this time sheet business is only another addition to the already tremendous amount of paperwork piled on my plate.
I've been having some difficulties with my office mate again. Her argumentative way of talking to me is started to really get to me. Lately, she has gotten much worse, and I've asked her to tone it down on several occasions. She is one of those people who if you say the sky is blue, she'll say it is black. And there is no way you can sway her otherwise. She is always right. I hear her on the phone with her family members, and she does the same thing. This is just her nature, but it sure can make one miserable.
Our words are powerful weapons, and all it takes is one word to cut a person down. Furthermore, words not only affect those who they were directed at, but can spread far beyond that. A kind or unkind word can affect the way someone is feeling at any given moment. Then, they in turn can be kind or unkind to others around them and so on and so on. How many times I have to catch myself from taking it out on another after my office mate has cut me down.
So, it is important always that we remember how powerful our words can be. They can be one of the most healing instruments that we possess, or they can be the most damaging weapon in our arsenal. It is all up to us to decide which way we will use them. In closing, I'd like to share the following with you.
There once was a wise sage who wandered the countryside. One day, as he passed near a village, he was approached by a woman who saw he was a sage and told him of a sick child nearby. She beseeched him to help this child. The sage came to the village, and a crowd gathered around him, for such a man was a rare sight. One woman brought the sick child to him,and he said a prayer over her.
"Do you really think your prayer will help her, when medicine has failed?" yelled a man from the crowd.
"You know nothing of such things! You are a stupid fool!" said the sage to the man.
The man became very angry with these words and his face grew hot and red. He was about to say something, or perhaps strike out, when the sage walked over to him and said: "If one word has such power as to make you so angry and hot,may not another have the power to heal?"
And thus, the sage healed two people that day.
Oh, that is so hard - it's not like you can choose your coworkers. I've worked with these types and you really have to put your brain on "ignore" mode most of the while or you'll go nuts!
ReplyDeleteFlashbacks of my dad came to mind.
ReplyDeleteNegative, negative, negative.
I finally gave up trying when he lived with me and when he would start on something, I'd say " yes dad" and walk away.
soooooooooooooooo much easier on me and it ended FAST.
The other way ...he would still be trying to make his point. UGH!
Spread the word to my brother in FL and he admitted that his last years with dad when he visited were so much better when he came to stay with him awhile. :0)
While I DON"T LIKE being told that Black is White........ an ahha, yes, um, okay and retreat was well worth not trying to get something into their thick skull.
He wasn't going to change and neither is your co-worker.
Give it a try my friend...even if it galls you to do it. (((hugs)))
Very Zen Mary....I wish, oh how I wish, I could think before opening my mouth. Once in a blue moon I will catch my tongue before it starts flapping...but those times are few and far between. However, I am not one of those argumentative miserably rotten people who feels so miserable they have to make everyone else feel miserable so they in turn can step up a notch of the ladder if miserableness. Those people, I don't like. I call them the Goddess of Discord. I've never had to work with one, but have encountered them. I look at them as the Universe's lesson of patience to me. Patience not to get up and strangle the last breath out of them. I've yet to strangle one of them, so I figure on the karmic scale I'm doin' pretty good ; )
ReplyDeleteWonder how your office mate, fits into the profession of counseling??? She doesn't sound as if it's a "match," for her....... Or is that how she views counseling? As the client comes in, and she tells her/him exactly what's wrong with them, and what to do about it?
ReplyDelete