Do you dig your own grave when you die?….. No!…. Well, don’t do it before you die.
If you have a history with a company and that history just happened to be you as an employee; don’t let your past determine or be your future. Don’t let it affect how you do what you do now. Be the better person and prove those against you wrong.
I have a story to tell about someone I worked with for one month. This story isn’t a bash story or one to make someone feel bad. This story is an experience. I’ll start by giving a little background about myself because I was once in the same position.
I was never a people person, and I hated customer service. What I did understand was that I needed a job, because I would soon have bills of my own to pay. To make a long story short, I was young, I wasn’t the best at it, and I had an attitude out of this world. If the words didn’t come out of my mouth, it showed on my face. I got fired for biting back at rude and angry customers, and I regretted it for a long time. Today, I don’t regret losing any of my jobs because it was a lesson I had to learn the hard way. If I were still doing this today, that would be pitiful. That means I didn’t learn anything.
Okay enough about me.
I started a new job and found out that I would be having a teammate. I thought I recognized the name, and I did. It was someone I encountered some time before starting the job. I thought to myself, “Cool, someone I sort of know.” I didn’t know this person on a personal level, but this person had a positive attitude when we met before.
On our first day together, there were red flags, but I ignored them when I found out this person had a history with the client. I didn’t want that to interfere with how we worked together. I didn’t care about their past issues with the company. We are living in the now; years have passed, and we are more mature.
After the first day, the negativity and paranoia began. Every day there was something negative to say, something to complain about, and added hostility to the environment. I made sure we were able to work together, but it had gotten to a point where I couldn’t stand to be around the nonsense. No one in the department wanted to be within a 50-foot radius of my teammate. Now, I have a high tolerance, maybe a little too high tolerance, but I eventually reached my breaking point. On the day I reached that point, I was exhausted and needed all my energy to engage with customers. The following situation is what tipped the bucket. A customer walked up, asked us a question, and we answered it as we should. I recognized the customer and said, “Oh, that’s so and so.” My teammate’s response was unrepeatable. My eyes got wide, and I walked away. I called my boss and told him what was going on. This incident resulted in him handling the situation, and I felt things were looking up. Boy, I was wrong.
You know how you watch a movie, and there’s a bunch of bad things happening, it gets solved, and everyone is relieved for about 10 seconds? Then something more dramatic happens? Well, this was one of those moments. When I thought everything was going good, something else was brewing like a developing hurricane in the ocean. It caught me by surprise because I walked right into it.
To be continued…
