Frustrations Galore

I really believe in the idea of like attracting like.  I believe that when it rains it pours.  At least I do today.  Especially today. 

It seems that once one issue surfaces several others will rear their ugly heads.  If one person yells at you, rest assured they are just the first.

Now if I have made serious and egregious errors I have no problem taking my lumps.  But when someone has a temper tantrum about something over which I have no control, well then I get a bit pissy.

At work I have to deal with attorney far more often than I would like.  In fact I would like to never have to deal with attorneys.  I dropped out of law school to get away from them.  Attorneys have a tendency to call and yell at people about things that person can’t change.  Even better is when they call to yell at a person about something that is entirely the attorney’s fault.  But wait, you say, attorneys are never at fault.  Well if you believe that you must be an attorney.

I had to suffer this particular injustice this morning.  I came in to a very politely worded email from one of the wonderful attorneys that we work with regularly to let me know about a potential issue.  This guy was great, kind, not at all accusatory, reasonable, patient.  The issue was complicated and is still in the process of being resolved which makes it far from fun.  But the guy is being pleasant and even appreciative about it so it’s bearable.

There was another minor attorney question that was easily handled immediately after that.  Then there was an unpleasant human resources issue.  This was all before 10 am.  As you can imagine, I was pretty fried.

And then there was the phone call.

This particular attorney has been working with us for a while.  He has always seemed to be reasonable, and in most circumstances probably is.  But today he asked for something that I am not allowed to do by a regulator.  And somehow that was my fault.  Legal action was threatened.  Exasperated sighs were issued.  Opportunities to address questions were not given.  Demands that his displeasure be communicated to my boss were directed.  He essentially told me he was going to go tell my regulator.

But again, I couldn’t help him because of my regulator.  I kept trying to explain my position, but to no avail.  The call ended rather abruptly, neither of us pleased with the result.

Despite my early post vitriol against attorneys, the majority of those we work with are good people who try to do right by their clients.  They are regular people just trying to do their job.  Most of them are respectful and friendly.  They are reasonable and easy to work with. 

More than likely this guy is as well.  This was probably a case of I had been running around putting out fires all morning and was a bit fried coupled with his day not going as planned and became explosive.  In another circumstance we might have come to a perfectly amiable solution to the issue.

I am in the process of learning to become better at communicating with others.  Part of that is listening.  Perhaps this was a lesson in listening.  It is possible that if I were open to what he was saying I would have been able to come up with a solution that worked for everyone.  If I had heard what he was trying to communicate beyond what he was saying.

Or maybe he was just a jerk and the lesson was that some people are just unpleasant.  I know that in a few hours I’ll be a fan of the first.  At this moment I’m still pissy, so for right now I’m going to go with the second.