My first job after graduation was in customer service for a company that sold commemorative plates, glassware, games, and other collectibles. One day, I answered the phone, and before I could finish my greeting, the caller started screaming at me. He told me how terrible the company was, how unhappy he was, and many other things I’ve since forgotten over the years. I let him go until eventually he ran out of steam. There was only one problem: somewhere in all that yelling, he had forgotten to tell me what was actually wrong.
So, I asked him and learned he had ordered a set of commemorative plates, and one of them had arrived damaged. That apparently reminded him how angry he was, because he started yelling again. Once again, I let him finish. When he finally stopped, I got his information, pulled up his account, asked which plate had been damaged, and told him we’d ship a replacement the next day. “That’s it?” he asked. I replied, “Yes, sir, thank you for your business.” After a few seconds of silence, he apologized for how he had spoken to me and asked if he could speak with my supervisor.
I thought I was in trouble, so I transferred the call, explained to my supervisor what had happened, and went back to taking calls. A few minutes later, she came over and told me the customer told her how much he appreciated the way I had handled the situation and apologized once again for his behavior. The next day, several other managers came over to congratulate me on how professionally I had handled the call.
I hadn’t thought about that conversation in years, but looking back, what strikes me is that the customer called because of a broken plate, yet by the end of the conversation, the broken plate wasn’t the story anymore. His reaction was the story. In a very different way, so was mine. Two people were dealing with the exact same problem, and what was remembered afterward had very little to do with the problem itself.
We all have moments when we’re frustrated, angry, or hurt. Sometimes we’re completely justified in feeling that way. The danger isn’t in feeling the emotion; it’s in allowing our response to become bigger than whatever caused it. We send the email we probably shouldn’t send, say the thing we can’t take back, or raise our voice, and before long, people aren’t talking about what happened to us anymore. They’re talking about what we did next.
That’s the difference, I think, between becoming the story and being the story. Becoming the story happens when our reaction overshadows the situation. Being the story happens when what people remember isn’t what happened to us, but how we handled it. That doesn’t mean being passive, tolerating bad behavior, or pretending we aren’t angry. Sometimes the right response is to confront someone, say no, draw a boundary, or walk away. The difference is whether we choose our response or allow the moment to choose it for us.
I wish I could say I’ve handled every difficult situation since that phone call with the same composure. I haven’t. There have been times when frustration, pride, or the need to be right made me a biggerpart of the story than I needed to be. Maybe that’s why this particular call has stayed with me all these years.
“How people treat you is their karma; how you react is yours.” – Wayne Dyer
We don’t always get to choose what happens to us or how other people behave. What we usually do get to choose is what happens next. And when the story eventually gets told, and stories have a way of getting told, we have some say in why people remember us.
Have a great weekend.
-Vijay