How do you respond to this statement, if it comes from a Grown Person that you work with who takes forever to get work done, and now others are calling her on it?
"I don't like feeling stupid in front of other people? I don't feel like we are on the same page."
My patience and compassion is really low these days. My first response was, "Did you finish the task they are asking you about?" Her response was, "No". Then I asked, "Do you believe you are stupid?" Her response was, "No (with an attitude)!" My next response was, "What do you want from me? What am I suppose to do about your feelings? For me this is a job, and task completion comes first, feelings are secondary to me. So task completion is all I want to focus on at this point. We spend more time dealing with adults' feelings around here than we do on task completion and that is inefficient. Hell I am FEELING frustrated talking to you right now, but I have to in order to complete the task... so can we move on?"
This wasn't the first or the tenth time we've had this same conversation about one thing or another over the last few months... so my snapping was from a please of... ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!
The definition of Empathy is:
- Empathy-
- Empathy (from the Greek εμπάθεια, "to make suffer") is commonly defined as one's ability to recognize, perceive and directly feel the emotion of another. As the states of mind, beliefs, and desires of others are intertwined with their emotions, one with empathy for another may often be able to more effectively define another's mode of thought and mood. Empathy is often characterized as the ability to "put oneself into another's shoes", or experiencing the outlook or emotions of another being within oneself, a sort of emotional resonance.
I have compassion for adults that are WORKING THRU their "issues", because hell I have mines and I respect the hard work it takes to WORK THRU things. Especially given the "issues" are things you want to avoid and not DEAL WITH because it makes you feel inadequate. WORK THRU and DEAL WITH are the key phrases! Recognize, Accept, and Do something to change it. I can support that.
My frustration in this situation is more from a place of.... please don't bullshit me and expect me to rub your back to make you feel better, if you are not going to do your part... especially not at work. Work is work... Personal is personal. You know you need to get your shit together... so get it together. I will take time to help you get it together (if I can), but I don't have patience to see you just talk and talk about how you feel and yet you don't use that same energy to get it together.
Empathy is exhausting given my extroverted nature. I usually have time to unplug, but lately I have been working long hours and that is effecting my approach with people. When I am feeling empty it is harder for me to have compassion for others.
I don't want to be a mean person... but I will also not tolerate foolishness.
WonderWoman Needs a HUG and REST!
1 comments:
Dear Wonderwoman! I like your avatar; I like your motto; I like that you like yourself. I believe that the two flags (the avatar and the motto) lend to the predisposition of liking yourself. Today I am evaluating empathy vs. compassion... and reflecting on an incident that occurred in my life 40 years ago with regards to "where was the compassion"... It occurs to me that I expect "compassion" to be delivered "in the moments" following my drama. Perhaps instead "compassion" (feeling for and acting on a desire to alleviate suffering) requires both the KINDNESS of a desire to alleviate suffering and DISCERNMENT regarding the methods and timing of the "rescue" (e.g. it's not useful to the team to reward a bad behavior, such as the habit of falling into drama on the part of the pitiful). Thanks for providing me with a forum to think through this. And, by the way, I think your response to Grown Person's feelings were compassionate but perhaps lacked one thing: a gentle reminder to Grown Person that you become what you choose to be and not choosing is a choice.
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