Free Stop Pissing Me Off What to Do When the People You Work with Drive You Crazy by Lynne Eisaguirre Page A

trying to connect, to be kind, to do the right thing. We’re not always perfect, and we’re not always kind, but we need to acknowledge our shortcomings when
    we can. As pioneering behavioral psychologist B. F. Skinner taught us, what is reinforced gets repeated. Anytime someone demonstrates a kind, connecting
    act toward you, express your appreciation in words and deeds. This acknowledgment reinforces the act and makes it more likely to recur. Do your part.
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    04.   How to Connect Even When You Don’t Want To eMpty your eMotional trash
    Author Laurel Mellon argues that before people can even form a connection, each has to clear out “emotional trash,” old issues that interfere with the ability to have a clear connection with another person. As the pioneering psychologist Carl Rogers explained, “The curious paradox is that when I can accept myself just as I am, then I can change.”
    How do you do this? One way is to more often notice what we’re feeling, be honest with ourselves, and allow feelings to run their course. Psychologist Gay Hendricks offers this explanation from his book Conscious Living: Finding Joy in the Real World :
    “Accepting yourself begins with fundamentals such as letting yourself feel your emotions to completion. What does this mean? If you begin feeling sad, for example, when you are watching a movie, it’s likely that the movie is touching an issue of your own. Instead of rushing out of the movie back into your busy life, let yourself feel the emotions that were stirred into motion by the scene in the film. The paradox of awareness is that if you give yourself full permission to feel your emotions, you don’t find yourself stuck in the unsettling grip of them.”
    For most of us, everyday workplace interactions bring up lots of emotions, which may remind us of old unhealed memories or hurts. While it’s painful and unsettling, we need to feel those emotions deeply in order to connect more deeply with our coworkers as well as ourselves and others in our lives. This is neither an easy task, nor one for the faint of heart. But, as Desmond Tutu points out, there’s nothing else that can save our troubled world.
    You may be whining at this point that all this connecting is a lot of hard work. Gaining an attitude adjustment is the
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    stop  Pissing Me Off!
    first step. Once you’ve mastered your own reasons and motivations for understanding the liars and tyrants and boors among us, you’re better able to cope with the effort that requires. As you’ll learn in Chapter 5, understanding why people do what they do can give us the will and the reason to connect. your
    relationship toolbox
    How to Move froM PiSSed off to Powerful
    PiSSed off
    Powerful
    Believing that you can ignore
    Understanding that connecting with
    coworkers
    others is a biological imperative
    Ignoring difficult people without Understanding that difficult coworkers even trying to connect
    will be easier if we create connections
    Assuming connecting is difficult Taking small steps to connect with new people
    Assuming lack of connection is
    Recognizing that our inability to connect
    the other person’s fault
    may be the result of our own “emotional
    trash”
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    05.
    ArE THEY DOiNG iT JuST TO PiSS
    YOu Off?
    How to understand how people are hardwired.
    Jerry McGruder is going nuts. The young twentysomethings he has hired show up for work with tiny earbuds pumping music or cell phone conversations into their ears—and they wear collarless shirts and tennis shoes to the office. More often than not they look like they’ve hopped out of bed, thrown on a pair of jeans, and forgotten to comb their hair! Jerry sighs when he looks at them.
    When he tries to shake hands, they seem unsure of what the custom is. However, they bombard him with a relentless flurry of e-mail, text, and instant messages—even when sitting in a cubicle less than twenty feet from Jerry’s door!