Don't Let Rude People Ruin Your Day

It never ceases to amaze me when people are rude to you in the office or anywhere in public. I wonder what is going through their mind that they can justify their behavior. But even more, how can we "the recipients" of this behavior not let it affect us? All too often when these situations that happen to us we allow them to "stick" with us and bother us all day long and many times we take them home with us. We try to figure out why it happened and was there something we could have done to prevent it. Such as the situation that happened recently in my office; a patient was accidentally scheduled an appointment for Monday, which was a holiday. The patient was called the Friday before and was told of the mistake; we apologized and gave her an appointment for Tuesday morning at 11:00. She called the office Tuesday morning and asked for an appointment later that day due to a service she needed to attend for a friend, she was told to come in at 4:15 and she would be worked in, as our schedule was full, she said this was fine and she understood.

When the she arrived that afternoon we were running a half-hour behind, not the norm for our office, but it does happen, especially after being closed Monday for a holiday. The patient was roomed around 4:45, and at 5:00 our front door flies open and in walks the patient's husband yelling at our front desk person "where is my wife who had a 4:15 appointment?" I looked up and this man had the meanest look on his face, if I didn't know him, I would have been frightened and I think my front office person was in shock. I stepped out of my office and calmly told him that we were running behind and she was the next to be seen. He proceeded to yell and tell me that our office made a mistake because we scheduled his wife's appointment on a holiday and this was our fault, rambling on and shaking in his anger. When he was done, I replied nicely "yes you are correct we made a mistake, but were willing to get her in today". I did not even mention that they had changed the appointment from this morning to this afternoon as it would not have mattered to him. Once I agreed with him and told him that his wife was next, (in a very calm manner), he just looked at me and I smiled. He turned and walked out the door, and we all just looked at each other wondering "what was that all about?" We will probably never really know what was going on with this man for him to act in this rude manner to us. The interesting thing is his wife was fine, not happy, but okay that she had to wait and when her appointment was done she left the office quite happy.

The important issue for us, the employees, is that we need to be able to know how to handle these types of situations in a professional manner. First you need to try to remain calm, this is not the easiest thing to do when someone is either yelling at you or saying nasty remarks to you. The best way to do this is to be able to step outside of your-self, and try to see where the person could be coming from. Such as the situation above, I knew this man was upset because he had been waiting for his wife in the parking lot for longer than he expected. I also knew that they had changed the appointment to the afternoon because of a service they needed to go to, so maybe he was also upset over a death of a friend. You may not always have insight into why a person is behaving badly, but most of the time they are really not upset with you, personally; it is the situation along with something else that they are dealing with. Secondly; let them speak until they are done, acknowledge what they have said, this lets them know that you heard them. If they are yelling as in our situation, everyone in the office could not help but hear him, but I not only acknowledge why he was upset, I agreed with him that we had made a mistake. Thirdly; give them any information that they may need to either clarify the problem or answer their questions.

I informed this gentleman of what was happening with his wife by letting him know she was next to be seen, as this is what his initial question was when he flew open the door and started yelling. By remaining calm and going through these three steps you are defusing the encounter and the person most likely will calm down some, as with my situation the man just stared at me, I smiled at him and he left.

Now comes the part where we need to let it go of what just happened to us. As with trying to remain calm through all of this, letting it go is also very hard to do, especially if the person has said rude things personally to you. The sooner you can let go of the encounter the better you will feel and be able to go on with either your work day or your home time. It helps when you can discuss these situations with your employer or co-workers as they can relate to your experience and talking through it is a good way to be able to see the situation clearer so you can move forward. After this gentleman and his wife left our office and we were done with our day, we all talked about what happened and we even laughed about how shocked we were and how well we handled it all this allowed us to leave the situation at work, and chalk it up to another day's job well done.

When someone has been rude to you and you do not let it go you are actually allowing them and their bad behavior to invade your life and consume your time. Letting it go is easier said than done, but it can be done. Tomorrow is a new day and when I think about it, people who behave like this in the office are the 1% and I think we can handle that.