Is That It?

Recently, after a hard day’s work, I went out to eat at a restaurant where I placed my order at the counter. It had been a long day and I was looking forward to a quick and easy meal I didn’t have to cook. In fact, I figured I deserved it (I know, but the problem of rewarding myself with food is another blog topic). Anyway, the person who waited on me did not smile, spoke so softly I had to ask her to repeat herself, and after I paid for my order, her parting words were, “Is that it?”

“Yes, thank you,” I replied, but I was irritated. She hadn’t said, “Thank you” or “Enjoy your dinner.” In short, she had made what had been a fun evening out for me into a bit of a downer. She didn’t ruin my evening since I wasn’t going to give her that kind of power, and she didn’t do anything exactly rude or upsetting. She simply seemed indifferent to having my business. In a way, I can understand that, but after having to deal with the public myself for years, I know that’s not how you treat a customer.

As I drove home, through my head ran all the responses I could have given her. “Yes, that’s it except for the smile and ‘Thank you’ you’re supposed to give me,” or “Yes, that’s it. You can bet since you obviously don’t care about my business that it will be ‘that’s it’ for a long time to come.”

We’ve all been there. We’ve all had bad customer service experiences. And to give this person the benefit of the doubt, we all have bad days or days when we are just tired. Perhaps it was the end of a long shift after a week of long shifts, or perhaps her boyfriend had just dumped her and she was doing her best just to keep going through the day.

As I said, it didn’t bother me that much, but I did find it amusing how irritated I initially felt that I would try to think up responses of what I wish I had said. It’s rare that I will give people a hard time when they wait on me, and I only will if they deserve it, and I don’t even give them a hard time; I simply assert my right to be treated properly. I try to be pleasant but firm. Now and then, I might be tempted to say, “You know, if you would just try to smile, your day will improve.”

Sadly, I can’t change the world by teaching people what is stellar customer service. What I can do is not allow people to mistreat me when they are supposed to be waiting on me, or customer service will just get worse. And when I meet someone who provides stellar customer service, I can let that person know he or she is doing a good job and I appreciate it. And now and then, when needed, I can set my boundaries without having to try to control or overreact.

How do you deal with your bad customer service experiences? Do you let them have power over you? I’d love to hear from you.

Why We Share Our Secrets

We all have secrets. We all have issues in our pasts that we regret or fear to reveal to others. We guard these secrets with our lives, but we also might let them eat away at us as we long to tell someone we can trust so we feel comforted. But while a secret can hurt us, sometimes we have other motivations for telling it besides just wanting to feel better.

People who are recovering codependents, alcoholics, or anyone who has dealt with boundary issues may have difficulty determining when it is appropriate to tell a secret. If something in our past hurts so much that we feel we have to tell someone, then it is appropriate to tell someone, but we must do so carefully, we must select the right person, and we need to examine our motivation for why we are choosing that person as the one to whom we reveal our secret.

Of course, we have some fear of the other person’s reaction—will he or she decide to comfort or to reject us once we tell our secret. Are we then telling the secret to be honest with that person? Is it because we love that person enough that we want to give him or her the option to stay or leave us rather than being dishonest? Is that person strong enough to make that decision to stay or leave? Or is that person codependent like us so he or she will stay and play the caretaker, and we know that, so we intend to trap someone who will take care of us?

Is it possible that we might want to tell a secret to control the person to whom we tell it? Could we reveal all our family’s dysfunctional past, the crimes or sins we have committed ourselves, and then make that person feel sorry for us so he or she will stay, so we can get sympathy that we hope turns into security and commitment down the road? In other words, do we want to tell our secret so we can manipulate someone?

As I said when I began, we all have secrets. Some are best kept. Others may hurt the person we choose to tell. If your secret is going to hurt a loved one, perhaps it is best left unsaid, or perhaps a loved one is not the person to tell. Perhaps the best person to tell is someone impartial, such as your local priest, minister, rabbi, your counselor, your life coach, or anyone else who is supportive but impartial to the situation. Then you can get your feelings off your chest without putting yourself in jeopardy, and that person can help you determine whether your secret needs to be told.

I’m not advocating that you be dishonest with people. I’m saying that you shouldn’t hurt people by giving them information that is likely only to hurt them. If the person is bound to find out eventually, it will be best coming from you, but if he or she is never likely otherwise to know, think long and hard before you tell your secrets, and make sure you have known the person long enough that you can truly gauge his or her reaction. You may feel the need to speak today, but you may regret having done so tomorrow, or you may stay silent and find that after a month or a year, the secret does not matter that much anymore, and it has been best kept.

It is difficult to know what is best. I simply ask that you consider the other person before you act.

Potato Chips, Dip, and Soda—The Vicious Cycle

Has this ever happened to you? You buy a bag of potato chips and a bucket of dip, and after a day or two of snacking on them, you run out of potato chips but you still have a good amount of dip. What’s the solution? You go to the store and you buy more potato chips. Only, then you run out of dip before you run out of potato chips so you have to buy more dip. And maybe you like to drink Coca-Cola while you eat your potato chips, and you run out of Coke, or you just have a little left in the bottle, but not enough for a full glass, so you have to buy another 2-Liter.

It doesn’t have to be potato chips or dip or soda. It might be a sugared cereal of which you just have half a bowl left, so you go buy another whole box of it, rather than settling for just eating that half bowl, or it could be any of a number of other things. I hope maybe a bag of salad is one of them, but I know that’s a lot less likely.

 We can easily get caught up in a vicious cycle of eating junk food this way. It is a cycle because we are rationalizing that we can’t waste that quarter container of French Onion dip, and there’s no point in eating potato chips without the dip. We can come up with all sorts of rationalizations so we can give ourselves permission to buy more of what isn’t good for us.

Other times, we might rationalize by saying, “I worked really hard today, so I deserve that big bowl of ice cream.” Or we trick ourselves into believing we are going to change our habit so we buy another can of coffee so we can “cut back” on our caffeine intake gradually rather than going cold turkey.

How about striving for balance? When we are out of potato chip dip but we still have some potato chips left, can we compensate with something else, just enough to finish off the chips without having to buy more. Maybe a little salad dressing would work for the few chips left, and then we don’t have to buy more.

 There’s nothing wrong with a little treat, but if there are certain foods like potato chips that you find yourself addicted to, just like you can become addicted to cigarettes or alcohol, it might be best not to buy them. It might be best not to make excuses for why you have to buy them.

And, how about you throw out that half-empty bag of potato chips? I don’t advocate wasting food, but what about wasting your health and your money? You don’t need the potato chips. They cost you money and they add calories you don’t need. It’s okay to throw them away. It’s okay to dump out the little bit of Coke left in the bottle rather than buy a new one.

It’s okay to take action that will help your body to feel better. Do you have some junk food in your refrigerator right now? What if you got up out of your chair this minute and you went and threw it into the garbage? Go do it. You’ll be surprised by how empowering it feels. It’s not wasted money because by throwing it away, you may have saved yourself healthcare costs down the road and you have made a firm decision not to eat it anymore, which can save you countless dollars over time.

The vicious cycle can only end when we put an end to it. Do something deliberate like throwing junk food away as a sign to yourself that you’re ready to take control of your eating habits, and that you are tired of tricking yourself into doing what you know is not good for you, and you’re not going to stand for it anymore.

“I Thought You Hated My Guts”

In my last post, I wrote about sibling rivalry and sibling bullying. One of my friends who read the post commented to me how he had not realized that maybe he had been a bit of a bully to his younger brother when they were younger. He recalls that he always felt frustrated with his younger brother who would never be on time, always moved slowly, and simply felt no need to compete with him. My friend was the overachiever type, and for whatever reason, his brother had no desire to follow in his footsteps. Perhaps the younger brother felt he could not compete; perhaps he just did not have a competitive nature. My friend says that he always thought he was being the good big brother, trying to protect and help his younger brother by warning him not to do certain things and trying to get him to do other things for his own benefit, such as things his parents had told him to do that he wasn’t doing, or simply things like nagging him about doing his homework rather than watching television after school.

“And then one day,” my friend said, “when I came home from college and my brother was still in high school, and I had been missing my family a lot, I told my brother I loved him, and his response was, ‘Really, I thought you hated my guts.’ I don’t know what I said to my brother at that point, but I was really surprised by that comment. I thought I had always shown love for him, even if I had been nagging him; I believed I had been doing it for his own good.”

My friend went on to say that he had not realized his behavior toward his brother had actually bordered on bullying, and he remembered times when his younger brother had become so enraged with him that he would strike him, which was also a behavior my friend had never understood.

“Now that I think back on it, I was kind of a jerk to him, and I realize I somehow wanted to prove myself as better than him by asserting myself as superior before our parents. No wonder he thought I hated him and he would get so angry with me.”

The thing is that we don’t always look at our motives before we act, and before we are grown up and have a grip on all of our emotions as well as our egos, we may behave without thinking.

We cannot change the past, but we can heal and soften it. It might not be forgotten, but we can make it no longer reside at the forefront of our relationships with our siblings, or any family member for that matter. We can start today to heal our relationships. If need be, we can make a phone call, write a letter, or meet in person with the other person we bullied or tried to control; we can express our regret and make an apology. Sometimes that works. Sometimes it makes the other person angry, or it is just too awkward to attempt. We can also find smaller, less noticeable, but meaningful advances toward changing a relationship. Giving a hug when you see the person can say more than words. Simple kindnesses or an occasional word of praise can also help.

Whatever happened in the past, it is in the past, and the present offers a new day and a new beginning. Consider today whether your family members’ perceptions of your family’s past are the same as yours or different, and then see what you can do to change those perceptions, and more importantly, the future relationship.

Sibling Rivalry or Sibling Bullying?

We all know brothers and/or sisters who do not get along. A little sibling rivalry is normal in any family. Some might even say it is a healthy way for children to learn to assert themselves and compete with one another.

However, sometimes one sibling gets the upper hand and rivalry becomes sibling bullying. Often the oldest sibling, whether a brother or a sister, is the one who gets the upper hand, but the baby of the family might also be the spoiled one who ends up with power over his other siblings, or the boy who is dad’s favorite or mother’s little boy might equally become spoiled and demanding. In these cases, effective boundaries have not been established by the parents to make the spoiled child understand he (or she) cannot have everything he wants, especially at the expense of his siblings. That said, the spoiled favorite may also be, due to jealousy, the victim of bullying, rather than become the bully.

Other times, sibling rivalry turns into sibling bullying, not because the parents have a favorite child, but because the parents are perhaps neglectful of one or all the children.

When a child feels neglected, unloved, or not granted an equal amount of attention as another sibling, the child who is unable to get attention from the parent may resort to taking it out on the sibling. Bullying does not have to be physical, but it can simply be a form of controlling. It could be giving the other child orders; for example, if chores are expected from the children, the older sibling might do the chores quickly and well to please her parents and then hound her younger brother to do his before he gets in trouble, or try to tell him how to do things properly. She might even tattle on her brother to get her parents’ approval and show that she is the good child, the obedient child, or the smart child.

It’s important to remember that the bullying and controlling child is not necessarily a control freak or a bad child. She might actually be codependent, feeling she needs to take control and assert her abilities or superiority because her siblings are incapable of doing what is necessary or her parents are incompetent, or unwilling or distracted from seeing her value. The child needs to get her needs met and prove herself, and bullying and controlling is the only way she has learned to do so.

Whether you are a parent, or a brother or sister, take a look at your family dynamics. Did you have a sibling who tended to bully or control to get approval and attention? If so, has it affected your relationship into adulthood with that sibling? Can you find it in your heart to forgive that sibling and heal the relationship, understanding where he or she was coming from at the time? Perhaps you were the bully. Is there a chance that even as an adult, you continue to bully your siblings, perhaps about things like planning family get-togethers, or dealing with your aging parent’s healthcare? Perhaps you are still trying to compete with your sibling.

If you are the parent and you see one of your children bullying the other, ask yourself what you may be doing that would make your child feel the need to bully or at least compete and assert him- or herself over your other children? Don’t waste time blaming yourself, but instead, take action that will change the situation. What can you do to make all your children feel safe, loved, valued, and capable?

Bullying should not be tolerated, but it also should be understood as a cry for love and attention.