Sometimes Just Walk Away
Call it maturity, focus on self meditation, or a just-don’t-care moment, but I literally walked away from someone in mid-conversation this weekend. Normally, I would politely end the conversation or excuse myself quickly. Instead, I just turned and left. Here’s what happened.
I was picking up my 6yo daughter (M) from a pool birthday party at the local rec center. I went into the pool area, found the birthday girl’s mom, and asked how the party went. She said it went great and that M said she could swim really well, but she still had her put on a lifejacket. Good call (point to mom).
I joked, “she can swim pretty well for about 5 seconds then she sinks.” I went on, “she’s been coming here for a couple years taking swimming lessons. She likes it and is getting better, but has a couple skills to work on.”
Enter another girl’s mom. “Well, it’s a waste of money as all they do is shove your head underwater and let you fend for yourself. They just scare you and don’t teach.”
I replied, “sometimes it takes time to learn to swim, but as with kids in general, at some point it just clicks and they get it.”
And she went, “well I’m not going to pay $100 and something dollars for everyone here to just throw my kid into the water and try to drown them.”
I blankly stared at her.
And she continued … “they just shove your head under water” blah blah blah blah
I walked away.
Here’s my biggest pet peeve in the world: constant negative people.
I’m not talking about someone having a bad day or a person that needs help. We all need a moment to vent as we are human. Sometimes people are in a bad situation, in a rut, or have bad influences in their lives. They just need a positive ear that can help shine light on things from a different angle. This is about looking for the bad in every situation.
– Are you going to sit here and tell me that every lifeguard and swim instructor that works in the building is not able to teach swimming?
– Have you had a conversation with the swim instructor?
– Did you watch this from afar and made an assumption?
Instead of complaining about how “everyone” can’t teach their child how to swim in one 30 minute lesson, try putting all of that energy into doing something positive. I don’t know, maybe actually talk to the swim instructor?
It happens in the business world as well. This is most often called office gossip. As someone that has managed a plethora of people, when I hear an employee spewing negativity, I ask myself the following:
– Is this just venting?
– Is this a personal shot at someone?
– Is there a bigger issue in there?
Venting: Short (less then 20 minutes) conversation letting it out and then moving on.
Personal: Same person’s name keeps coming up.
Bigger: Have I heard this from other people and is it contributing to an overarching issue?
This is my triage for when encountering negativity vomit coming from someone. Again, it is healthy and normal to have these conversations as they can do more damage bottling it up. but … if it is constant and there is always something to complain about, then it needs to change. The reason it needs to change is for the health of the team. Surround yourself with negativity and you will catch it.
Negativity will kill success fast.
I’ve always called those types of people, the Fellowship of the Miserable. They can’t wait to tell you how bad everything is, how crappy their life is, etc. FotM for short!
Thanks for sharing. I like the concept of the triage for management.
But here, I have a question for you, what if it is a co-worker, someone you have to deal with day in and out, who insists she either loves everything or HATES everything? When she loves something, she can’t bubble enough about it, but when she hates something, she can’t stop disparaging it. Often, her dislike for something becomes quite personal. For example, she hates cheerleaders. HATES them. She doesn’t think that they actually do anything for the game. Fine. I don’t like a lot of things, and there are a lot of things I find useless (fast food companies that throw a plastic fork, knife, spoon, salt and pepper and napkin into EVERY bag, including the one which holds only a pumpkin muffin – really, I need a fork, knife and spoon for that???) however, I don’t rant and rave about it. She, on the other hand, spends fifteen minutes going on and on about how cheerleaders are nothing more than strippers. They are total sluts. Well, now she is attacking the moral fiber and professional choices of these young women. (And if you wonder how we got on the subject, it was related to an event that we were involved in and I had to miss)
So, I point out to her that I was a dancer (not an exotic dancer) in college and many of my friends (also NOT exotic dancers) were cheerleaders and dancers for the major sports teams in Denver – Broncos, Nuggets, Rapids – and NONE of them were strippers and certainly not sluts. They were hard working women with good grades. They were good dancers. They were some of the only people I know that actually got to follow their career aspirations (dancing) as part of their college jobs.
So, she says to me, “Well, I am sure your friends were lovely people, but I am sorry, cheerleaders are just total sluts and I HATE them. HATE HATE HATE them.” Then she rants for another 10 minutes about pompons and short skirts and disparages the whole world of cheerleading.
Her hatred, her vehement rantings against things – books, movies, candy, you name it – is very difficult to be around. My attempt to point out that things are not really black and white was completely fruitless. I have to work with her daily, so I can’t tell her to shove it, otherwise I would become the thing that she HATES. I have tried to be diplomatic by changing the subject, but once she is on something, she won’t give it up. What would you do? Would you walk away? In the middle of a meeting? I wish I could, but I have already pushed her buttons accidentally and whoa, she turns all that hatred on someone really fast.
People would classify her as:
– Opinionated
– Always has to be right
– Ignorant
Then again, she sounds like all 3.
I know a few people that are like this where they always have to be right. It’s funny because I always picture the movie The Waterboy. Adam Sandler’s character doesn’t know any different, or better. It’s how he was raised and all he was told.
With knowing a few professional sports cheerleaders myself, I know she is wrong. However, maybe the cheerleaders at her school were always mean to her and never let her join. Some people use words to fill-in actually delivering on being successful.
See what happens if you don’t respond to her. Maybe she just likes the sound of her own voice.