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Grace and other things women need to get through life
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Have you ever found yourself at this cross roads: someone is pushing your buttons and you would love to take them on but instead you graciously handled the situation?

How did you do it? Is there a book that explains how to become a gloriously gracious woman who is happy with it?

I'm trying to rise above some stuff right now and move on but there's part of me that wants to fight. I know it will be over sooner and I will be better off in the long run by treating this person with a smile but is this going to make me a bitter old woman?

I would love to hear any stories about your successes and failures with being gracious.
Last edited by: trailbait: Feb 7, 08 16:55
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Re: Grace and other things women need to get through life [trailbait] [ In reply to ]
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I have definitely found myself in your situation. In a previous job, I worked (literally) side by side with one of the worst people I've ever met. She was negative, critical, bossy, bullying and just generally an awful person. (And of course never, EVER made a mistake, everything was always someone else's fault, usually mine.) Nearly everyday I had to decide whether I should rise above it and be the better person or sink to her level and fight with her. In the two plus years I worked there, I only got into one actual argument where I told her off.

What helped me:
* talking to our supervisor when it got to be too much. This didn't accomplish anything in terms of changing her behavior, but it at least made me feel like I'd done what I could do about it.
* Nearly everyone who had anything to do with this woman hated her, so I had many co-workers to commiserate with when it got to be too much. Petty? Sure. But it helped not to be alone with the problem. Sometimes you just need to bitch about someone to release some steam.
* And finally, I realized that by not feeding into her little mind games, passive aggressive b.s, etc. I was driving her crazy. By not giving her the reactions she was looking for, she had no ammunition against me, because I was forcing her out of her comfortable territory. The satisfaction of that realization was often enough to get me through it.

I think it really comes down to picking your battles wisely. In my case, most of the time it simply wasn't worth it. There was one exception, where I'd just had enough and it was more worth it to me to tell the b*tch to go to hell (professionally of course!) and go have celebratory margaritas afterwards. My own rule of thumb tends to be, if after talking (griping) about it with either co-workers/friends/spouse it's still bugging me, then it's probably time to deal with the person in whatever way I can.

If you do find that book, be sure and share it with the rest of us!

M

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The beatings will continue until morale improves
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Re: Grace and other things women need to get through life [trailbait] [ In reply to ]
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I don't know. I usually let stuff like that go. I'll vent (and vent and vent and vent), but I can count on one hand the number of times I've confronted people who were pushing my buttons or were being petty or something -- and I'm certain that each of those people walked away from the encounter feeling justified about how they treated me. It's rarely worth it; definitely pick your battles.

Not that I'm gracious by any stretch of the imagination, but my grandmother certainly was, and my mother is. They both taught me that you can never truly know what someone else is going through. I tend to think that there's a reason someone is pushing my buttons ... and I'm not the reason!

Of course, my mother also says, "Kill 'em with kindness." So there you go!
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Re: Grace and other things women need to get through life [trailbait] [ In reply to ]
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I do agree that you have to pick your battles, but you don't want to be anyone's doormat either.

Some people seem to bully because they can. I'm a big fan of confronting people if they continually piss me off, hurt my feelings are rude etc. I like non-confrontational confrontion ie calmly stating "your tone of voice/actions is upsetting to me/made me feel badly.." sort of approach.

Good luck. Mean people suck.
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Re: Grace and other things women need to get through life [trailbait] [ In reply to ]
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ew, tough situation. in the past i have confronted and taken action (i'm a recovering hothead). it is hard for me to let things slide and keep on letting them slide. inside i burn up, and tend to be very direct in order to try to work through things.

presently, i'm trying to cool out and "walk away". i try to think ahead, "will i care about this in next month, next year, etc?" and try to decide how important something is based on that.

what i have to do is say to myself, "go to my second thought". my first thought might be one of anger or frustration. my second thought might be much more rational.

so my best advice is: go to your second thought and see where that takes you. if you still want to beat some ass, then...beat some ass! (figuratevly, of course. which i probably didn't even have to say i guess)

(
good luck!
Last edited by: kittycat: Feb 8, 08 20:42
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Re: Grace and other things women need to get through life [trailbait] [ In reply to ]
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Hmm, that's a tough one. I'm certainly not always gracious - it depends on the specific situation. I, umm, have a wee bit of a temper, and can get pissed off very quickly, which I try not to do, but it happens.

But, I'm getting better at not letting things affect me all the time. I agree that you do have to pick your battles and not let yourself be a doormat, but you also have to decide what those situations are that require escalation. Otherwise - if someone is being a jerk I try to laugh about it - laughing AT them, really, at how ridiculous they are. They make themselves look bad, with no help from me, and it's not worth the effort to do or say anything.

I know some people who just don't feel it's worth the effort to get worked up about, well, anything. That's not me. They believe in karma, that these jerks get what they deserve in the end, etc. Me, I don't see that. Nope. I see assholes making out like bandits. That's why I believe in the theory of assisted karma - because the universe is too busy to take care of everything, so we need to help out. Help people get what they deserve, good or bad. :-)

I guess that doesn't help much. But i think in order to be happy with your actions, you need to be true to yourself. Sometimes rising above it and being gracious just means turning the tables on a person and treating them in a way they don't expect. I admit I do that not out of altruism or grace, but because I know it'll piss them off. So if someone is pushing your buttons - they're doing that because they want to get a reaction out of you - if you give them that reaction, then you're making THEM happy. You'll piss them off if you give them no reaction at all (hard to do but can be totally worth it), or a polite/nice one, which leaves them looking like the fool. I guess that's what motivates me to be "gracious" - the fact that by not stooping to their level, they look so much the worse for it. People like that hate being ignored, which to my mind is the best reason to "rise above" - because it just frustrates the hell out of them. Ha!

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http://thethighmasterroutetokona.blogspot.com
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Re: Grace and other things women need to get through life [trailbait] [ In reply to ]
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OOO, that is a toughie, because I think a lot of women were raised to "play nice" and not offend anyone.

Question: is the person pushing your buttons someone you're forced to be around, i.e., a coworker?

Several years ago, I made a decision to excise people from my life that were full of negative energy. I've found since then, a lot less more button pushers.

Caveat, the one button pusher left in my life is my mother-in-law who thrives on getting a rise out of people. After 5 years I realized that I would never be able to correct her behavior because she is mentally unbalanced (a description my husband also uses) and no amount of my rationality would work.

I also agree with whoever posted about not letting the button pushers know they're getting to you. Many of them thrive on that behavior (see statement above abt my m-i-l :)

Gazelle, I just love your "assisted karma" description, because I must say I'm one of those "karma" people and just let a lot of stuff slide but have to consider re-assessing this and perhaps employ "assisted karma" in the future :)

Good Luck!
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Re: Grace and other things women need to get through life [trailbait] [ In reply to ]
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This is something I work very hard at and I am successful more often than not. As others have said, it's all about picking your battles and letting the other stuff go. Figure out what you have control over and that's what you spend your energy on. You can't control other people's actions or words, but you can control how you react to it. When someone is really bothering me, I try to empathize with them and think how sad it is that they are so unhappy that they have to go through life like that. I also refuse to allow myself to go to their level.

Check out this book. I think it will really help:


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Re: Grace and other things women need to get through life [trailbait] [ In reply to ]
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I may not be the best to answer: I called big kahuna a moron for his LR Hillary photo gallery. I don't feel bad about it at all because I think it's factual and accurate.

I do deal with this a lot, though, as there are too many litigators out who think button pushing is a sport. I try and keep my eye on the ball and treat all the nonsense as white noise. To the extent possible, I also try to see the humor in the situation. When it gets too bad or when it starts to impede how I do my job, I think you have to deal with it directly.
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Re: Grace and other things women need to get through life [AmyCO] [ In reply to ]
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My thought process is always "Why do I have to be the grown-up?" It isn't fair that I always have to be the calm one, the rational one, the one who lets things roll of my back. Every once and a while I go off and I love it.

For example, my favorite "Jen spazzes" moment. I was pulling into a parking lot and was going a tad fast. I guy gestured at me to slow down to which I sheepishly shugged my shoulders and mouthed "Sorry". Then he said...B*TCH! Well now, that totally changed the landscape. I pulled my car into a spot, got out and asked him who the hell he thought he was talking to me like that. We screamed at each other for a solid 5 minutes before he got in his car and ran like a big wuss. We threw every nasty word at each other that we could think of, his favorite being the "C" word, which really pisses me off. There were people coming out of the stores and watching us. The construction workers were staring and I'm sure they'd heard and seen it all. After he left I was shaking from the adreneline. A woman came over from one of the shops and hugged me, telling me how awesome it was that I hadn't put it with his sh*t.

Point being, confronting the nasty person isn't always the right thing to do but it also isn't always wrong. I don't recommend responding with quite the force I did in the above example, however :-)

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Jen

"In order to keep a true perspective on one's importance, everyone should have a dog that worships him and a cat that will ignore him." - Dereke Bruce
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Re: Grace and other things women need to get through life [trailbait] [ In reply to ]
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I was in the same boat as mdraegernyc. She was a very wounded person. She was here before I came and I worked directly with her. I was younger, in better shape, and had more education than she did. She hated it. Exactly as mdraegernyc....she was perfect, always. She had driven off 3 or 4 prior co-workers in my current position. Everyone knew it. I work in an environment that teamwork is imperative....and she was NOT a team player. She also consistently (on purpose) misspelled my name (how do I know it was purposeful...well, every single email, signature, etc, had my name printed, correctly, on it.

Here is what I did after about a about 9 months lf of just being as nice and friendly as I possibly could:
1- sent her an email requesting that she please spell my name correctly; that it was a sign of respect and I'm sure she didn't mean to do it (oh, ha), but to please correct it.

2- spoke to our boss about it. He knew and commended me on how I had handled the entire situation. Told me there were going to be some changes and that he appreciated the professional, classy and Christlike attitude I took.

3- I am a Christian and so is my boss. I do not work for a Christian firm however, but I do work with many who are. For me, I spent a lot of time praying about it. I felt like I was being persecuted so to speak, so I read through the Psalms that were particularly about protection and justice. And I prayed for her. SO hard to do, but it is impossible to hate someone you're praying for. I still didn't like her, but I began to see that there was a reason behind her conduct and behavior. I also became acutely aware and grateful that I had not experienced whatever it was that made her that way. THIS was the biggest thing as far as work environment goes, for me. It just helped me "remain calm" while I waited for the changes.

4- about a month later my boss asked for her resignation.

I don't know exactly what type of position you are in or what your beliefs are, but whatever it is that gives YOU peace, somehow incorporate that situation into it and hopefully the peace will extend to this situation while you wait for whatever comes next.



Tiger for Life -- War Eagle!

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Re: Grace and other things women need to get through life [trailbait] [ In reply to ]
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Erika - is there way to do both? Take them on AND be gracious?

I'm no guru, but at middle age I am content with the amount of s*** I take and don't take. I always ask myself, "What's the goal?" before a confrontation. And I am always honest.

Do I always win friends and influence people? Nope. But I do believe that most people are good and decent, and if they really want to hate me after I've respectfully spoken my mind...well they probably would have hated me anyway. :-P
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Re: Grace and other things women need to get through life [WeRide] [ In reply to ]
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Here is my philosophy, FWIW. I got it from The Four Agreements and it literally changed my life...Never take anything personally. No matter what people do TO you, it is never ABOUT you. If a jerk calls you a bitch for driving too fast, then he is a jerk. You are not necessarily a bitch and since he doesn't personally know you, you can walk away knowing that he is a jerk or has anger issues and move on.
If you get in a fight with your mate and he calls you a bitch, again what he is showing you is his own character. How you choose to answer is how you show YOUR character. You can call him a loser, and then you are being mean too. Or you can say "I don't think what you said is true" and walk away.
Ultimately, I believe we can NEVER let anybody else's actions dictate our own behavior. I would like o be believe that I am of strong character, and I prove that to myself by always TRYING to do what I think is right. My ex-husband likes to try to engage me in battles and I have learned over the years to disengage emotionally when he does this because I realized that nothing he says to me has anything to do with ME, it has to do entirely with how he behaves as a person and how he handles conflict.
Now, the flip side of this philosophy is you always have to be self-critical. If someone close to you calls you a bitch then you need to look at yourself and decide if they are right. You always have to be willing to accept fault for mistakes or hurts you have made. My ex-husband says mostly stupid things, but some of the things he complains about are true and I try to work on it. And I tell him he is right if he is right. And I apologize. In the end it might not help our overall relationship, but it helps ME deal with him and helps me like myself.

Jessica
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Re: Grace and other things women need to get through life [Jessica] [ In reply to ]
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That is good advice, but tough to do. Tricky balance. I am a heart on my sleeve kind of girl which I admit is not always the best way to be. On one hand, you never really have to guess what I'm feeling about a situation, on the other, not everyone should know I suppose.

My mother always tells me when someone is disrespectful to her, but she never seems to tell the offender. I have encouraged her to stand up for herself (with one individual in particular) and she might feel better about it, rather than carrying it with her being bothered by the treatment. Now I don't mean fly off the handle everytime someone is a jerk, but let someone know when they are inappropriate. I'm sure she could do it much better than I.

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Awww, Katy's not all THAT evil. Only slightly evil. In a good way. - JasoninHalifax

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Re: Grace and other things women need to get through life [trailbait] [ In reply to ]
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Ladies, these are all interesting and entertaining responses! I love to hear both sides, fighting back and smiling through it. My scenario isn't an easy one, they never are, I was the target of office gossip twice recently, once regarding my personal life... I wrote about an early pregnancy on my blog not realizing that someone from my office was reading my blog, that person told the entire office and directed them to my blog and then came to me and thought it was hilarious that she spread my "secret" which was horrifying enough but became even worse when I miscarried at 11 weeks and had to share that nice personal trauma with my entire office. Lesson learned on blogging such info.

Then, we had a new person start who was struggling to make her boss happy and was not doing well with stress management, she was leaving in tears a lot and missing work frequently. I don't do drama so I tend to avoid her (say good morning and good evening and steer clear as much as possible) which she took personally and started gossiping about me and then escalated it to the point that she literally made up stuff about me and told her difficult boss that I had said "I couldn't work with her" and slammed down a notebook. This never happened, nothing even remotely like this happened, but I got a talking to by my boss about working with people.

Since then I have made an effort to be extra nice to her but I'm actually concerned that anything I say or do will be dramatized and spun around on me. Not sure how to work my way out of this one since avoiding it made it worse but talking to her about could only make things worse.

So if you have any advice on dealing with office gossip and drama queens please come replace me at work and get me through this!
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Re: Grace and other things women need to get through life [trailbait] [ In reply to ]
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Could you ask for a meeting with her and the boss at the same time? And maybe an HR rep? All cards on the table.

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Awww, Katy's not all THAT evil. Only slightly evil. In a good way. - JasoninHalifax

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