Recovering The SelfA Journal of Hope and Healing

Inspirational

Kindness Can Defuse Any Situation

by Patty L. Fletcher

Today, started at just after 6 AM with me breaking one of my rules and reading Facebook notifications before my morning’s routine of washing face, and brushing teeth and hair. I know, all too well, what doing this can cause because completing my morning’s routine helps ground me and without it, I can easily become emotional. Fortunately, I managed to read and respond to my notifications, some of which were slightly volatile with myself and others unscathed.

After performing my morning’s routine, and doing a bit of deep breathing, I headed for the kitchen to feed Prince Edward and make that all important first cup of brew. Then, just when I thought I might get through the morning without any more issue, I opened my inbox, and it was almost time for round two.

Sitting there, listening to the fury of yet another spring storm blowing hatefully round the house, knocking on doors and rattling windows trying to get in, whilst sipping coffee and scrolling through messages I found one from the online store where I get Eddy’s food and immediately my blood pressure began to rise.

It appeared, though I’d changed the auto shipping information last month to a new date it hadn’t been completely updated. Once again, the debit card had been charged early, the payment had been declined and the order was in danger of being canceled. “Can no one do their blinking job?” I roared to the air, sending Sweet Eddy scurrying for parts unknown. “Is the whole world created from total incompetency?”

It seemed to me of late businesses of all types were becoming completely unreliable. Between the fact that people don’t answer emails for days, sometimes weeks at a time, to this not updating the information on my account as requested, I was seriously ready to explode.

I get that people have lots of stuff going on, but I firmly hold to two things. You don’t allow your personal life to merge into your professional life any more than absolutely necessary and if you’re unable to perform a task or don’t understand exactly what is expected of you, good communication is in order.

It seemed as though, that the person I’d spoken to over the phone last month hadn’t understood what I wanted and rather than updating the auto ship info, they’d simply taken my payment and allowed the order through. Since I knew this company to be one which normally held their customer services to an exceedingly high standard, I felt rather annoyed that the lack of attention to detail was creeping into yet another business I relied on to get things done.

With my blood up and temper rising as were the flood waters in the nearby creek, I grabbed up the phone and loaded for bear punched in the numbers for the customer services line.

Then, as I readied myself to blast the poor unfortunate soul who took my call a cheerful voice rang out, “Hello, thank you for calling. My name is Chris, how may I help you today?” And with that one act of kindness, My anger dissipated.

Taking a deep breath to further calm down, I found myself explaining quite reasonably the trouble and with no sign of the anger which had flooded my senses just moments ago. Soon, we’d solved the problem, the information was updated to reflect the correct date for my card to be charged and the order was ready to ship out on the desired date. Chris assured me that from here forward this would be the way my auto ship worked and even went to the trouble of explaining to me the correct procedure to see this got done should I ever need to change things in the future.

This experience was so wonderful. It literally reset the entire day for me, and I now feel I can manage anything else which might come my way. This kind professionally minded young man had unknowingly helped me in ways of which he would never be aware simply by being the kind of person all of us in business should strive to be.

Now, as I ready myself to conduct business with my own clients, I remind myself that I must first hold my own standards in the highest regard before I can expect the same from others.

For now, this is Prince Edward, who is much relieved his food order didn’t get canceled and his mother, Patty L. Fletcher, self-published author and social media marketing assistant saying…

Be Impeccable with your word, action and reaction.

May harmony find you, and blessid be.

About the Author

Patty L. Fletcher lives in Kingsport, Tennessee, where she works full time as a Writer with the goal of bridging the great chasm which separates the disAbled from the non-disAbled. She is Also a Social Media Marketing Assistant. To learn more, visit her Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/tellittotheworld/.

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Recovering The Self is a forum for people to tell their stories. Individual contributors accept complete responsibility for the veracity, accuracy, and non-infringement of their reporting.
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