Established career. Check. Loving family. Check. Co-habiting with a lovely man. Check.
The beginnings of my own little army of cats. Check.
The beginnings of my own little army of cats. Check.
So when my boss pulled me in for my annual appraisal and told me she wanted me to see a 'professional coach' to teach me how to 'tolerate even the most annoying people' it made me reassess a few things (and had my close friends and family laughing for a solid week at the prospect). Now don't get me wrong, this didn't come as a huge surprise. I am (in my partner's words) very intolerant. In my mother's words I 'don't suffer fools'. Whichever way you look at it, the long and short of it is:
People annoy me.
Well, that's not quite true...
Most people annoy me.
So after agreeing to go forwards and meet with this lady I decided to embark on a little self discovery of my own. First stop was Dale Carnegie's infamous 'How to win friends and influence people'. A sure fire way to sort out this niggle in my otherwise comfortable existence you may think. Well here's what it has taught me about myself.
1. I am far more judgemental than I would previously care to admit.
2. I've spent the last 26 years of my life talking over every person in every conversation and you'll never guess what.. People don't like that!
3. Names are important and every time I've called a temp at work 'Miss/Sir' or apologised to someone because 'I am not good at names' people haven't liked that either.
4. Every time I've hit a barrier at work or in my personal life and said 'but there was literally nothing else I could do!' guess what... There's been about a thousand other things I could have done to change that situation.
5. I say no to everything first time. Literally everything... then spend 24 hours considering it and realising that, actually, I'd quite like to say 'yes' (and half the time it's already too late!)
6. All of those times I've thought in my head 'I don't know what to say to people. I can't do small talk.' it's actually been because I don't listen to people. Well I do. Sometimes. But half the time I'm too busy thinking about what I'm going to be having for dinner. Or what is on TV this evening and that blank expression that has crossed my face at some point mid-conversation has not gone amiss.
.... and about a thousand other things that I won't bore you with (yet).
So I've decided that it's time to change. Time to stop worrying that all of my friends from Uni have left me and I'm going to be lonely forever. Time to stop wondering why when people greet/leave in a social situation, everyone else gets a hug and people wave at me awkwardly (someone actually asked me the other day 'Um.. do we hug?' as if I might shoot them in the face if they came within a metre of me!) and(most importantly) time to stop saying No to everything and then wonder why 90% of my free time is spent in the house, on the sofa, talking to the cats.
Knowing how things tend to pan out in my day-to-day interactions it's fairly obvious that this isn't going to be the easiest foray and I'm certain will lead to hilariously awkward 'has the ground swallowed me up?' instances on a daily basis. Am I ready for it? Yes. Am I going to drag you along kicking and screaming with me for support? Yes too.
The path to charisma begins.
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