Just a little thought about my experience at the DMV, where I spent a good chunk of time, cumulatively, on 3 different days working with three different employees. Anytime someone mentions or talks about the DMV it is usually with a hint of disdain in their voice for the not so pleasurable experience or service they received.. Last year sometime I wrote about this idea in interpersonal skills with people centered around reciprocity. Ill give a disclaimer here, Im not an expert, just a student and new practitioner whos studied some interesting things and work with people for longer than 1 min - 15 min and listening to their experiences, appropriately empathizing, relating and thinking about an approach for them that will serve them in a way that produces a positive outcome. Anyways... The idea was this... Every time you present yourself theres two interpretations that take place, your own and the person you are engaged with. And so you reverberate off of each other. Lets postulate that you interpret that your experience is going to be bad initially, so you start off on the wrong foot how do you think youll come off to the other person intially? Similarly, the other person, who has been dealing with a great deal of range of personalities who likely have the same idea about the people coming in, how to you think they will come off? So now we are two feet deep in a hole. On these days at the DMV, it would certainly seem that everything I often hear holds true revolving other peoples experience with the DMV. Lack of interest in the person, staring at the computer screen, monotone voice... Very much so the, next. type of experience, if that makes sense. Ive been making more of a daily practice just to interact appropriately but playfully with the people I have no familiarity with in general situations -- no real means of generating business or establishing a relationship. Amazingly, all three of the employees by the last 10 or 20 minutes were in a decent enough mood to have a normal person conversation with me. One of them wanted to go back to school to study radiology and son had just recently entered the collegiate highschool where he was attending so hed already graduate ahead of the game. Whats the moral here? Although this doesnt always work, treat people as if they a person who works hard to keep us out of a level of chaos that is less manageable than it already is given the complexity of human behavior and psychology rather than a service like many do. Although still a hassle, I left probably less frustrated and aggravated than I would have if the people I started with -- I also ended with. Just listen man. Ask some basic questions about them or their job. It makes all the difference for not only them but you too. If your surroundings aint decent, do your best to make them decent. Its your life after all. Unfortunately sometimes this perspective is taken in a way that self perpetuates itself as a reality disguised as hell.
Posted on: Thu, 10 Jul 2014 02:31:29 +0000
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