A Better Way to Respond to Anger
Use this simple method to turn it around
Yesterday, I had an altercation with a woman at the bank. We were both headed towards the entrance to the waiting line, but coming from different directions. I arrived a few seconds before she did, and turned into the line.
She immediately uttered, “Hey, stop.” I obeyed and she promptly walked past me to the front of the line. Simultaneously, she went ballistic on me because, after all, she was walking in a straight line. I shouldn’t have stepped into the queue before her.
I didn’t know there are right of way rules in a bank. But maybe there’s a law of physics that says never get in front of an anger-prone woman when she’s moving in a straight line. One I just didn’t know about.
She accused me of having bad manners. She told me I should have said “something” before getting into the line ahead of her.
This woman wasn’t disabled or elderly, in which case I would have definitely paused and let her go ahead. In fact, she was much younger than me. In Hawaii, where I live, the tradition is to let “aunties” (elders) go first. But obviously, not in this case.
She continued to berate me. And that’s when I made a mistake. I defended myself by stating why I was the one who had, so to speak, the right…
