"I was an accomplice in my own frustration." ~Peter Shaffer
Recently I was lucky enough to experience the woe that some call airplane travel that was compounded by bad weather. I travel out of Atlanta, Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, which happens to be the worlds busiest airport. This means to get most anywhere in the United States, you probably will have to connect through this airport.
It also means that bad weather in other parts of the country can have a cascading effect upon travel out of Atlanta. This was the case just recently when bad winter storms and very cold weather in the Atlanta area slowed the whole kit and kaboodle to an agonizing delay.
In particular, my 7:05PM flight finally boarded at 10:00pm, left the gate at 11:00PM, got through the de-icing process by 11:30PM and made it to Seattle five hours and forty-five minutes later due to strong head winds. The bright side is that I would expect the return trip to only take four hours.
So during this delay, the airport concourse was filled with quite a few people. I normally wander off to the Delta SkyClub, but it was over-flowing and I didn't feel like standing in line to enter; being number fifty in line didn't bode well for me. So I sat at the 'new' gate we were to fly out of and watched people.
Its an amazing thing to see how people react in the varied ways. Some can be seen to sit back and let it all flow. Some are busy as a bee, trying to work the next deal, the next flight, to be in control of the uncontrollable. Others are mad as hell and aren't going to take it anymore.
These last people are the intriguing ones to me. I find in most cases that the anger comes from two basic things; frustration and anxiety. Frustrated by the situation which is out of their control. Anxiety over the delays, being tired and simply not knowing what to do.
One particular lady was very, very angry with the gate agent. As best I could tell she was off in a restaurant/store/bar on the concourse, believed this was the gate to come to, which it was originally, but failed to recognize it had changed.
Now I will state that the gate agent, the monitors and general posting of information seemed a bit confusing as it did change a fair amount. My gate alone changed three times. Alerts that should have gone out to cell phones and such didn't seem to be occurring. Many people complained of that, but I knew well enough to just stay informed as best I could. My angry lady didn't see it that way. Her frustration boiled over into a yelling tirade at the airline employees.
There is a lesson to be learned in customer service. Suffice to say that a calm, no worry demeanor in front of a frustrated customer can have a bad effect upon them. You can come off seeming not to care when all you are doing is trying to remain calm. Empathy can go a long way in these situations.
And this particular lady was having none of it. She was mad, she was tired, she was irritated and most of all, frustrated. She pointed all of her anger at one airline employee, the airline, the airport and I think anyone within ear-shot of her.
But while she was pointing that finger in the face of anyone standing in her view, could she not see the three fingers pointing back at her?
We have control over how we react in times such as these. Could we pay a little more attention to what is going on around us? Maybe our own actions have contributed to a situation that we now find ourselves in.
Sure, there are many things out of our control. But we can control how we respond. We can influence the situation with our own actions.
Remember that you are many times not the innocent bystander in a given situation. You have played a role in creating the predicament. But you can also play a role in resolving it.
Calm down, examine truthfully why you now believe you are in this situation and work to find some type of solution. Yelling and screaming typically yields little and is like a quick but very short lived sugar rush.
Take a look at what you can do to redirect your energy from being angry and frustrated. Direct that energy towards resolution and you'll see so much more get accomplished in your life.
