cross-posted from: https://linux.community/post/3626563
with people with good skills to defuse a tense situation at the workplace I mean everyone of you, because I suck at this and I’m sure anyone here is better than I am with this kind of stuff.
Tense situation is a karen yelling at one of my colleagues because her father’s operation was postponed because I kid you not 4 doctors called in sick today. Rumor has it they’re striking for better pay.
My instinctive response if someone starts behaving like a childish, snippy, entitled karen and acts passive-aggressively is to leave and ignore the person. In this case, the karen started ranting to my coworker, getting all snippy and wouldn’t shut up. A rational conversation with people that irrational is impossible, so I kept doing my job, transferring a patient to another ward.
I never expected this colleague to tell me she felt let down because I didn’t help her to deal with said karen. She said simply staying next to her would have sufficed. I told her I’d do that next time someone yells at her.
I consider myself lucky because I can leave to do my job but my colleague was trapped with this person.
My questions to you people with good social skills:
does it really help to simply stay next to my colleague, letting her do the talking while I do nothing but looking at the karen in the eye?
what if, each time the karen opens her mouth I repeat ‘calm down’ ad nauseam till she either tires, shuts up or walks away?
what do you say or do to support your coworkers while they’re being verbally abused that somewhat defuses the situation?
what if avoiding conflict is a trait of mine to the point that I let people walk all over me?
how do you resist the urge to walk away? Situations like this trigger my fight or flight response.
what if I have to do this with a man and it gets physical? If somebody strikes me and I strike back, and I can guarantee you I’m striking back, I’m as guilty as the first aggressor.
You called her a karen five times in the space of this post. That framing doesn’t help you. You don’t know that she’s an innately unreasonable person, you just know that she’s unreasonable in a specific moment where several people have failed her in a serious matter.
does it really help to simply stay next to my colleague, letting her do the talking while I do nothing but looking at the karen in the eye?
Staying quietly next to your colleague does help your colleague but this sustained eye contact sounds like an escalation. Try to express condolence instead of contempt.
what if, each time the karen opens her mouth I repeat ‘calm down’ ad nauseam till she either tires, shuts up or walks away?
That is an escalation of hostility. Any time you find yourself thinking “maybe this will shut them up”, that’s you looking to defeat an adversary. The goal here is to make her feel better, not even more hopeless.
what do you say or do to support your coworkers while they’re being verbally abused that somewhat defuses the situation?
Redirect. Gently point out that the coworker isn’t to blame for the problem and suggest focusing on how to proceed from here.
what if avoiding conflict is a trait of mine to the point that I let people walk all over me?
how do you resist the urge to walk away? Situations like this trigger my fight or flight response.
All there really is to do is practice.
what if I have to do this with a man and it gets physical? If somebody strikes me and I strike back, and I can guarantee you I’m striking back, I’m as guilty as the first aggressor.
This is one of the reasons it’s nice to have coworkers standing by your side. If it does get violent, a third party can split that up easier than a participant.
Broad strokes, make it clear that you would also prefer that her father get his scheduled treatment.
you have several good points but this ruined a good message:
where several people have failed her in a serious matter.
where did you get that from? an elective operation can be postponed if there are no doctors or anesthesiologists who can operate or if an emergency arises and somebody from the ER must be operated within minutes. She was told several times the new date for her fathers operation, she was told the hospital is not operating at full capacity due to doctors calling in sick but she didn’t want to hear it, she even tried storming the nurses room.
If my coworker gives in to every entitled relative who yells at her and treats her this way, either my coworker will resign or take leave due to depression, a coworker who was simply doing her job to the best of her abilities managing the 20 something operations that had to be readied for Monday next week. And she gets abused for that? And you condone the karen? This part of your post seems very tone deaf. My coworker didn’t even do her pause. It is her the one who deserves empathy, respect and my support, not the karen.
As a matter of fact, next time something like this happens I’ll stop working and be there for her ready to call in security and the cops. f*ck the karen.
I don’t know if you’re aware how nurses complain of being treated like crap, burnout, losing the empathy they had when they first started working, but people like this karen are the reason why. You only need one to ruin your day.
What do you call somebody who throws a fit if she doesn’t get what she wants?
You asked how to defuse the tension, I’m telling you how to defuse the tension. If that’s not what you want to do then I can’t help you.
EDIT: That was kinda glib on my part so I’ll expand some more.
If my coworker gives in to every entitled relative who yells at her and treats her this way, either my coworker will resign or take leave due to depression, a coworker who was simply doing her job to the best of her abilities managing the 20 something operations that had to be readied for Monday next week. And she gets abused for that? And you condone the karen? This part of your post seems very tone deaf. My coworker didn’t even do her pause. It is her the one who deserves empathy, respect and my support, not the karen.
What you’re asking me to do right now is acknowledge the legitimacy of your grievance. And I do, of course. Nobody deserves to be abused.
The goal here is to make the abuse stop happening, though, right? So the best course of action is the course of action that stops it. If you discount the possibility that she can behave reasonably, there’s no possibility of talking her down from her current state of aggression. Essentially, you both want the same thing: not to feel upset, not to feel hurt. If you can make her stop feeling that, she will stop causing you to feel that. It’s not fair but you didn’t ask for fairness. You asked for how you can produce results.
She has framed this as her on one side versus you (you being a proxy for the hospital) on the other. Option A is you accept her framing and remain in conflict and both of you continue to cause each other pain, option B is you influence her to change her framing into one side being both you and her and the other side being the situation. If you succeed at option B, both of you stop causing each other pain. So you acknowledge the legitimacy of her grievance. Her father was supposed to get an operation that day and he didn’t. Nobody deserves to have their medical treatment withheld, even temporarily, even if it was an elective procedure.
Frist rule. Acknowledge the problem. Don’t tell them to ‘calm down,’ say something like “yes, you are not getting what you were promised. You have every right to be mad, but getting mad at the staff isn’t going to help.”
One thing to distract is to ask their name. “Hello, Mrs. Karen, my name is vestmoira. I’ve been on this job for a while. Let me see what I can do,”
Second, yes, physically and morally stand by the co-worker. “So-and-so isn’t the reason this happened, but if we work together we can come up with a solution.”
If the woman persisted, it would be time to call for a manager/higher up. That’s their job.
Yeah just try to be a good listener, don’t judge, don’t give any type of advice unless specifically asked, let the person process their emotions in front of you while you observe and acknowledge them. You can rephrase what they say and repeat it back to them to be sure you understand, etc. Everyone gets bent out of shape sometimes and it’s ok.
Source: I have no skills myself but I’ve watched Davie504 on youtube a few times:
Making small talk, humor, lying, empathy all work, but here I would suggest blaming something that mutually fucks you over. In this case insurance companies. And learn to lie in ways they couldn’t verify, and never offer unnecessary information that would fuck you over. (I.e. DO NOT mention the doctors)
So I would say something like “this is supposed to be a routine procedure, but insuranc3 needs to verify it is necessary. My grandma died from shit like that. Fuck them. I’m going to do everything I can to help you <insert name>”
ALWAYS learn people’s names. Fuck you if you “are bad at learning names” you are just lazy. Try until you can do it, even if you have to ask more than once. People actually appreciate it. Here, it personalizes the bullshit you are slinging and gets the person to believe you
Depending on your workplace, there may be avenues for making complaints. If someone is being rude/unreasonable, it could help to direct them with something like: “I understand this is a difficult situation. We’re trying to navigate it and will follow up in (time) at (contact.) If you have complaints about how we’ve handled this, here is the (name/number/e-mail.)” This redirects their energy and gives them a solid plan to follow. Sometimes people just like it when there’s a plan.
Moving location can ease tension. You can say “Hi, I’m (name,) would you like to come over here and explain what’s going on?”
If you avoid conflict, it could help to explain those feelings to your coworker and just ask them what you can do to help them (as you have.) Or discuss difficult scenerios they have to deal with and give you clear suggestions on what to do in (x) situation. People like plans, again.
If you work at a hospital and someone is legitimately having a meltdown over something, as in they’re being completely irrational and may turn violent, can you call a psych nurse/doc/security?
Alternatively, I knew a security guard who always carried saltwater taffy in his pockets. If people got heated, he would throw it on the ground and go “Look! Candy!” He said it was effective 100% of the time.
Throw a dead cat on the table.