Other People's Children!

Many of you may have noticed that I often use the phrase "Other people's Children". A few of you may have wondered what that means. I use this phrase when referring to the actions of others that I find troublesome in some way. The type of actions that would have made me want to smack them if they were my child, but alas, they are not. This means that I don't get the satisfaction of smacking them. There is a great deal wrong with "other people's children".

Here is my most recent example, and it occurred at work. (It seems I live there.) I have the first desk in the office. If you come through the front door, I am usually the first one you see. This leads to my having to deal with virtually everyone who walks through the office door. Being that it is the only door you can gain access to the building through, unless you are an employee, I get the cream of the crop!

I work in a distribution center. In the mornings we take inbound freight and in the afternoons we ship all of the outbound freight. In the mornings it is a long line of truck drivers who we have never seen before, and in the evenings it is a long line of truck drivers that are in our facility daily. Before I continue I will say that I have nothing against anyone. I only have problems with people who bad attitudes, and it doesn't matter who you are or what you do for a living. I give everyone the same respect off the top, and you gain more or lose some depending on how crappy you treat me.

This morning, a driver came to my desk. The first words out of his mouth were, "I have been here two hours and they haven't even started unloading my trailer yet! What is taking them so long!?!" I didn't take that approach to well. This man was another in a long line of other people's children that insisted on trying to ruin my day.

I looked at him and responded, "I really do not know, but if you walk right over there and talk to our shipping and receiving clerk, with a little less attitude than you addressed me, then you might find the answer you are looking for." I then proceeded to start my typing again, only to hear him say "How can you work here and not have any idea what is going on around here?" Well, that was a little bit further over that line that separates nice and rude. Not a good start to the first hour of my shift, but I can handle this. My response, calmly stated, was, "It isn't that I don't have any idea what is going on around here. It is closer to the fact that I have no time to deal with your attitude. In fact, I refuse to do so. Perhaps our shipping and receiving clerk will have more time than I do to watch your, very entertaining, adult temper tantrum. If I wanted to deal with temper tantrums all day I could very easily have been a stay at home mom."

The driver proceeded to walk off in a huff. He walked the few feet over to shipping and receiving clerk's office peeked inside and slowly approached my desk a second time. He then said, "he isn't in there". I shrugged and said, "then I guess you are SOL". To which he said, "Can't you call him up here?", and I answered, "of course I can", and then went back to the task on my desk. After a few brief moments the driver spoke again, "WILL you call him up here?" I looked up and stared at him a moment. "No, I don't think I will. I really just don't have it in me to cater to rude people who think they can walk in here, speak to me as if all their problems are my fault, and then fulfill the favors they request. Go wait in your truck, they will get to you when they can." This of course was followed by more stomping and huffing and demanding to speak to my supervisor. I told him that I would send my supervisor out as soon as she had time, and that wasn't going to be until Monday or Tuesday of next week as she was on vacation.

You see, other people's children haven't been taught that you get a lot further in life with an ounce of niceness as opposed to a pound of bad attitude. Think of all the hard times a parent could have saved this man if they had bothered to teach this very important lesson. All I can do at a time like this is shake my head in disgust and mutter, "other people's children...."