Realistic pension gains?

anonmoose

Yes totally understand what you are saying. And I would never suggest suppressing your emotions but I know when I act assertive instead of aggressive I end up with a better result and don't play the incident in my head all day.

Getting angry is stressful and sometimes it's better to put your health first and either back off the situation or take a breath and do it in as calm a way as possible whilst still being assertive.  I only say this because it is something I work on with myself and have seen an impact of my behaviour on my stress levels. Or maybe I am just mellowing with age!

Edited to add: It did sound like the fall out with the colleague was a miscommunication on both sides. I didn't intend it to sound like you were fully to blame.

Malthusian

"losing temper" - At the end of the day, I think even the best will snap somewhere along the line. We're only human at the end of the day. Is this me excusing a temper loss? No. What it is is me saying just because one or two stories get told does not mean someone murders someone every day. 

A guru once summed this situation up as: if you see a guy while driving to work screaming at another car, you will think "what an angry person". But the guy in his car won't think of himself as an angry person, he will be thinking about the idiot in the Audi that caused him to lose his temper, and will think that anyone would have reacted in that way. 

This a longer version of the cliché "you never get a second chance to make a first impression". 

The problem with having a reputation as an angry person is that walking around not being angry is not enough to get rid of it. What you need is for people to witness you repeatedly getting into stressful situations and reacting in a calm manner which contradicts their belief "Dave is an angry person". Even then some of them will just think "uh oh, Dave's bottling up his rage" until you've not lost your temper for a very long time. People are hardwired to base their perception of reality on their prejudices than the other way around.

This does not mean that becoming a calmer person is a bad thing. It just means you have to do it for you, because it makes you feel better, rather than to make other people feel differently about you. The latter is not under your control whereas the former is. 

anonmoose said:

What I would say B0bby is that high level IQ intelligence is only required in a small number of jobs so I wouldn't get too hung up on intelligence being a stumbling block.

The good thing about having high IQ intelligence is that it is much easier for a high-IQ person to raise their emotional intelligence, or at least fake it, than for the most popular boy/girl in school types to start doing quadratic equations, after a lifetime of getting other people to do their homework.

For a typical high-IQ / neuroatypical person, it also usually does much more for both your career prospects and life in general to work on "emotional intelligence" than to get slightly better at your area of expertise. It's low-hanging fruit.

B0bbyEwing

Hmm, worthwhile https://www.wob.com/en-gb/books/daniel-goleman/emotional-intelligence/9780747528302?gclid=Cj0KCQjwj7CZBhDHARIsAPPWv3dwV9Nm2LSN82kOcxYKwEBy7k2Rfi3buRtRijouc4b-DUiew4UuhrcaAmIdEALw_wcB#GOR001239377 ?

See I saw this one: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Working-Emotional-Intelligence-Daniel-Goleman/dp/0747543844 but I have a feeling that one, like most people when you talk about work, will assume that everyone works in an office because jobs outside of offices apparently don't exist. 

Without going in to any detail, which I know will upset some, over the past few months I've been implementing home changes to story short, help my mind be much calmer and not feel so overwhelmed when I'm not at work. On going process but still, after years of not tackling, I've started to tackle.

But that's home, and people outside of work are generally easy as they're a different breed shall we say - as in people outside of work are normal. What's normal? Well they're not <bleepers>.

Not to say that everyone at work is but there's certainly more triggers (for me) in the workplace through toxic people, toxic mentalities, needless petty squabbling, the most minor event blown up to seem like the end of the world.

So on that note & you guys talking about raising emotional intelligence, anything to be learned from the above links or maybe a different one altogether?

Assuming of course anyone reading this has read anything like that. If not then I suppose nobody can answer

LV_426

I had to Google emotional intelligence, as I don't know what it is, or how you can improve it. Here's a definition:

Emotional intelligence (otherwise known as emotional quotient or EQ) is the ability to understand, use, and manage your own emotions in positive ways to relieve stress, communicate effectively, empathize with others, overcome challenges and defuse conflict.

That last bit in particular has always been a problem for me. I'd rather avoid conflict altogether. I've noticed that some people seem to thrive on conflict though.

anonmoose

I haven't read any books on emotional intelligence but I think you can help yourself with basics. 

The things I do are: 1 Count to ten or remove yourself temporarily to calm down if necessary, 2 put yourself in the other persons shoes. Do they have a point OR Why are they behaving so irrationally? Perhaps they have just had some bad personal news or things aren't good at home.  Give them the benefit of the doubt that there is a reason behind the behaviour even if that reason isn't actually about you.
3 Kill the conflict with kindness.  People find it very hard to keep being angry when you are showing them kindness and understanding (even if they don't appear to deserve it).
4 If all else fails just think to yourself, at least I am not them and move on.

I find my response to the conflict is much more important than the conflict itself.  If I am happy with how I responded I can quickly forget about it and move on.

Realistically I rarely get into any conflict these days because I don't tolerate people like that in my life.  Life is too short.

In your situation with your job you either need to suck it up and develop a strategy to manage the conflicts in work or move on to somewhere you will be treated properly.

At home meditation is worth trying if you haven't already.

B0bbyEwing

LV_426 said:

That last bit in particular has always been a problem for me. I'd rather avoid conflict altogether. I've noticed that some people seem to thrive on conflict though.

Yeah, this. I know a few in the workplace who seem to actively seek it. Boss being one.
I try to avoid it where possible. I'll walk away but some times they'll walk after me just because they want a barney.
I've told them numerous times - you think I like an argument. I don't. I absolutely hate it. I dread it. There's nothing worse than coming to work thinking ok it's basically a case of choose what you want to get a rollicking for because it's going to be something because everything is designed that way. If you do this you get a rollicking for not doing that. Do that & you get a rollicking for not doing this. Physical and time limitations dictate they can't both be done. It's like expecting someone to be in two places at once. But do they care?

anonmoose said:

OR Why are they behaving so irrationally? Perhaps they have just had some bad personal news or things aren't good at home.  

Reminded me of a situation that did...

Was getting a dressing down one time from the boss, but the second in command in the company actually came to my defence (I'd spoken to them previously about issues at home). Boss said emphatically, NO, they're supposed to be professional. 2nd in command, fair play to them, continued to defend me - saying we're all human, nobody is perfect. In the end, this persons defence of me made the boss just walk off but without that it would've gone on for ages, as per.

Anyway, until the day I move on or am moved on, managing the unmanageable will be the only way. Hopefully the boss decides to retire & is taken over by other family members who are considerably more human.

bolwin1

B0bbyEwing said:

Anyway, until the day I move on or am moved on, managing the unmanageable will be the only way. Hopefully the boss decides to retire & is taken over by other family members who are considerably more human.

Your workplace sounds toxic. Considering most of us spend approx 1/3rd of our time working & 1/3rd asleep, it's important that the work bit is tolerable as a minimum. Can't you find a suitable role elsewhere - life is too short to put up with carp.