Day 122 Question 122:
What is a piece of advice you would offer people that you believe would be beneficial?
Yesterday was a very long and pretty insane day. Today I am one sleepy lady but I am trucking through. My life can be chaos some days and there are times that I know I need to slow down and I need to get more rest but honestly I am very much in love with my life. I believe I do things as I do because it is what is natural for me. I love being fast-paced and accomplishing a lot in a day. It makes me feel so productive and in a way I feel like I have made a difference (even if it is just to myself). So, having days where my body and mind feel tired don’t bother me because to me that is a sign of productivity.
Anyhoooooooo, yesterday was completely wild because down here in the crazy south (well in my area-Georgetown County, SC) we got some insane weather. It rained for hours and there was some pretty severe flooding in a lot of areas. I take care of two 17 month old girls during the day and yesterday I watched the rain falling outside of the windows and it was like a river was forming in the front yard. A car drove past the house and the water was half way up the side of the car. I have seen many feet of snow and I have lived through a hurricane but I have NEVER seen rain like this. Honestly, it was actually really cool to see (check out the pics at the bottom of the blog…and those aren’t even the worst of the water and rain). I promise I am getting to my point…hahaha.
After job 1 I had to venture to job 2 which is about 15 minutes south of where I nanny. I trekked down to the restaurant and luckily the weather had calmed down and I made it there in one piece (a lot of accidents were spotted along the way). Surprisingly the restaurant was busy (which is always good because it keeps me busy and that means more money in my pocket). Being at the restaurant last night made me think about the question posed above. In the restaurant business (and in a lot of different places in life) chaos is guaranteed. A person learns very quickly when working in a restaurant that the pace is very fast, you will be dealing with some customers that are going to be assholes no matter how nice you are to them, and there is going to be confusion from time to time. My advice to everyone (under any circumstance-whether it be working in a restaurant or just dealing with daily life) is to just accept and move forward. I am a very happy person naturally. I LOVE to make people laugh and smile…especially when I am working at the restaurant. That includes both employees and customers. I strive to make people laugh and smile because sometimes the environment can get stressful and people need that minute to just breathe….so I choose to be the one to help people rid themselves of the stress or the negativity they may be feeling at the moment. No, I am not trying to toot my own horn. I just believe in trying to keep the environment peaceful and happy.
I wish I could say that others did the same thing. Unfortunately, they do not. I have two coworkers that are CONSTANTLY negative. Every little thing is an issue and they act like they always know what is best for the restaurant. What they don’t realize is that their negativity kills the entire mood of the restaurant. They don’t realize that their negativity deflects off of them and it makes EVERYONE uncomfortable. What kills me is that the things they get so worked up, stressed out and upset about are so minor. I understand things happen and I don’t enjoy screw ups or being treated like shit by a customer but I take my moment, cuss if I have to (behind closed doors of course) and move on. THERE IS NO BENEFIT TO CONTINUALLY STRESSING OUT, BITCHING AND WHINING ABOUT SOMETHING THAT CANNOT BE CONTROLLED!!! The people at the restaurant (well a majority of them) are like my family and I hate to have the entire mood change because people are acting like brats. Honestly, their behavior is just disrespectful. I am soooooo far from perfect and I do not have all of the answers and I without a doubt will screw up by saying or doing the wrong thing but I also see the big picture. These two people that I am discussing live through tunnel vision and both of them only think of “ME ME ME”. When you work in any company, in order to be successful you cannot think like that. For example, we used to have a sushi chef (he has since left the area) that had serious anger problems. No one could say anything to him without getting their head bit off. If you were to get on his bad side he would take it upon himself to work on your sushi order much slower (and get to it when he felt like it) just to piss you off. What he wasn’t seeing was that by doing this the customer was getting upset because of the wait time on their food which in turn could lead to loss of their business in the future which also could mean negative word of mouth around the community which in turn could lead to even more loss of business. He never saw it like that though because he was only thinking of himself.
Some people have no idea of how their attitudes affect others. I am not trying to go on a big bitch fest myself and point fingers and play the blame game…I do understand some people have bad days and sometimes it is hard to just set your mood on the back burner. It becomes difficult though when you work with one or two people that have bad days every single day. My advice to anyone (including myself) is to start bringing awareness to your actions and your moods. I believe it is unfair to bring everyone around you down just because your life is not peaches and cream every day. I apologize for this rant. The person that I had to work with just bothered me yesterday (as much as I tried to control it) and I needed to speak out about it. I don’t care who anyone is…common decency is not a difficult thing. I know life can be hard sometimes but negativity 24 hours a day gets really old and if life is soooooo bad then make some changes. It really is that simple. My big piece of advice to this person would to maybe get help for his/her drinking problem….maybe then money wouldn’t be such an issue….health problems wouldn’t be such an issue and mental health issues wouldn’t be such an issue. It really isn’t rocket science. Life is a beautiful thing to be enjoyed if you let it happen that way. If you choose not to then my advice is to keep your shitty mood to yourself and don’t make everyone else suffer in the process!
With that big rant I want to send all of my readers big hugs and big smiles. Being positive is what I strive for and I would not want my last words to be negative. I send a lot lot lot of love :0)
It's a New Day... 
My advice to someone that has it “so bad all the time” and is negative all the time is this: Look at all the issues and bad experiences in your life, then look at the common denominator: yourself. It should be obvious what needs to change.
That’s a lot of rain. I’m in Savannah, and we got a little bit, but nothing like that. Keep on being positive…it helps us pessimistic types. Even though I don’t comment much, I read your posts every day and they help even me out (which, if you asked my wife, is something I definitely need).
:0)
Most of the things we all worry about are just dots on our time-line of life. Years from now we probably won’t even remember 90% of them. Save the energy for the REAL problems. 🙂
Negative people will suck the energy right out of because, well, they don’t have any and they need…yours. Ever noticed that after they go on negative rampage, you feel tired and they look more energized? It’s your energy they’re enjoying!
Here’s something that sounds negative but it really isn’t; there is no advice you can give them. It’s not your words or your advice they want, it’s your energy and so long as you will allow them to have it, they’ll take it! One day I realized I was becoming negative and I looked for the root. You see, I’m a bit of a smarty pants but in a good way, in a fun way. I started working in an office and I would go outside for a smoke break. I was being my happy self, telling jokes and making people laugh. Ho la la, did they ever spot me! In a matter of only a couple of days I was surrounded by negative people sucking the life out of me. It took a few months and I was exhausted, whining, complaining all the time.
I decided to no longer associate myself with them. I asked to be seated somewhere else in the office and changed my work schedule to avoid these people at all cost! It may not be possible for you to do these things. Every situation is different and each situation requires a different solution, but you have to find a way to put some distance between yourself and these people.
Believe me, there’s nothing you can tell them. They are naturally negative and you could get Robin Williams, Jim Carrey, Steve Carell and Ellen Degeneres in the same room with these two coworkers of yours and they’d find a way to complain about how ugly the furniture is.
I love it when it rains by the way. See…I’m so positive!
Oh Steve I can tell we would make great friends 🙂
“What is a piece of advice you would offer people that you believe would be beneficial?”
I wrote a little rant about this topic this morning 😉 I would tell them “Do It Right.”
be nice to everyone – until they give you a reason NOT to be nice to them. if that happens, be nice to them, unless their reason was intentional and also aimed at you.
Don’t ignore advice. “they” are usually more objective than you are.
A very true posting, Diane. I call “negative” people like the two in your restaurant as “Crows”. They simply cannot find it in themselves to be happy or positive. One day, perhaps, one or both of them may learn to laugh at themselves a little. Thanks for posting.
Great post! I think you’ve hit on a topic that most everyone has experienced at one time or another and the best thing to do is to let off the steam. I definitely have to forward your blog to a friend of mine, you’ve said a lot of things her and I have both said at one time or another when negative people have invaded our happiness.