He shared his frustration with me a while back while asking my advice about how to deal with a difficult customer.
He described the customer as one of the nicest people he'd ever met, at least when he first did business with him. He said the guy was polite and friendly and treated everyone on the crew very well. But later on, the guy became difficult to deal with. He became increasingly demanding about certain aspects of the job that he previously was satisfied with. He expected my friend to perform services that went beyond their agreement – and at no extra cost. It seemed that no matter what my friend did to get along with this customer, he just became more difficult.
But even though he was becoming very frustrated with this gentleman, he determined to follow through with the job until it was completed to the customer's satisfaction. Then when he went to the customer's house the last time, that's when he understood why the customer had become so hard to deal with. The customer divulged to my friend that he had a terminal disease and only a short time to live - maybe less than the few months.
And then everything came in the focus for my friend and he understood why the man had changed.
How many times do we encounter this in our daily lives? We'll get irritated about how someone is driving. Or we'll have problems with a clerk or a waiter. We'll allow someone's behavior to color our whole day and put us in a bad place.
But how do we know what other people are going through? We don't know what's pushing them to behave badly or treat others rudely. They could've got bad news about their health. A family member could be having problems. They might've lost their job.
Whatever it is that's affecting their behavior, we might stop and think for a minute before we let someone else ruin our day. They might have just gotten some bad news and they're having trouble coping with it.
