Seeing my part, owning it, and releasing the rest

Be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry. Human anger does not produce the righteousness God desires. James 1:19–20

Today was not my finest hour. I had an epic fail in my recovery walk. I told one of my employees to shush and slammed my hand down on the desk. I am not proud of how I behaved. There was an upset client who was not able to pay his bill, and I was asked to come and help with the situation. From the moment I stepped in, everything was loud and unmanageable. I began to diffuse the situation. I wanted to calm the client down and get him the help he needed to pay his bill. The employee who asked me to help stood behind me, constantly talking over my shoulder to the client I was helping. Then the client got on the phone with his financial lender. He was an older gentleman. He put his phone on speakerphone so I “could hear.” His call, however, was answered by an AI. He thought he was speaking to a real person. He did not realize it was AI. When the AI was not responding to his request, he got more upset. On top of that, the AI kept repeating its questions for him to answer. At the end of his rope, the client started to get even louder because he thought the AI could not hear or understand him. I tried to explain that he was talking to an automated system and suggested asking for an operator or agent. He got furious and slammed his phone down on the counter and walked out, leaving his phone behind on the counter, still on speaker, and the AI still asking, Are you still there? Each time it did, my employee kept yelling YES! over the top of me so the AI could hear her. This happened again and again, many times.

After several minutes, the man came back in. I was still trying to calm him down and at the same time help him get his bill paid. He was not the only client there who needed help, so all of this drama had an eager and willing audience. Each time the client asked me a question, while I was answering, my employee would raise her voice to answer too, talking over me. The whole time, the AI was still on speaker and still asking, Are you still there? and my employee was still shouting YES! each time. All of this noise just made things worse and the client even more frustrated. Now, as I think about it, it was actually quite humorous. You could not make this stuff up. Finally, I turned around to my employee, slammed my hand down on the desk, and said, “Shush!!” I said, “You called me here to handle this. Let me handle it and stop talking over me.” Once she quieted, I was able to get the client calmed down. I was able to resolve the situation with his bill, and he left peacefully, but the way I handled myself did not sit right with me.

I knew I had work to do. The employee’s bad behavior did not justify or excuse mine. Recovery has taught me that I need to figure out what my part was and make amends for it, which I did. Once things quieted down, I went to my employee and apologized for saying shush. She said, “And slamming your hand on the desk too?” I said, “Yes, and for slamming my hand on the desk too. I apologize for both. That was not necessary and out of line.” I didn’t realize it at the time, but even in my amends I still left something out. But I did correct it in the moment. And I did resist the urge to defend my actions or explain anymore. I refused to jump into more chaos when this employee tried to defend her actions and pull me back into it. I simply said, “I just wanted to apologize for how I behaved,” and left it at that. I’m still a work in progress. I didn’t do it perfectly, but I did do it. I made things right where I could, and let the rest go, giving it over to God.

Reflection

Where am I tempted to defend myself instead of owning my actions?