Choice of words

In the working world, I believed that the choice of words used will determine the reactions you get. You may not mean this way but more often than not, when the words reach the other party's ear it get twisted.

It's an art to speak without offending people and not many can master this art or rather take the effort to master it.

There is a typical example today. We have a difficult colleague in our department who thinks she is not difficult. Often she would complaint to people in other departments on our her fellow counterparts in our dept.

Sad to say, she didn't take a minute to reflect on her own doings. Sometimes even the colleagues she poured her sorrow to came back and ask us about her complaints. If I am in the mood to explain, I would elaborate and leave it to them to judge. When I am not in the mood, I would brush the comments off.

Anyways she had a disagreement with another dept colleague today over the presentation of some reporting stuff, it was so heated at we all stopped what we were doing and listened in to the tele-conversation. Hehe Typical KPOS.

So when she finished her quarrel, she came straight to our senior and bark some orders at him as thought as Empress Dowager is giving an edict. The whole instruction giving process is finished within 2mins and she walked away.

This change affects the whole department work process. It never came across to her to at least discuss with the senior on whether this is feasible, whether there are any limitations. She just assume that everyone needs to follow her order and full stop.

Autocratic.

So after she left, we had a discussion on it. Though unhappy, everyone obliged with the orders. Many times we just follow blindly not wanting to create trouble. Of course there are times when she cross over my line and I would refuse to do the stupid instructions she gave.

My point here is art of communication. While I mostly do not have problems with my other 2 colleagues who we can discuss and trashed things out and finally find a solution that most of us are happy, this particular person in question would not tolerate discussion even with our boss.

Nearly 3 years of working here makes me realised there is no room for discussion with her or any reasoning works since she always think she is right and stubbornly stick to her thinking. So I gave up and do things I deem right. This is to let her have a taste of her own medication. I am sure she is very unhappy with me. But so what? I am entitled to my own thinking since I am not a dog but a working adult.

No one is any less smart or responsible in our area of work in my department so I don't think  she need to impose her thinking or doing on us as though we are goons or need her guidance in order to work properly.

Unless she learn to communicate better with us, I think we are all struck in a grid lock with her.