The Authentic Life: How do you Deal with Difficult People?

Friday, January 13, 2012

How do you Deal with Difficult People?

There are many difficult people out there. People that want to wreak havoc with you and cause you a pain in your side. How do you deal with them? Some of them you can easily dismiss and get on with your life, but there are some of them that just can't be shoved under the carpet.

Some of them are people that you meet maybe once in a brief encounter that probably infuriates you. Perhaps it is the clerk behind the counter at a local store that is giving you grief. Say it is about a return or something and you would like your money back.

Like say software. Most places won't refund you your money if you have opened up the software. They might think that you have activated it and it will no longer work for someone else.

Today the person who had ticked me off is the girl who keeps requesting her refund for the vintage Tammy doll that she won on ebay. Well, in other posts I have said that she will not return the doll, so I have told her that she needs to return the doll in order to get a full refund. She must have opened a case against me tonight, so I responded once again that if she wants a refund she needs to return the doll. Then ebay walked me through the steps to get her to return the doll. I finished and ebay said that they were going to send her a notice to return the doll and I will issue her a full refund (which to my benefit, doesn't include return shipping). Ebay said that she will have 10 days to do it and if she can't, then the case will be closed and in my favor.

And if she tries to give me negative feedback, they will retract it and give her a warning for extortion.

I kind of hope she waits too long and then she will be out of luck. She sent me another email tonight that there were supposed other things also wrong with the doll. One arm thicker than the other, hair missing from her head. In my mind there was nothing wrong with the doll. This is just a classic case of a person trying to find all kinds of things to knit pick about the doll.

If she sends me more nasty emails, I am just going to not respond to her and let ebay deal with her.

She will be a pain in my side for just a little while longer and then that's it.

But what about the long term people that are difficult to deal with? How do you handle them? Some of them might be your co workers and you just have to deal with them and put on a polite and friendly face even though you find them a pain in your rump. You have to work with them every day, and you don't want to make a bad situation worse. You don't want something to escalate and get out of control.

Or what if the person is a family member? That is even worse, because sometimes we open our mouths to stress our opinion and they retaliate against you. Hey, it happens. Then sometimes it falls upon you to correct the problem that has compounded.

In this type of situation, it is best to try to resolve it and make things better, even if you have to sacrifice your needs and wishes first. You are talking about a family member and you don't want to cause a grudge and friction that can shatter the family.

Try to get them to sit down with you and work out the problem. Sometimes you might need a third party present to be a mediator and a neutral party. Someone who can offer constructive criticism.

After all, we don't want to have to deal with difficult people for our whole lives.

Jennifer Jo Fay

Copyrighted January 13, 2012