It's a challenge, but as I've stated before, challenges lead to change. And as I work towards changing myself to be a better man, to be a better friend and better person, I accept challenges and will have to persevere through challenges that are less favorable.
The important part in discovering people that are hard to get along with is how I react to them. Do I respect them and their ideas before asking if they do the same to me? Am I willing to humble myself, get off my high horse and serve them before asking them to serve me? I'm not saying every scenario is a servant and master sort of deal, but the idea is that am I willing to do things for them before expecting the return of that favor? Respect and trust is a two way street. If I cannot respect or trust someone, how can I expect them to respect or trust me? That would be unfair and setting a double standard.
As I work towards being a leader and fulfilling that title since several people have stated I am a leader, I need to humble myself and become a servant leader. To put others before myself rather than sit in command in a cozy place and make others do the hard work. And I need to work on not exploding on people anymore and ever again. I need to cool my temper and speak with a level head before I commit to an action that leads to damage potentially.
Where am I going with this? Well I discovered today that a coworker is hard to get along with. He treats me as if I've never worked at Jersey Mike's before. Not to say that my 4.5, now 5.5 days is a lot of experience, but he isn't trusting what I've learned nor my ability to learn. He tells customers it's my first day on the job and I'm only learning today. Sure I make mistakes since I'm still relatively new to the tasks of being a Jersey Mike's crew member. I still have yet to cook more, to prep the store before opening, to learn how to operate the slicer, stock things, etc. There's so much for me to learn and while I am typically a quick learner, I also like to have my own time to practice it the way I was initially taught and to not be told I'm doing things wrong. Sure there might be multiple ways to do something, but it also depends on the tone of how the message is delivered to me.
Maybe it's just my quick temper that leads me to disliking this coworker. Maybe it's my prejudice that some people in the world are just out to see my downfall. All of which are bad traits I need to work on removing. I would like to think I try my best to accomodate how veterans of Jersey Mike's do things. I know that one coworker seems tough because of how he initially talks, but then I just tried my best to learn from what he wants me to do and how he wants me to do it. Now he's warmed up to me saying I'm learning a lot of things and have a lot to learn, but he sees my improvement. He sees that given practice I will get to where he needs/wants me to be.
I guess delivery is my main troubling point. I can't be too hard on the coworker I don't like as much because I have a feeling in the back of my mind that he's somehow different. He mumbles various things under his breath, nothing bad, it just seems it's a coping mechanism or something. So maybe interpersonal communication is not his strong suit and I just need to adapt and figure out what works best for communicating with him.
All in all, maybe I just need to stop and think for a moment and just try harder to adapt whenever adaptation is required. We'll see how things go. All I know is that if I resort to old habits of blowing up, it won't gain me any progress and might be detrimental if other coworkers see I get too easily frustrated or upset over small things. A lot of change is necessary, and I know that in the long run it is all for the betterment of myself as a person, as a Christian, and as a man.
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