Be Nice...

Years ago I was a supervisor of a small IT Help Desk team. On the team was a fellow we'll call Jim. Jim had a habit of getting on the phone with his wife and just chewing on her in a way that made the rest of us uncomfortable. He didn't really cuss at her about stuff she did, it was actually about things others did, but it still was a bit awkward. Often he could be heard saying things like, "They said what?!?! No! You tell those f---ers that I said no! No, I don't care. Listen to me! Those people are a******s! Tell 'em what I said!"

One day I jokingly told Jim "Wow, you sure give it to your wife. What does she think of that?" He responded that he didn't really care.

Finally one day he was just going to work on her over the phone about something. One of my team members said, "Ken, you gotta say something to him, I can't handle it when he talks to his wife like that." I said, "You're right, I'll talk to him and be very direct."

So after Jim got off the phone, I took him aside and said, "Look, Jim, it's none of my business how you and your wife get on, but you can't talk to her that way in the office. If you are going to talk to her that way, take your cell phone and go out to your car. Nobody wants to hear it."

Jim said, "Oh that wasn't my wife, it was my mother."

Jim was laid off not too long after for budget reasons. I ran into his wife years later and asked how he was doing. She said, "I don't know. We got divorced." Big surprise.

I don't really understand people like Jim. There's a time and a place I guess for getting worked up, but I think being kind to people yields better results. Just sayin'!