July 2013
Open letter to all Human Beings,
Dear Human,
Many of us have experience with the incompetent worker;
maybe you are now or have been one in the past. We talk to them on the phone and behind
counters and desks. If you get a person
that doesn’t just blow you off, they may run you through the hoops of many
questions. You may even get moved up the
line of “technical” help. You’re told
that the problem is either fixed or that a work order will be submitted to
their repair/technical group, they’ll get on it right away…blah, blah, blah.
You wait, you call back, and you get a different person that
you have to explain the entire situation to and on and on. After a week a person DOES call you back but
with a different interpretation of what the problem was and you discover that
the technical department wasn’t addressing the issue you called them for. WHY?
Because the first person you talked to didn’t write the work ticket
properly and everyone else working with the ticket was working from what was
written, IN SPITE of conversations with you that clearly didn’t match up with
whatever had gotten written on the work ticket.
So here’s my beef fellow human. Clearly many of us don’t understand these
three important words: BE THE
CHANGE. Many read those words and think
“yeah, whatever”; maybe some think “I am, but what about everybody else”, or
“that’s just to save the world, little old me can’t do that all alone”.
Simply put it means if every SINGLE one of us did our job, whatever
IT may be, with pride and competence the world would spin for every single one
of us as smooth as silk.
Quit passing the buck!
Quit waiting for tomorrow! Step
up!!! Take responsibility! JUST for YOURSELF in your job and your
life. Think about it.
Think how that would change not only YOUR world but mine and
theirs and theirs and theirs! Our time
could then be better spent with the other aspects of our lives, maybe even
making another little change for the positive in our personal world. If every single one of us just focused on
this one thing, right now (I hope you didn’t forget already), BE THE CHANGE. WOW!
Stop whining, it’s not that hard. Quit blaming your boss, your co-workers, your
parents, your kids, your partner, the economy, the weather, the lineup of the
planets! Quit the blame game! Has that worked for you? If you say yes, I say you are in DENIAL and
that isn’t a river here.
I could give you a few helpful hints here if “Be the Change”
is too ethereal or foggy of a concept for you.
Why don’t I just give you a start, human to human? I’ve got time right now as I can’t send texts
on my expensive new smart phone, I’m waiting on the phone company to get back
to me on getting the problem fixed, freeing up a bit of my time so I’ll help
you out.
First, do this. When
you are dealing with ANYONE, imagine, that in front of the face of the person
you are speaking to is a mirror. Don’t
get sidetracked, any old mirror will do.
Now, you are hearing their voice but seeing your face. Would you talk to yourself rudely? Do you like it when others treat YOU that
way? Seems simple, but not many of us
remember to do this, treat others as WE want and expect to be treated.
This goes for all humans; the unemployed, the managers,
bosses, CEO’s, judges, priests, athletes, politicians, stay at home Moms/Dads,
kids. Just because you have the big
bucks, the comfy chair or the corner office doesn’t mean you are above “Be the
Change”. You are just as guilty of
speeding through life disregarding the humans you come into contact with every
single day as insignificant. The lesson
here is if you are not helping those around you, you are not helping yourself.
If talking to yourself in the mirror feels stupid or if you
can’t even be nice to yourself, then put someone’s face there that you love and
wouldn’t offend for the world. A face
you wouldn’t want to disappoint. Would
you speak to them rudely? Would you do
less than your best for them? If that
face on the person you are talking to was the face of whomever you worship on
your holiest of days would you speak to THEM in a short, impatient, degrading
way?
We need to understand that it is the easiest thing we can do
to change our world. We forget that every
one of our lives is a world that is but a smaller piece of the whole big world. That big old desert, that beach, that
mountain is made of individual teeny tiny grains of sand, dirt, rock that all
alone might seem insignificant, but all piled together make that beach or
mountain. That teeny tiny dry stream bed
can change quickly as single drops come together continuously to form a raging
river.
We’ve all complained about those DMV workers, the “customer
service” (said tongue in cheek) representatives, the service call people, but
they are all simply people like us.
Living their lives in their own little worlds but the worlds all touch
and bounce off of each other, sometimes interconnecting for a short while.
Think about that rare time that you or a friend experienced
a helpful, friendly, kind efficient person in one of these places or on the
phone. They did their job happily,
quickly and shockingly efficiently!
Remember how that made you feel! You
were happy, buoyed up. It was as though
you had just spotted a unicorn! Look, a
unicorn! They DO EXIST!
Are you starting to see the picture? Can you begin to see that if more and more of
us became the change, became a competent worker, a compassionate human being,
how our world would become more magical?!
It would become a world full of Unicorns instead of trolls!!
Second, (I’m still waiting on the fix for my phone), do your
job to the best of your ability. If you
hate your job, change it. If you believe
you can’t, you’re right. If you believe
you can, you’re right. It is always up
to you. If your job is just sweeping the
floor, sweep that floor with everything you have in you, be the best ever. Love that you are getting that paycheck. Just finding the teeniest thing to spark a
glimmer of joy in your job will create a shift.
If the best of your ability doesn’t seem like enough, find
out why. Quit believing you can’t do any
better. If you don’t have the answer the
person you are trying to help needs, then quit blowing smoke and find someone
who does have the answer. If you aren’t
able to fix that gizmo thingy then say so, don’t just slop it together to make
it look good, charge your regular fee and then leave. Where is the pride in that job?!
If you don’t care about your job, your little world, who
will? Why do you think our world seems
so dark and full of trolls? It isn’t
THEM…IT IS US! THEM is YOU and ME! THEM is all those drops of water, those
grains of sand, the “they saids” and the because of “thems” that make up our
world. Your worlds, my world; repeat
after me, IT IS UP TO ME to change my world, my day, my health, my job, my
unhappiness.
Third, (the phone company is trying something else) ask for
HELP. There is no shame in getting help
with something you do not know or do not understand. We didn’t just land here all grown up knowing
everything. Once we do know everything I
figure that is the day we go to our maker, to that big bodiless energy field,
so why is it we believe it is wrong, silly, and stupid to ask for help. Hmmm, maybe because we learned somewhere in
our life to think less of anyone who does ask for help, that it makes them look
weak. How has that worked for ya? Science is now learning that we humans are
not a species of survival of the fittest, not a species of kick the weak to the
curb, but that we need, that we thrive on our connectedness, that we flourish
with the support we give one another by helping each other.
Gotta wrap this up, my phone seems to be fixed. YOU and YOU alone ARE the CHANGE! I believe in you because I believe in me and
without you there would be no me so YOU CAN DO IT. Be the nicest, kindest, helpingest human you
can be. It will take some time, it will
take some practice, you may still deal with trolls, but I bet before too long
those unicorns will seem pretty ordinary.
Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
Valerie Moniz
Human Being
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