It's amusing to me to think that, had I reacted in some way that would have gotten me fired, after so long without a job, there'd be plenty of people here who would have been disappointed in my lack of self-control. Not in me, per se, but in my inability to be mature and refuse to be goaded into getting myself fired. As it stands now, I'm pleased with myself, and I'm the only person who, ultimately, I need to impress. But I also know I haven't let my friends down, either, especially after all they've done to help me get my life back. I'm glad of that, too.
This is a temporary job. It has a known limit. After it's over, I'll likely never see that particular woman again. It seems to me that a mature person knows she can put up with a lot for a little while, and strives to do what benefits her family, rather than gain some temporary and hollow "victory" that helps her widdle feelings, but leaves her unemployed, while the screamer still has an income.
If this incident had goaded me into dropping self-control, my subsequent reaction would have been extreme, and would have resulted in my losing my job. I note that UY says:
Self control? Yep. Humility? Patience? Yep. Selflessness, such as taking it for the good of your family? Yep.
Courage? Just not seeing it. Perhaps you can elaborate on how it takes more a lot more courage to take it than it does to confront the person yelling.
yet I can't see how his notion of "courage" is supposed to outweigh all those other things he listed, which I did display (his 'neener-neener, you did not' aside). The so-called "courage" to yell back at an irrational person isn't any sort of courage at all, and certainly not a type I'd value in any way. Any child can yell. She was already so loud that I'd have had to yell to be heard above her. And I know exactly how that plays out.
See, the supervisors are few in the office, and they're vital. It's too late in this temporary game to train someone to take her place, so they can't be lightly discarded. If there's a sticking point, a point of contention in the office, it's the grunt who will be used to relieve it, not the trained supervisor. The grunt can be replaced with someone off the street. The supervisor at this stage cannot.
The sort of false "courage" of which he speaks will not pay the bills. It would have made me feel a huge failure to have lost my job for refusing to display self-control, humility, patience, or selflessness. I did not lose my sense of self-worth through my actions, and knew full well I easily could have done just that. I've done it before, you see, and had plenty of lessons from my past to show me that the one thing I absolutely could not do was lose my cool. I was successful, and I'm proud of myself for managing something I once could not.
UY's just noise, but I'm content to let him broadcast it to everyone. It's doing him no favors, but it's doing me plenty.
