Everytime I'm being judgmental, think about Plato's quote: Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle

This is not about a specific person, it’s about a group of people. A class of trainees to be specific. I’ve been hearing things about them from their supervisors and all of it are not good. This made me form an impression that they’re just a bunch of spoiled slackers up to no good. Yesterday, I had to discuss something to them and I was just really pissed off by the attitude I was getting. No one was listening. The questions were senseless and irrelevant. And I just felt disrespected. So I was retaliating by being patronizing, sarcastic and not being flexible.

I had time to think about it, and I realized that it didn’t have to be like that. In a way, I was the reason they were not being cooperative. My tone, my gestures and my facial expressions probably clued them in about how much I wanted NOT to be there. That I don’t really like them as a group. And that I’d rather go home than spend time teaching them because I was really exhausted.

So I took a big girl pill and apologized to them today. I’m going to be honest, it took a while to swallow it. And for a moment it felt like it was stuck in my throat. But when it finally went down, it made me feel so much better.

I would say, lesson learned.

It’s hard to do this when it comes to this person that I used to work with. He’s a trainer like me but for some reason, he just rubs me the wrong way. I guess it’s because he’s such a brown noser. Or maybe he’s not. But that’s how he comes across most of the time.

I’m thinking that he probably has a lot of good things going on for him. He’s probably nice to his family and his friends. I dunno.

But I’m going to try really really hard to get past my judgment. Probably when I get to know him better, I’ll end up being friends with him. Or at the very least, I can say his name without the usual sneer that goes with it.