I Didn’t Raise My Voice - But It Worked

Added: 2026-06-03

[00:00:00]And so I said, and this is the part of the story that I want you to really pay attention to. My response was, "Well, you seemed pretty understanding earlier." And it seemed like that was the line that made him kind of like kind of buckle and you know, take a step back. And he kind of like was mumbling like tripping over his words at that point because he was very understanding.

[00:00:18]And I wasn't saying anything untrue. He, however, was when he said that I wasn't clear enough earlier. Um and that's when I had responded, "Well, you seemed pretty understanding earlier." And there's people around, you know, everyone's kind of watching. We're the only ones really like being somewhat of a commotion going on. And so everyone's kind of like paying attention. And so I say all this and like, "You know what? I I I kind of think to myself in my head I'm like, I'm not even the manager here.

[00:00:39]I'm not even the assistant manager. Why am I putting all of this on myself?" You know, I went as far as I could go. He's unhappy even though I told him what the alternatives are. So, I told him, "Well, let me let me just go talk to my manager, see what he says." And I go do that. And you know, time goes by. He's still here. He's still at the branch, but some they're taking care of it now.

[00:00:56]And now I can get back to my customer like I was. And I notice that the lady next to me who I've helped many times before, she's being helped by my other co-worker. She kind of keeps glancing over at me almost admirably, kind of like staring at me. And I I kind of sort of sort of acknowledge, but I'm in this very high-octane focused mode because of the interaction that I just had with the other gentleman. And my other co-worker, which now we're in this other room where the customers can't really see us, she looks into my eyes and she's kind of like staring at me kind of kind of intently and almost admirably as well.

[00:01:28]And like, you know, I'm still very high-octane at this point. I'm very switched on. I'm very focused because of the interaction that I had, right?

[00:01:35]Because it really rubbed me the wrong way for him to just straight-up lie the way that he did after I'd been so nice and he'd been so understanding and nice as well. And she's like, "You seem stressed." And I don't remember what I said. I might have said, "Yeah, but really it's not that I was stressed. I was just highly focused and I was ready for another interaction like that." Like that kind of interaction probably had a very similar situation where you've got a kind of a more you've got a customer that's unhappy or they want some want you to do something a certain way but you just can't. And you're trying to be as professional as you can without stepping on their toes or being rude, right? And but you're trying to be understanding, help them understand as well. And so, I was still kind of in that mode and she could see it in my eyes. But I would explain that look more of uh you know, she saw just a focused look on my face. A face that was in a way ready for ready for for ready to stand up, you know, that and that's I think that's what it was. From her and the and the customer that was kind of diagonally being worked worked with, I think that's the thing that they were both looking at. I had stood up for myself and how it had actually affected the customer, affected him, how it affected the situation, and allowed us to actually it allowed the the the conversation and the the interaction to neutralize a little bit.