Friday, November 12, 2004

Getting angry on the job

So I'm a little embarassed to admit that I got angry at a public meeting recently. I was attending a meeting of an interminably-long committee process deciding whether to expand a city's boundaries, and a pro-development person made what I considered to be a series of unfair attacks on a new environmental representative at the committee. When the committee took a break, the development person and I got in an argument about her attacks, and I challenged her to appeal to the mayor, who was chairing the committee and was ten feet away, if she thought the environmental groups were doing anything wrong. We argued for a little more, then calmed down and had a normal conversation.



The one consolation was that somebody else at the meeting told me that I was not visibly angry. I kind of thought I was.



The only times I've become angry on the job in my year-and-a-half here are in that particular committee (on other occasions), and with Stanford's various activities. I'm not sure what that says about anything, but I'll try and keep my cool, or keep it from showing when I don't keep my cool.

1 comment:

  1. Passion for what you believe in is critical. It's what keeps you going and lets you know you are alive. Now, te are productive and counter-productive ways to be passionate, of course! It sounds like you were appropriate, but I wasn't there. Take a look at what works and doesn't work, and go from there. And never neglect your passion!

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