In the rush to freshen up and get out of the gym, this guy was washing his hands next to an automatic hand dryer and moved too close it that it automatically went off with the usual loud hissing noise blowing air towards him. The humble gentleman was so startled that he bumped his head from the sudden movement he made in fear, then immediately laughed at himself and at the hand dryer while nursing his head. As I watched this situation I thought about how another person could have handled the same incident, probably banging and cursing that poor machine, which I have seen happen before in other instances. I once read an article about “garbage trucks” moving around looking for someone to dump their load on. Not literal garbage trucks, but an analogy of situations, incidents or miserable, gloomy, moody and sometimes angry people who act like fully loaded garbage trucks looking for someone ‘clean’ to dump their garbage on. Do not for a moment be fooled by the clean dump truck representation herein, I am just being sensitive to your situation unknown to me as you read, because dump trucks are quite messy. We all get that and you could have just had such an experience today as you read this article and it can affect how our day goes. There you are, having a great day and someone acts like they just woke up to mess your day. I mean they literally act like they have been sent out on a ‘mission impossible’ to suck up every last bit of peace, vibrance and joy you have within you and clone their misery in you. Whether you are on the road in traffic, in a mall, at a market or at work, there can be that garbage truck driving around and ready to offload on you and make you as miserable as they are on impact. Keep your bay clean and avoid being dumped on. Most times in a work environment you can detect the truck before it hits and offloads on you. The fact that someone acts towards you in a certain way does not hand you one option to respond back. You have at least two choices to react, negatively, losing it and completely going nuts while emotionally draining yourself in the process, or positively, remaining calm, composed and peaceful and realising a garbage truck when it is in action while retaining your energy for more productive use. Once you know this truth, you can be alert and ensure your day is not determined by situations and people in a negative way. I try to deal with people and incidents by strategically pre-planning the way I react and respond, as it gives me leverage and may help the other party as well. As a value add, a gym work out helps, because heavy iron has a way of absorbing garbage. Watch out for garbage trucks and avoid impact that steals your joy because, believe me you will meet or pass them, figuratively and literally. How have you dealt with garbage trucks lately?Sunday, March 30, 2014
Garbage truck encounters
In the rush to freshen up and get out of the gym, this guy was washing his hands next to an automatic hand dryer and moved too close it that it automatically went off with the usual loud hissing noise blowing air towards him. The humble gentleman was so startled that he bumped his head from the sudden movement he made in fear, then immediately laughed at himself and at the hand dryer while nursing his head. As I watched this situation I thought about how another person could have handled the same incident, probably banging and cursing that poor machine, which I have seen happen before in other instances. I once read an article about “garbage trucks” moving around looking for someone to dump their load on. Not literal garbage trucks, but an analogy of situations, incidents or miserable, gloomy, moody and sometimes angry people who act like fully loaded garbage trucks looking for someone ‘clean’ to dump their garbage on. Do not for a moment be fooled by the clean dump truck representation herein, I am just being sensitive to your situation unknown to me as you read, because dump trucks are quite messy. We all get that and you could have just had such an experience today as you read this article and it can affect how our day goes. There you are, having a great day and someone acts like they just woke up to mess your day. I mean they literally act like they have been sent out on a ‘mission impossible’ to suck up every last bit of peace, vibrance and joy you have within you and clone their misery in you. Whether you are on the road in traffic, in a mall, at a market or at work, there can be that garbage truck driving around and ready to offload on you and make you as miserable as they are on impact. Keep your bay clean and avoid being dumped on. Most times in a work environment you can detect the truck before it hits and offloads on you. The fact that someone acts towards you in a certain way does not hand you one option to respond back. You have at least two choices to react, negatively, losing it and completely going nuts while emotionally draining yourself in the process, or positively, remaining calm, composed and peaceful and realising a garbage truck when it is in action while retaining your energy for more productive use. Once you know this truth, you can be alert and ensure your day is not determined by situations and people in a negative way. I try to deal with people and incidents by strategically pre-planning the way I react and respond, as it gives me leverage and may help the other party as well. As a value add, a gym work out helps, because heavy iron has a way of absorbing garbage. Watch out for garbage trucks and avoid impact that steals your joy because, believe me you will meet or pass them, figuratively and literally. How have you dealt with garbage trucks lately?
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Well, I think this happens too often and people do get pulled down by it. I think it's important to get out of the miasma of negative think, but I think it's also equally important to let yourself fell the emotion before you dispose of it...just like you sometimes have to smell the garbage before it goes out the door! In other words...get mad and then...get over it :)
ReplyDeleteVenting is good Jackie, so long one does not take on another person's emotions all the time. I like getting mad and getting over it. That is healthy.
DeleteGarbage truck encounters certainly are a fact of life and it is important to have a strategy for dealing with them. I tend to see it the same way as Jacquie. I would add that its important to ask if the immediate problem really was the cause of anger or whether one is carrying something else around that caused a minor setback to cause the flare-up
ReplyDeleteIndeed Paul, there are always triggers and you may not be dealing with the problem at hand. The complexity of human behaviour at display.
DeleteI am with you as you said "You have at least two choices to react, negatively, losing it and completely going nuts while emotionally draining yourself in the process, or positively, remaining calm, composed and peaceful and realising a garbage truck when it is in action while retaining your energy for more productive use. "
ReplyDeleteWe must try to react in a positive or constructive way. As you have given example of automatic hand dryer... I have seen many people they get angry and start knocking on the machine.
But I have a question how can we pre plan about that unexpected situations ?
I do not get this .. may be because of my less understanding or lack of knowledge.
thank you for a nice share.
Thanks Anna. The pre planning part relates to learning how to react. I always self assess myself after an incident to see if I handled it the best way I could and this becomes a plan to handle a similar occurance in the future. Therefore i do not repeat handling situations the wrong way, well I try not to, truth is handling people and situations is diffucult to give anyone a handbook for, as we all have different input factors into how we react (personality, mental and emotional state etc) at different times and this dictates how we respond. However, we can always try and learn from encounters and then use that as a plan for the future and improve.
DeleteI am sure everyone has been hit by a garbage truck or two. When this has happened to me I usually smile and walk away - totally confuses the driver, leaving them standing there with a puzzled look on their face :)
ReplyDeleteMost people fail there due to ego bruises Sandy. I am always learning how to respond in that way myself which I succeed to do sometimes.
DeleteI have worked very hard to purge the negative out of my life. I live with a daughter who had major anger management problems and sees the world differently from everyone else -and it's always negative. Self-care and separating myself from the negative energy has made a huge difference in my life. I agree with Jacqui - feel the emotion, handle it, and move on.
ReplyDeleteWhat does it take to be able to feel the emotion and handle it rather than be handled by it? I am sure you have a lesson or two to share there given your very difficult situation.
DeleteMisery definitely loves company. Life is too short to walk around with a chip on your sholder so I kill those people with kindness. When I say hello and they do not speak, the next day I say hello louder or wait until they are with other people and say hello again which forces them to put up an appearance and speak. Great post
ReplyDeleteJay your comment makes me think about the issue of one's nature. If its your nature to be kind or to love, should you allow others who re not to change you for the worst because they are not. After all love and kindness come naturally, hatred is taught and more difficult to learn. Not that it is easy to continue to love and be kind to some people.
DeleteMy 89 year old mother told me she dealt with those looking for a fight by employing the "kill them with kindness" technique. She was so sincere that garbage trucks would hold onto their load -- and even smile sometimes.
ReplyDeleteI did not know kindess kills, but now I know. Good technique to deploy, but hard to overcome other emotions that cloud your objectivity and judgment in the heat of things.
DeleteYou're right, we always have a choice how to react to people dumping their garbage on us. I like the kill them with kindness approach too, even though I'm not always successful at it!
ReplyDeleteI had to get really good with handling these types of "garbage truck" encounters as a teacher. Being the teacher who totally flipped out and tried to rule by having the loudest voice was never going to work for me, so I adopted other tactics. I refuse to fight with people who are unwilling to listen. I always keep calm and repeat myself until the angered party has heard my question or request. It does throw people off to have a calm reaction meet their surly one.
ReplyDeleteEverytime I have failed the calm test I play that scene over and over again and feel like I responded immaturely. I do prefer being calm as well Jeri.
DeleteI like the garbage truck analogy. I also call them energy sucking vampires.
ReplyDelete"Energy sucking vampires" - Exactly! There are those who will take and take and take your attention, unless you cut them off.
DeleteLike parasites which live off you and suck the life and energy out of you. Nice analogy, worse still these ones want to cling. Cut them off like Jen says.
DeleteGood analogy.
ReplyDeleteHaving said that, maybe we should contemplate what life would be like without garbage trucks? Sure they are noicy and annoying but life without them would be worse.
That is a flip side to the story Catarina, can't live with them can't live without them. It is the same as if everyone was like you or me, how boring life would be. We do need the diversity after all, just managing it better is the issue.
DeleteI like the garbage truck analogy. It makes me think of those people who will simply never be happy. Some people are just like that, no matter how hard you try. I wish I was better at killing them with kindness. Instead, I ignore them. Once the basic courtesies are finished, I don't listen to their negativity. We all have problems to deal with; we need to help each other, not dump our problems on each other.
ReplyDeleteSeems kill them with kindness takes the cup here most definately. I am like you Jen, I end up ignoring as well. I really try the kindness but consistency is my problem, I win some and lose some.
DeleteI teach third grade and I try to teach my students that while they can't control what happens in the world around them, they can ALWAYS control the way they respond. I think I'll share the garbage truck analogy with them tomorrow :)
ReplyDeleteThis happens all to often I guess and I cannot say I have never banged a machine of one kind or another. However I do know that I feel like I like myself a lot better if my reaction is like the one you initially described. Kind of makes the day a little lighter.
ReplyDeleteHi Welli, You know that high pitched piercing beeping noise dump trucks make when they back up? I have one built in called discernment that detects and alerts me to such garbage trucks. I clear a wide swath for these energy zappers to go around and move on.
ReplyDeleteI have not let things like a garbage truck bother me. Whatever needs to be done to get the garbage move so be. I look at everyday as an opportunity. I laugh at myself more. Getting mad or irritated with certain things doesn't change it. The only thing you can change is yourself
ReplyDeleteWell said! I really like the garbage truck analogy, it fits from start to finish. They take up room, they often make noise, they find whatever garbage you may have and they leave things turned over and out of place! They definitely require planning. :)
ReplyDeleteGreat analogy! I practice pause when agitated. Do I always do it? No . However, I know it is 100 percent effective when I try it. Awesome article. =)
ReplyDeleteI like the garbage truck analogy, so easy to picture. Sounds like we've been writing on similar themes lately. I enjoyed reading your post!
ReplyDeleteMy mother uses this saying all of the time. I liked the analogy and understood it when she said it. It made it easy for me not to let people dump their trash onto me. I was able to block that situation.
ReplyDeleteI've never seen this garbage truck analogy and it's a good one.No one can be positive all the time and sometimes you have to deal with the negative. But letting yourself be bogged down in it is senseless. Move along. For some people a gym workout is the answer, for some a walk. Looking at the weather outside today I think it'll be a walk!
ReplyDeleteGarbage trucks are hard to avoid, but inevitable. You just have to get out of their way and let them get on with it whilst you keep yourself clean.
ReplyDelete