Great questions Leila. I found myself having physical emotional reactions just reading the situations.

The car cutting in front is easy to describe...it's jarring, frightening (I'm always afraid there will be a collision) and it makes me angry. I generally brake, either gently or slamming them down, depending upon my level of fear, and I swear at the other driver from the safety of my closed car. Then, I try to focus on my breath and my driving, so I can calm down and get over the anger. I really work at letting it go, though it takes a little while to get my breathing back too normal if it felt like a close call.

I've been in few rather serious car accidents in my life, definitely life threatening, and if the cut off was really close, sometimes I start to cry while I'm trying to slow my breaths. Its partly the fear, partly old remembered pains, and partly having no quick way to release that sudden swell of emotional energy. If I'm really shook I have to pull off the road, but mostly driving carefully and focusing on breath gets my back to normal fairly quickly.

Having once yelled at a guy who cut me off, only to have him stop in the middle of the road and come at me with a tire iron,(a very wonderful trucker came to my rescue) I've learned to avoid any interaction with the offending driver, the focus is all on me and getting myself back to center.

The other two are not so emotionally loaded for me. I don't care much about work hours, and have always been lucky enough to work with professionals who get the job done irrespective of hours. So my reaction would generally be concern, not annoyance...as in are you sick, do you need something. If the employee is already on notice, or a particular problem, I might make a note on my file to self, but usually I don't find this situation emotionally challenging.

The last is somewhere in between. If the person is a generally strong part of the team who missed the meeting for legit reasons, I have no negative reaction. I cut him off, tell him we've already discussed it, and suggest he debrief with me(or the person in charge) after the meeting. If I'm already annoyed at the person for whatever reason, and/or if s/he is perennially out of the loop, I may get impatient and cut him/her off, but still to say lets discuss this later. then back to the agenda at hand. I find that good prep and a solid agenda eliminates a lot of this sort of thing, so if I get annoyed here its usually with myself for not preparing for the meeting sufficiently to keep it on target.

I'm really curious how others react to these sorts of issues, anyone want to chime in?

Thanks, Janet, for your detailed thoughts. With what you wrote about your experience and car accidents, it would definitely take some self management to "train" your emotions away from memories when somsone cuts you off the road.

Would love to hear from others!

OK, here I go. This is interesting stuff, I hope I'm not too late in the game for it.

The freeway thing is the most common of those examples, so I'll focus mostly on that situation. My ex used to get so mad about other drivers that it would effect his whole day, including how he treated me. Being a person who has accidentally cut someone off before, I try to keep in mind that there are simply people out there that just didn't notice or realize what they did. I allow myself to get mad for a few seconds, and I say "OK, that's done - let's move on." It really isn't worth it to me. Especially since you don't know how the other person will react, and there are a lot of angry people in this world, I'd hate to face one over something as silly as a mistake on the road. I try to explain this to my ex and anyone else who has had me as a passenger so that we can try to spread a better understanding of other drivers and maybe road rage won't be so raging...

I always think of my mother, and how she can be a little airheaded. I would hate for someone to yell at her for a tiny mistake, so I try to imagine that whoever just cut me off is someone else's airheaded mother. However, it isn't always that easy when the other driver is yapping away on his/her cell phone. Then I feel it is OK to kindly "remind" them that they need to pay attention. Kindly.

If an employee called at 9:45 when they should have been in at 8:30 - my immediate response would be relief that they are OK.

As a whole, I am very considerate of other people's feelings. Maybe too considerate.

Regarding the employee that called in an hour late.

I would find out how they are and then I would find out why they were late first. if it was a valid unavoiadable event, that woud be the end of the lissue.

If it was avoidable, I would remind them that our policies REQUIRE advance notice when you are going to be late or absent.

Hi there,

In the first situation with the car, it is a fight or flight response because you anticipate danger and your body has a natural reaction. Adrenaline shoots through you. Your response is going to go from there and how fast you realize your safe. A looking expressiveness ids in order to yourself. I might give a signal to the other driver like What are you doing? but usually they try to pull away.

The second situation is one where your reaction and how you feel would be associated with their patterns. Are they always late? In any situation its good to express concern as to whether the person is alright. However, after getting information you would want to address chronic lateness with a person later if they arrive in a meeting to go over a few thing and see what is going on. I would want to see if we could work on a plan for improvement. Physically I feel a lot of frustration about people who are chronically late. It is very disappointing to see peoples lack of respect for the environment. I am always puzzled by how long people get away with this kind of behavior.

The next situation is like the chronic late person. We all have people who dont pay attention and participate erratically on the fly. The person running the meeting has to inform the person that this was already discussed. Internally you feel that feeling of hear we go again when you encounter this. I have a tendancy to be a bit empathetic when any situation of vulnerabity presents itself. I often see other sides to things which is my curse and my blessing. However, that said, I get impatient when people have a disreguard for others around them and I will help if it is welcome and if they are struggling truely, after that a big no.

LSLMom