© 2017 Michael
Swickard, Ph.D. Many years
ago, I was standing in a line at the university. It was the usual kind of line
that college students stand and have stood in since the beginning of time.
No one was
speaking, each barricaded in their own world, secretly wishing the other people
would have heart attacks so they could step over the fallen bodies to the head
of the line. No matter what happens to our world, we will still have lines to
stand in.
Someone
walked up, looked carefully at a piece of paper and then looked worriedly at
the sign in front of the line. He started to leave, wavered, almost spoke
aloud. He was fearful of being in the wrong line.
At last,
with an air of resignation, he stuck the paper in his pocket, sighed heavily
and stepped into line; having decided it was the wrong line but he was going to
have to go to the front of this line to find out which line he should have been
standing in.
I turned
to him and said, “I wouldn’t mind lines so much if it wasn’t for all the
waiting.”
The effect
on the people in line was immediate. Most smiled. I also smiled. Like the air
rushing out of a balloon, the tension in the line vanished and people started
talking to each other.
You cannot
stand in line with people who are on edge, ill-tempered and full of anger
without it affecting you. Likewise, if person after person steps to the front of
the line full of bile, it rubs off on the people behind the window until they
are surly.
Sooner
than later, they hand that mouthful of bile right back to someone in the line
forming a very destructive cycle.
The way
out is to talk to the people around you. Try a little humor if you like. Something
like:
I hear
Governor Martinez just flew in from Santa Fe, I’ll bet her arms are tired. Or, how
many psychology students does it take to change a light bulb? One, but the bulb
has to want to change.
You can
just speak to the people in a friendly manner. You will be surprised how much
better you both feel. While it is true that all workers should be nice to us
regardless of how they are treated, the way it works is simply: the nicer you
are, the better your chance to succeed in getting what you want.
Seriously,
when standing in any line to pay bills, get loans, buy stamps, ask simple
questions, ask hard questions, ask unanswerable questions; whatever you are
doing in lines, take your humor with you. Be gentle, I may be in the same line.
Also, if
you can’t bring yourself to laugh, at least smile, when you hear: I understand
the Aggie football team is so tough that when they play horseshoes, they don’t
even bother taking the shoes off of the horses.
That will
move the line right along.
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