Oct 14 • General discussion
True confessions - My angry moment
Have you ever heard the term, "screw the pooch"? It refers to a colossal mess-up of epic porportions. I feel like I had a pooch-screw moment last week.
Here's what happened.
I went out to a community event that was held at a pub. The pub was a last minute meeting place and their "meeting room" in the basement was rented out to the organizer as a personal favour. We arrived and ordered lunch. By my calculation, lunch should have been $15 plus the drink. But when I paid the bill, it was $27 and then the tip. Not a big deal, but I want to be totally transparent here to show you how quickly a faulty perception can mess with your emotions and upend your responses.
THE PROBLEM
- I felt like the bill was larger than it should have been.
- I quickly glanced at the receipt and saw what looked like an additional charge for "NA beverage".
- My perception said, "I just got charged $5 for not ordering an alcoholic drink."
- My judgement said, "That's not fair!"
- My emotions said, "That makes me feel angry!"
- My brain said, "Write a review and warn other patrons..."
And that, my friends, is how the pooch screw began.
MY RESPONSE:
I wrote a review - short but not so sweet. No context - just said I was charged for a NA beverage. Here's the thing - that was TRUE. I was charged $5 for my non-alcoholic beverage. I was not charged $5 EXTRA as I had originally thought.
Here's what happened next. The Alcohol and Gaming Commission saw the review. They called the pub owner. He was blindsided and clearly upset about the claim that he knew to be false. He called the organizer of the event. She called me. THEN, I looked at the receipt again.
The receipt was itemized weirdly, and that was the problem. The drink was itemized with the food, but charged separately from the food as what looked like an additional charge. On closer inspection, I calculated the math and it made sense.
THE RESOLUTION:
I felt like a total heel, and went immediately to edit my review and posted a public apology instead for incorrectly posting erroneous information. I emailed the organizer and apologized to her as well, letting her know I was sufficiently ashamed of both my faulty perception AND my kneejerk response.
Do I still feel sheepish, remorseful, and embarrassed? Absolutely. Have I learned something important? You betcha!
This is something I have taught for years, but I'm not above needing a reminder every so often: Just because you perceive something to be true doesn't mean that it is. Take a step back, breathe, look at the situation again, and then again if you need to. Respond instead of reacting. Trust me - it will save you from screwing the pooch.
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True confessions - My angry moment
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