“Be nice to people on your way up because you’ll meet them on your way down”

Wilson Mizner

Have you ever had one of those days where you are just on edge, stressed, and everything irritates you for no reason?  That was me around 1:00 pm yesterday.  Nothing had happened to upset me, and to be honest I was having a pretty good day overall.  However, around 1:00 I was agitated, upset, and had no where to vent my frustrations.  As I pulled my car into the Seattle parking lot I use the attendant stopped me and told me I had to pay again to reenter the lot.  I had left during lunch to drive my Wife to the airport, and had been gone 45 minutes.  The attendant was brand new, and not the usual guy I knew and had worked with before.  Now if this had been any other day the situation would have annoyed me, but I would let it go.  Today, however, I didn’t.  The classic “Heilpern” anger flared up, and I exploded.  For no reason I started yelling at this poor attendant, telling him this was a rip off.  I am not proud of this, and have been mulling the situation over in mind ever since.

I know the attendant was doing his job, and following his training.  It was not his fault, and I should not have yelled at him.  There were so many other ways I could have handled the whole thing, but I let my anger get the better of me.  I feel, strongly, that I need to make this right.  I have plans to apologize to the attendant later today, but I am also thinking about bringing him a coffee, or maybe some lunch to apologize.  Thoughts on that?