Taking a stand when you have to!

I'm a chicken.  There you go I admit it.

Confronting someone who may pose a violent physical threat (in both the literal and metaphorical sense) is not my idea of being smart.  I firmly adhere to the 'flight' option as opposed to the 'fight' option.

Don't get me wrong - in case of emergency or threat to family I'll happy foot it with the best.  That is at a time when the brain has no option but to immediately react.  The rest of the time (like the other 98%) I am happy to sit back consider my options and do something different.

When it comes to work though - you have to draw the line somewhere.  For example we deal with a wide range of people from various backgrounds in my job.  Some pleasant and some not quite so pleasant.

So earlier today when I had to 'confront' a student - my first reaction? "Hey, can you deal with this?”  Chicken.  Man was I wrong!

After a few minutes and some serious contemplation I decided to man up and do something about the situation.  Now there was no immediate threat of physical retaliation or whatever but believe me this guy was a gorilla and is known for his serious gang connections.

So what happened? 

1.  I got my paperwork together.  I got armed with everything I could to make an air tight case and gave the person no room to argue.

2.  I got a support person.  Having a second person in the room who was amicable with the person helped break down any issues that may have arisen.

3.  I took the lead and did what a manager should do.    It was my responsibility to deal with a possible negative situation and I did it.

In this case the situation could have resulted in becoming nasty.  Fortunately it didn't.  But I learnt a fair bit today about how to handle bad situations.  It looks like common sense stuff and the way handled it was - but sometimes common sense has to be acted upon before we realise we did it right!

 So now what situations do you find yourself in?  Do you find yourself fobbing off the hard decisions onto others that you should be dealing with?  Harden up, make a plan, and yes you do get the option to 'phone a friend' but I recommend you actually take a friend rather than phone them later (from the comfort of your hospital bed).

 

(Thats a joke too by the way...)