War or Cheesecake Factory

One morning at 7:30am I received a frantic call from my below neighbor yelling at me asking why I didn’t tell her my unit flooded. 

I hadn’t had a ton of interactions with this neighbor, but this was the first time she yelled at me.

I calmly replied by saying, “there hasn’t been any flooding for me, what’s going on?”

She angrily told me that there must be flooding.  She hadn’t been home for a week, and she could see it coming from the ceiling and how could I not tell her we had a leak!

I said, “Let me clarify, I haven’t seen any flooding on our end.  If there’s a leak, I have no idea about it.  But I will look into it right away and see if we can find anything.”

I got details on where her flooding was and all that.

I must emphasize that she was understandably freaking out.  She was angry, she walked into her unit completely flooded and thinking I was responsible.  I responded with a calm tone and explained my side and let her know I would get to the bottom of it as soon as possible.

This neighbor had a friend come over to look at her and my unit and determined the leak was coming from her end, thank goodness I wasn’t responsible.  This friend of hers was working all evening in this hot, humid kitchen trying to fix her issue.  Beth made him up a plate for dinner.

By the end of the week, with us not having water for most of it, this neighbor was leaving us a gift card to a restaurant (see title of post if you’re wondering where).  I had been in constant communication with her throughout the week, helping however I could, and staying in touch on where they were at with repairs.  This neighbor thanked us for our patience, help, and feeding her friend dinner that night, thus the gift card.

I thought back on that 7:30am call.  What if I responded confrontationally to her call?  What if my response was, “what do you mean a leak?! We don’t have a leak! That’s your problem!”

Even if it turned out to be her problem, we would have been at war, and Beth and I wouldn’t be headed to Cheesecake Factory for a free meal tonight.

Kindness, patience, understanding, and TONE can go such a long way. 

I understood immediately when my neighbor called that she wasn’t mad at ME.  She was frustrated.  That frustration may have been pointed in my direction, but if I put myself in her shoes, I could immediately understand why.

Society has become too quick to yell back.  If we all took a second and looked at it from the other person’s perspective, we’d have a lot less Twitter wars and a lot more visits to Cheesecake Factory.

I’ll take the Cheesecake factory any day.