Latest / The Scott Townsend Show / #259 The 9 Worst Ways To Complain At Work
Transcript
- Scott M Townsend: Welcome to the Scott Townsend Show, brought to you by Diet Soman Productions. Hey, this is Scott Townsend. Thanks for joining the Scott Townsend show today. Talking about workplace issues. Something that I think a lot of people need to pay more attention to, get some training on, and ⁓ think about. And that is complaining. Today we're going to talk about the worst way to complain. Man, there's a lot of a lot of people out there, But there's a lot of people out there that complain. You know who you are. You know who they are. And To complain can really drain. Man, if you don't know how to complain correctly, it's a drain. If you if you're if you don't know how to complain, which is probably a better word for that, then ⁓ you're part of the problem. So the purpose of this episode today is to try to help eliminate The worst ways to complain. We'll talk about the best ways in another episode. But today it's what are the worst ways to complain? And maybe we may already know it, ⁓ just haven't thought about it. But as I go through this list, I think you'll be able to see it, see yourself in one of these or more than one, ⁓ aspects of complaining. And think about it, try to correct it. Try to be a part of the solution and not the problem. The problem here is people don't know how to complain properly, as if there was a way to complain properly. Bringing up an issue, letting someone know that something's going on that's not quite right. There's a right way to do it in a wrong way. Today it's the wrong way. ⁓ One of the ways one of the things not to do is to wait until the anger builds up. You don't say anything, and you don't say anything, you see something and you let it go for whatever reason. But you see it again or it happens again. And again, and maybe one you're one of these people with a long fuse. Or you're shy or not risk averse, but ⁓ confrontational averse, confrontation averse. That's even a phrase. But anyway, ⁓ you know, sometimes we let a situation build up until we get really upset and now we're past the point of talking about it calmly. And ⁓ we find ourselves just exploding. And it can happen anywhere. There's not a forget about the right place to do it. It's it just happens. Maybe it's in the car, maybe it's in the store or in a meeting, in the hallway, whatever. It just happens. And no one's the better for it, especially you. ⁓ it's ⁓ things are said that ⁓ shouldn't be. ⁓ there's accusations made. ⁓ there's emotion, unnecessary emotion, unnecessary energy. The people around you now have to deal with this. They feel like they have to deal with it. They feel like they have to come up with a solution or an answer or or they ⁓ just join in with you. And some people think this must be the way to do it. So leading by example, your influence, you might be showing other junior colleagues, family members, how to complain. And this is not the right way to do it. So don't let it build up until it's too late and and and then it just blows up. You blow up. Rarely do you feel better about yourself afterwards? It shows a lack of control. In a lot of areas, emotionally emotional intelligence or the lack thereof. The inability to handle a situation. So yeah. Don't wait until anger builds up and then blow up all over all blow up all over everybody. Another thing, this is one of the, you know, back to the worst ways to complain, not only waiting until anger has built up, but complaining to everyone except the person who can help. And you might be one of these people also again. You probably know people like this, but they spend a lot of time at home or at work complaining about someone else, and then they Go to somebody else, do the same, repeat, let's see, wash, rinse, repeat. And they just keep going around talking about the problem, talking complaining about a person. It's usually about a person. And unless you talk to the person that you have a problem with, you're not gonna get anything done. Or Unless you speak with your boss or someone someone in charge who might be able to who can help with the situation, you're not doing anybody any good. It's kinda like character assassination. You're just going around shooting You're just going around shooting down this person. ⁓ this person, you know, chances are they don't even know they're doing it. Or doing doing doing something or not doing something. And so you complain about this person, you kinda bring them down in other people's eyes, and then other people, you know, they might pick up on this without any proof, and then they start complaining about this person. And it kinda goes in their bank account, their work account. And now this person becomes known for doing something or not doing something because you've been complaining about it and then getting and and recruiting others to complain about this person. And it just it ⁓ You know, like the crab and the pot and, you know, they try to climb out and the other crabs pull ⁓ back down. ⁓ there's nothing edifying. There's nothing that can be gained from complaining about someone to other people who can't do anything about it. And it just it really wears everybody down. It changes the atmosphere. It it works against a good vibe in your environment. ⁓ trust is eroded. Who's got my back? Who's got their back? Why is everybody Whispering when this person walks up and then they quit talking when this person walks up or walks by. Just yeah. That's one of the worst ways to c that's another one of the worst ways to complain. Because it does nobody any good. It actu it absolutely does no good. And if you're complaining about a person, you are contributing. You're probably the big you're you're the bigger contributor to the problem. So think about that. Another thing, ⁓ attacking someone's character instead of describing their behavior. There and what's that mean? Attacking someone's ⁓ character. ⁓ man, these people that this this guy's lazy, this lady's a s she's stupid, she's ⁓ he's ⁓ an imbecile. Always wasting everybody's time. ⁓ If you go to your boss, your manager speaking like that, man, this guy's an idiot. ⁓ this you know, they they they don't know what hard work is, they're lazy. You should be describing the behavior that you have a problem with and not the person in general. And not get personal. Forget about the personal. Forget about labeling. Just describe to your boss or your manager. Well we'll go we'll go we'll go into that a little later. That'll be in the next episode. But what not to do at this point, another one n number three, don't attack someone's character and ⁓ leave out the behavior that you're looking to have changed. Someone's character. Don't be attacking. Don't make it personal. Don't make it about the person. Remember, it's the behavior. Your your thinking needs to be changed. Number four, ⁓ using words such as always, never lazy, stupid. Yeah, I said I said just a while ago in the last example, I use the word ⁓ always and lazy and stupid. ⁓ be it's never always it's never never or lazy or stupid. ⁓ th these these types of words are used because there's no concrete evidence. I'm getting a lot of emails from everybody that says you're doing this. You're getting a lot of emails from everyone. ⁓ Okay. How many emails and who is everyone? Maybe it's just two emails and it's from one person. But they want it to sound dramatic and overwhelming and out of control. So you always this is in marriage too, you know, you always do this. You never do that. You're so stupid or Yeah, lazy, you lazy bum. Always never how come you never, you know, use words like this and it's n and it's and now I'll use the word never, it's never that way. you know, and so we're just trying to make this person look as bad as we can. So we use these a few key words to accelerate. To escalate the situation to make it seem as though there is a thing that we do that we either never do, always do, or whatever. So don't you know, using words is always never lazy, stupid, idiot, jack wagon, whatever, name calling. ⁓ that's that's ⁓ one hundred one in the worst ways to complain. ⁓ I don't know what number I'm on. I think it's five. ⁓ presenting rumors as facts. there are people who relish drama and hear about something. It's like that telephone game. You tell one person one thing, and then someone tells you something, then you tell somebody the same thing, and then that person tells somebody else. By the time it gets around to fifth, sixth, seventh person, whoever, ⁓ it's rarely The way the first person said it. And it and it's all out of whack and there's no reality to it, it's weird, and ⁓ it's all because of miscommunication, misunderstanding, exaggeration, drama. And so ⁓ if you're the seventh, eighth person and you hear a Th now it's a rumor more than anything else, and you talk to everybody else as if this is a fact. This happened, man. Can you believe these people and you don't even know what you're talking about? You don't even know what you're talking about. So if you hear somebody, you know, don't present rumors as facts. Don't fall into that. Ultimately it's gonna make you look really stupid. ⁓ number six, complaining publicly or in front of customers, you know, or complaining in front of your kids. It's probably best not to do that, to keep it, you know, don't create a situation where the kids are afraid or think something's going on ⁓ that's upsetting the apple cart and safety is an issue now, a safe home. But also complaining in on the floor in front of ⁓ Other employees complaining in front of customers. This is just bad show. No customer wants to go to a store, do some shopping, and find themselves in the middle of a verbal confrontation between two employees. That's really bad for business. Just take it from me. You probably you already know that. But there's some people ⁓ the other thing is that complaining in front of other employees. So now if you're if you're an employee and you're complaining about another employee to others, ⁓ you're adding to the problem and not the solution. I know it feels good to do it. Unfortunately I've done it before. I know what I'm talking about. We've all done it. Don't do it. If you find yourself wanting to criticize someone and complain about them, Just make the conscious conscious decision to not do that. I've had some people want to start talking about somebody else and I'll just tell them to stop. No, don't tell me that. Hey, did you hear what no, I I I haven't heard and I don't need to just shut it down. But ⁓ yeah, if com if if employees are complaining about other employees in front of other employees or in front of customers, which is I'm not gonna say that's the worst, that's just as bad. It just happens to affect your stock price or your profits. That that's a big that's a big no. That's a big yeah. Don't do that. Sending an angry text or email in the moment. I've been there, I've done that. And I've also ripped up some or typed up something ⁓ and just let it sit. Don't ⁓ you're you you wanna fire off an angry text to that person or to your boss or colleagues and or an email and you wanna send it to them, to him, to everybody. And it's full of vitriol and anger. We'll do that. We'll get to why in another episode. Here's another one. Identifying a problem without explaining the desired outcome. So what does that mean? Identifying a problem without explaining the desired outcome. If you talk about the problem, you're expanding the problem. You're breathing life into the problem instead of the outcome. You're not talking about the solution, you're just rehashing the problem. until you keep doing this enough and the problem just becomes this big huge monster that everybody's gotta try to deal with. And so everyone gets used to talking about the problem. And the problem grows and gets bigger. It becomes something that becomes harder to deal with. So don't don't complain about ⁓ don't talk about the problem. Don't complain about the problem. This last one I want to talk about retaliating against someone for raising a concern. Retaliation is not good. It's ⁓ seeking revenge, it's If someone does bring up a problem and a solution, let's say they did it all the right way. Even if they do it the wrong way. They they brought up the problem without the solution, or they brought up the problem and had a solution in mind, and you find out about it, and it maybe it's about you. Maybe it's something that you did or didn't do, or whatever. Or it's ⁓ it concerns one of your friends or colleagues and you decide Take matters into your own hands, you become a vigilante and you start. retaliating by maybe starting a whisper campaign against this person, ⁓ keeping them from being promoted, planting false statements, lies, hoping to bring down this person so that they can't further themselves, be promoted, but instead look down upon by others and ⁓ wish them the worst. Don't do that. Retaliing retaliating against someone is against the law, really. It's ⁓ you can't J ⁓ corporations, you can't be retaliating against someone for bringing up a problem that ever that needs to be addressed. you know, there's the you've heard of whistleblowers, ⁓ open door policies. You can bring anything up at any time and we will listen without fear of being retaliated against, denied a promotion or denied an interview, or given The worst jobs instead of the best tasks. These that's that's a no go and companies fight this all the time and they bring it up a lot during training. And especially the higher up you go, the more ⁓ this they want to make sure no one's retaliating, especially when you become when you increasingly become a person of power and authority. Retali against retaliating against someone is wishing them the worst, ⁓ hoping that things don't work out for ⁓ And that's a real environment killer. That's a r ⁓ th that once again, that really sets a bad vibe, a bad tone. That's not a culture you wanna be working in or around. And if s yeah. Someone's retaliating that these needs to be shut down fast. So yeah, don't ⁓ let's go through it again here, the lists if I can do that. We talked about wait ⁓ waiting until anger is built up, complaining to everyone except the person who can help, attacking someone's character instead of describing their behavior, using words such as always never lazy or stupid or whatever. Name calling in general, presenting rumors as facts, complaining publicly or in front of customers, sending an angry text or email in the moment, identifying a problem without explaining the desired outcome, retaliating against someone for raising a concern. Yeah, so if you want to know how to complain, ⁓ w the worst way if you want to know the worst ways to complain, we just talked about it. These are things you don't want to do if you want a prosperous, healthy career. In ⁓ at work, at home, ⁓ teaching kids how to bring concerns up without complaining about little Bobby or Betty, ⁓ kids complaining against and about each other. ⁓ They need to know how to do that properly. ⁓ employees also. So many people that I have worked with in the past over the l past forty years. Don't know how to do this. It's super easy. It's human nature just to wanna get in the weeds and ⁓ drag other people down. It takes what you really want to do and what we'll talk about in the next episode is how to build people up and solve problems and come up with solutions. So anyway, that's really all I got today. ⁓ hope you got something out of it. If ⁓ if you did, ask that you would like this episode. That will really help me. I've been doing this for five years now and I haven't really ⁓ created a strong call to action on on what I would like for you to to do for me because I I have a problem doing that. So I'm gonna get better at that. If you like what you're listening to ⁓ or watching, ⁓ like it please. ⁓ I promise we'll be bringing you the best of what we've got. We've been doing that for a long time. And ⁓ Would love to have you on board. So please like and if you know if there's something you don't like, ⁓ I guess you could unlike it. But you could also send a comment Scott at Scott Townsend.info. That's Scott at Scott Townsend.info. So anyway, go out there and stop complaining the wrong way. This is Scott Townsend. Thanks for listening to the Scott Townsend show. Have a great day. Everything's gonna be alright. And we'll talk to you later. For more episodes, visit the Scott Townsend Show YouTube channel, listen on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.