The Chain of Command

So, having been around in a few jobs here and there, I have realized how this whole "workplace hierarchy" thing works. Let us pretend that there is a lady who is in a place of power in the workplace. One morning, while eating breakfast, her little child spills hot grits (They live in Alabama) all over her nice dress. The lady is burned and slightly frustrated, and goes to change her dress. On they way to school (She is one of the few Alabamians who makes her child go to school), there was a tractor accident on the road, and compounded by the fact that she had to change her dress, she ends up dropping her child off late to school, gets an evil eye from the teacher, and then also ends up late at work.

The day was off to a bad start, and she was very frustrated, so she yelled at her underling about a small mistake he made a few weeks ago; it wasn't really that big of a deal, but she needed to take her anger out on someone and she chose him. Well this underling, who was having just a fine day until the yelling started, became angry and began yelling at the office intern because he forgot to make a fresh pot of coffee after the old one was out (even though he had been working on something that was actually important). Well the office intern, after being yelled at, went to go yell at the office secretary because she forgot to make an extra copy of an order for all of their fake mullets that are coming back into style (This is a toupee making company). The poor office secretary decides that she is sick of the intern yelling at her, so she messes up some orders on purpose and all of the sudden, the president is wearing a toupee that changes colors from different angles instead of the normal brown one he thought he had on, and the United States is the laughing stock of the world. Even little children can have an impact on world affairs--but I digress. 

The point is, the mood that one has while going into the workplace, and the way that they treat others, can have a huge impact on the way that they treat the people below them, and the way that they do their work. One small bad mood can leap all the way down the chain of command and effect everyone that it touches.

Me? Well honestly I don't get frustrated, even under huge amounts of pressure, unless other people are frustrated with me. I know other people make mistakes so I am willing to give them leeway, and I know that I make mistakes so I also can't expect other people to be perfect. If I mess up, I will work harder and do what it takes to fix it, but getting yelled and yelling at others won't help the situation at all. People will just keep getting pissed off at each other, nothing will get fixed, and horrible, horrible things will happen.