counsellorsuggestion:

learning how not to fish for compliments can really help how you interact with others. here’s some common phrases i’ve noticed:

• “here’s my shitty art”
• “lol i’m so ugly in this selfie”
• “you’re so creative. i’m nowhere near as creative as you”
• “your writing is amazing! i wish mine was that good”

what all of these have in common is that they all involve putting yourself down. when you do that, those around you feel obligated to compliment you, which can make them feel frustrated that they have to just to be polite. not only that, but by talking yourself down you feel worse about yourself. the latter two phrases also centre your problems, distracting the attention from the person you’re trying to compliment. that often makes them feel bad!

here’s how to fix those phrases:

• “here’s my art”
• “selfie time!”
• “you’re so creative. how do you do it?”
• “your writing is amazing! do you have any tips?”

by cutting out the negativity, you make it so nobody feels obligated to compliment you. you’ll usually get more compliments this way because people don’t feel uncomfortable! the latter two phrases now also centre the artist and their knowledge. not only do they make the artist feel good, they also might score you some good advice.

this strategy will also help to boost your confidence in the long run. if you stop prefacing every compliment with negativity, you’ll be able to internalise them better.

tempxo:

also important fucking reminder for everyone to be nice and respectful to retail and distribution workers on black Friday bc they’re just doing their best

tempxo:

also important fucking reminder for everyone to be nice and respectful to retail and distribution workers on black Friday bc they’re just doing their best

psy-faerie:

psy-faerie:

If someone tells you to stop ripping on them, even if you’re joking, fucking listen. That shit gets tiring doesn’t matter if it’s a fucking joke no one wants to hear negative shit all the time.

Some of y’all think you can be rude asf all the time bc you’re “just joking” but you’re seriously wearing people down.

psy-faerie:

psy-faerie:

If someone tells you to stop ripping on them, even if you’re joking, fucking listen. That shit gets tiring doesn’t matter if it’s a fucking joke no one wants to hear negative shit all the time.

Some of y’all think you can be rude asf all the time bc you’re “just joking” but you’re seriously wearing people down.

aeliad:

lydia-gastrell:

tipsymaple:

I may not be a perfect person but at least I have never yelled at an employee in a store

I have a long story about controlling your consumer frustration.

When I was 19, back in 2004, I was in the navy, stationed at the naval airbase in Rota, Spain. I got leave to go home for the first time since bootcamp. I was going home for the first time in almost two years. I had a flight on Iberian airlines to Heathrow, and from there on Virgin to the US. Well… the Iberian flight landed late. Me and three other people ran to our connecting flight, which was leaving in 32 minutes, but it was never going to happen. If you know anything about Heathrow, you know that a connection break that narrow is impossible. So,  I had to get another flight home. 

Here’s where it gets rough. Iberian said it wasn’t their responsibility. They had no affiliation with Virgin airlines and wasn’t responsible for my connections. I missed my flight because of them and they didn’t care (or, rather, the company didn’t care and the employee had no means with which to help me). Virgin told me that missing my flight was also not their fault and I would simply have to buy another ticket on a later flight. So there I am, 19 years old, stranded in a foreign airport with $120 to my name, being told I need to buy a day-of ticket across the Atlantic (which cost more than I made in a month). 

I cried in the bathroom, guys. I wandered around an airport that was the most sprawling, nonsensical spaghetti mess of old, new, clean, dirty, I had ever seen (there were whole terminals that looked like they had been just been abandoned in 1972. Like someone just said, “fuck it, we’re not going use this whole wing anymore”). At one point, I was looking at my ticket from the first Iberian flight and on the back I saw the various symbols of all the airlines who were together in some business cooperation, like they all dealt with one another. One of them was British Airways. Okay. Iberian said “get stuffed, you live in this airport now”, but maybe one of their business “partners” could help me. I was young and scared and stupid and my American brain said “I’ll try the British. I’ve seen British TV shows. We’re cousins, right? Oh, please, dear God!” 

I was told that to talk to the British Airways people I had to “land”, as they call it, getting my passport stamped and go to the main front entrance where all the airlines desks are. My Iberian ticket didn’t give me permission to do this, but luckily the British security guy seemed to be about 146% done with life’s bullshit too that day and just waved me in. I saw the British airlines desk, I saw the guys sitting there doing some kind of paperwork, and I decided I was going to play it cool. I was going to be confident. They WERE going to help me get home because that was what they had to do (they didn’t have to), but I wasn’t going to bomb this guy with my crisis. I wasn’t going to make my terrible problem HIS problem. So I rolled up, smiling, and told him that my Iberian flight landed late and my connection was “a whole 35 minutes, but I guess that’s not enough?” and I let HIM tell me how that was way too short and oh my God you were never going to make that connection, ma’am, no way at all…and I’m sorry there’s no flight to Ronald Reagan, but we have one leaving for Dulles in 3 hours. Will that do? 

Will that do? WILL THAT DO?! I wanted to marry that scruffy flush-cheeked dude and his accent. I laughed about the connection, and laughed harder when HE started bitching about Iberian and how they never helped anyone ever, and so on, until I found myself with a business class ticket to the US for no extra money after 9 hours–9 HOURS!!–wandering around an airport trying to figure out how I was going to get out of there without getting into massive trouble with my squadron. 

Now, I can’t be 100% sure, but I’m very confident in saying that if I had come up to that guy yelling and freaking out and saying how he HAD to do this and that, and I DEMAND this and that, I probably would have gotten nothing. He would have shut down, rambled off whatever rejections he could to get rid of me as fast as he could, and I would have had no choice but to contact the US embassy and beg a place on a military flight or whatever else…which would have definitely gotten back to my CO and gotten me in massive trouble. 

Be calm. Be kind. No one wants to help an asshole. 

This. 

99% of the time the person customers choose to yell at has nothing to do with their issue and everything to do with the solution. Just don’t be an asshole.