Temper

I don't normally blog about personal things, because I think they're lame and I really hate putting personal information onto the interweb. But I figured I've got to try most things once and see how it turns out.

I lost my temper today. It was pretty bad. If you know me, I may not seem like the kind of person who loses it very easily, and in general I think I keep my cool pretty well. Today just wasn't my day.

Today at work, one of my officemates made a passing remark about gay people and how they were decreed to be killed in his home country. He was talking to another person at the time (not me), but I thought the way he phrased it was completely inappropriate. What I thought I heard was a statement supporting violence against people based on their sexual preference. What he probably said or intended to say was a factual statement about what happens in his home country because of the laws. In retrospect, as he isn't a native English speaker, the intention of the statement and what were said were probably different. I think the words "should," "could" and "would" are particularly difficult for non-native speakers to grasp. Even native speakers aren't clear with their intentions in everyday conversation.

Anyways, I then asked him if he would please keep the hate speech out of this country.

A large fight ensued where I lost my cool. He claimed the remark wasn't for public consumption, but at the same time I heard it and pointed out that other people use our room. When he makes remarks like the one he made, other people listen and he implicitly represents our group, and hence me in such remarks. We ended up taking the issue to our adviser, who as head of our group is mostly responsible for our group image.

My adviser agreed with me about our room and our remarks being public. My adviser warned my colleague to be more careful with his words in the future. My adviser told me I needed to be less strict in my interpretations of what people, especially non-native speakers, say, and that I shouldn't assume their intentions from their speech. He also said not to overreact so much. I think I agree with him on all statements. I lost my cool, and need to be more understanding of the slipperiness in communications.

I would be lying if I said there hasn't been a build-up to this, or to the other times I've lost my cool. The way my officemate structures his speech would be extremely rude in Iowa. I've tried explaining it, but so far without much success. Maybe the problem is with me? I don't know. Things aren't really great between us. He accused me of being a spy today (I don't think he knows what the word means), and I think I've burned too many bridges to try and explain to him how he is subtly insulting me. He probably wouldn't believe me anyways - I'm a spy, right?

I'm been having some problems with my temper lately (when I say lately, I mean over the past two years, since leaving university). At my last job, I had pretty big issues with how long it took to accomplish things. I'm a pretty lazyefficient person, and when I do work I want it to matter. I get angry when it doesn't, or if I did unnecessary work. Making sure I take the right approach to getting things working is very important to me, and I think it makes me a good engineer. I know I can focus my anger when things don't go well. I distinctly remember times in middle school when I did poorly on a test and studied non-stop because I was angry about it, and the next tests always came back with high marks. At the same time, it seems over the past few years my temper has starting to get in the way of getting things done in the most efficient manner. I should have asked my officemate to clarify his statement, not immediately assumed a bigoted intention. I should have known that getting things done quickly is different for a very constrained university assignment than for work in the corporate world.

I thought I'd share this moment of anger with you. While writing about it has been a bit cathartic, I'll still be fuming for the next few days.