Emotional Intelligence
By TheRealDawn
@dawnald (85137)
Shingle Springs, California
April 24, 2020 5:32pm CST
So we are reading books for work. Our Director who was our director until last week had started us off reading a book about Problem Management, and then after that we select another book and another. We have a meeting to discuss the book. Well, the current book is titled "Emotional Intelligence", and last week Monday I speed read the last half of the book for Tuesday's meeting only to have Tuesday's meeting postponed to end of month.
Tuesday morning, I was really grumpy. Usually if we're going to get a new Problem to tackle, we find out about it on the morning ops call or before in an email. Well, I didn't get one in the email or the call, so I had my whole morning planned out. Later that morning, one of the leads sends me this totally random email about runbooks. Don't worry about all the tech talk. There will not be a quiz after the discussion.
Anyway, I was puzzled, so I went and looked at my folder where Ops call emails go, and bah humbug, she had assigned the darn ticket to me after the call and I didn't see it because it (properly) went into the folder. So I was grumpy the whole rest of the morning.
That afternoon, I recalled the book, and I sat down and puzzled out why the heck I was so darn grumpy. I get new problem tickets all the time. It's my job. Well, after a little puzzling I figured out that it was because I had already determined that I wasn't getting a new ticket and had planned out my day, only to get this little wrench thrown into it. Problem solved.
Then yesterday I got one of those job searcher helpful email tips about, guess what? Emotional intelligence. Four things emotionally intelligent people don't do. I don't remember what the first three were, but the fourth one hit home a bit. Actually, the third one had to do with worrying. I'm not much of a worrier. But the fourth one had to do with not running through things past inside your head.
Well, I'll halfway agree. I think it's actually useful to think things through after the fact, figure out where you could have done better, and apply those things you could have done better in future situations. On the other hand, running through them over and over and imagining how you could have changed them is what the article was referring to. It basically said that it was an attempt to control the situation. For example, a bad situation with my ex husband and how I could have dealt with it better might help me with a similar situation with my current partner. However, replaying the situation with the ex over and over is an attempt to control something I couldn't control at the time, and never will be able to control, so why bother?
Maybe by the time I'm 90, I'll be emotionally intelligent. What do you think?
5 people like this
5 responses
@much2say (57760)
• Los Angeles, California
25 Apr 20
I'm one of those who replays the past over and over again. Can't help it. My friend once told me there's no sense trying to figure out how to fix the past because it's not going to happen. You can't control the past, like you are saying.
I guess what makes me able to move forward is the fact that I am here now . . . and the past, whatever it was, got me here. But still, I will think about things over and over - just my nature - I hope I even make it to 90
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Ohhhh, lookie who's here 
! Good to "see" you!
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Ohhhh, lookie who's here 
2 people like this
@BarBaraPrz (51831)
• St. Catharines, Ontario
25 Apr 20
Hey girl! Nice to see ya.
I think it's human nature to go over "stuff" from the past when we rationally know there's no way it'll change. I usually find myself doing it when I turn the light off at night and hope to fall asleep. Then I get mad at myself for doing it.
1 person likes this
@dawnald (85137)
• Shingle Springs, California
27 Apr 20
Yes, most annoying. Especially happens when I really NEED the darn sleep. 

@CinnamonGrl (7086)
• Santa Fe, New Mexico
25 Apr 20
Sometimes it's just hard not to dwell. We humans love to kick ourselves. I know I have done too much of that.
2 people like this










