Anyway, I had an encounter yesterday with this lady who clearly had an issue with interrupting people while they were talking, she also had the 'my time is more important than your time syndrome', with a sprinkle of impatience just to top it off. So, As I'm walking to the back room to look for a product for another customer this lady calls me, she didn't literally call me, although I do wear a name tag, she kinda said "Hey, I need some help." Im used to this, so I turned around put on my "yes ma'am" smile and patiently waited for her question. She wanted to know what sorbate meant. We sell dried fruit as well, and these particular ones were sorbate free. For those who do not know sorbate is a preservative that is used in the drying and packaging of dried fruits and a few other goods.
This particular day had been a bit of a trying one speech wise. When talking with familiar people my stress was at a minimum, however today for some reason, I was more sensitive to talking to people that I didn't know, and my stutter reflected that. These days happen, Im pretty used to them. every morning I usually take inventory of my stutter, where it is, and adjust myself to it. Doing this reminds me that I do not have complete control over everything let alone my speech, and reminds me of the importance of flexibility, the willingness to evolve and change. There goes my stutter teaching me life lessons again.
So, the word preservative has a lot of syllables and starts with a 'P', you know all the dreaded things that a lot of stutterers hate. SO, I knew this word would be a struggle for me, I felt myself fearing it, so I chose to do some voluntary stuttering on it, before I could get to the third bounce in p-p-p-perservatives, this lady says "can you get me someone who knows what their talking about?" Now in the past I would have just walked off, grabbed a co-worker and had them talk to her. Instead, I said "I do know what Im talking about.." She then interrupted me again. I then said "I have a stutter and if you just..." her reply "I don't know what your talking about, can you get me.." I say one more time, "I'm trying to answer your question.." She interrupts me again. At this point, I know their is no reason for me to continue this conversation. This woman has proven that she doesn't have the capacity to be patient enough to get the answer to her question, and Ive advertised and tried my best to communicate in a forward moving manner, so I politely grabbed one of my co-workers asked if she could take this ladies question and I walked in the back room to continue helping my previous customer. My co-worker then followed me in the back room asking the answer to the lady's question because she didn't know what sorbate was. Needless to say this made me feel even more empowered.
I am aware that non-stutterers expect other people to not stutter as well, and when that doesnt happen, it throws them off a bit. Well maybe no one should expect anything from anyone at anytime. This is where presence comes into play. If we are present in all interactions we aren't expectant of other people, we take what is given to us as it is given. This customer would have realized, oh, this young woman does not speak like me, let me take a second to listen, or she can take an extra five minutes searching her answer from another employee, the choice is hers. Either way I walked away feeling good.
I also walked away from the situation pitying her, and feeling very proud of myself, and happy that I have something that has taught me to remain present, and keeps me from being incredibly self involved. This was a success in my book, I doubt she learned anything from this interaction, but Ive been reassured that Im on the path that works for me, and that brought joy to my heart.
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