Life Tips Daily

This trip seems to be fodder for talk about life tips or at least ways to improve oneself.

Most people think that I am fairly outspoken, but the truth is unless I am with a group of friends, I tend to keep my mouth shut, painfully so at times. I don’t know anybody at this conference I’m attending, so I’m enjoying the solitude quite well.

For the past day and a half, I have been listening to talks given by experts on their subject matter. I have not once been moved to question any of them during their talks (as we’re encouraged to do after each talk) but today’s second speaker of the afternoon session inspired just that. I sensed that my question was not applicable to the room as a whole, so I didn’t ask it publicly; instead I saw him in the lobby talking to two women and patiently waited for my turn. While I was waiting, another woman came up and the moment the two women left, she barged in and engaged the speaker!

I must admit, for the first five seconds I was shocked, and I wondered if this adult woman had actually just ignored me and began speaking to this gentleman. The worst part (to me) is that the man, who had looked over at me while he was talking to the two women before me, did not even say a word! I may as well not have been standing there.

To me, that was a double insult and their rudeness was surprising.

Determined not to be insulted, I waited for her to speak her piece. While I was waiting, three gentlemen came up and the moment the gentleman I was waiting to speak to finished with the woman, he turned to them and began speaking to them!

I could understand this if I was a small, easily overlooked person, or if I was in a large crowd, but I was clearly standing waiting for him and I am a hard figure to miss (due to my size rather than my importance in this particular conference). At this point I left the group all together, seething at the rudeness, and cursing him under my breath.

Instead of stewing, I thought of ways I could have politely made my presence known right there and then, that I did not take advantage of, but you might decide to should you ever be in the same situtation:

1. In the first instance, I should have politely mentioned to the woman, “Excuse me, I’ve actually been waiting to ask this gentleman a question, would you mind if I went first?”.
2. In the second instance I could have interjected and politely said to him that my question will only take a moment, and I’ve been waiting to ask him.

Again, they are similar points, but hopefully points that would have alerted all parties to their blatant rudeness in a polite way.

I didn’t do that but I should have another opportunity to do so: tomorrow, I am going to approach the gentleman when he’s alone and say something to the effect that I was trying to speak to him yesterday, but he was clearly a popular fellow, and then ask him my question. This will be a brave step for me because it is not my usual behaviour to put myself in a situation to be ignored or treated rudely. But I figure if I do this, then I’ll know whether or not I was genuinely overlooked, or purposely ignored. And for me, this small act will represent assertiveness, a skill I am so sorely lacking in.

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assert yourself, assertiveness, speak up, speak

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