I’ve been marking exams this week…exams that first year Professional Master’s Occupational Therapy students have written on how to conduct a clinical interview.
I have read about “Inevitable Interpersonal Events”, oh, about 48 times this week. (Let’s just say marking isn’t in my “Top 10” of favorite things to do.)
An Inevitable Interpersonal Event is something that happens in a relationship…stuff happens…it’s gonna happen. The fact that it happens isn’t so horrible…cuz stuff just happens, y’know? It is part of living on this earth. Like someone is misunderstood and there is hurt feelings, a boundary is crossed, someone cries or farts or lands on the other one hard (literally or metaphorically) or goofs in some way that impacts the other.
And then it happened to me…an inevitable interpersonal event.
Our office is across the street from Tim Hortons, a national icon that makes sappy commercials about how coffee connects people, and has people go, “Awwwww”. Apparently, I bought in. I thought it would be nice to get some gift cards for the staff at our office as part of their Christmas present…I know some of them like going for a walk across the street when they have a break. (Shhh….if you see one of them, don’t tell them…they haven’t got them yet.)
Well, I gather most of the rest of the country concurred with my good idea…when I went to purchase them the other day, the computer system wouldn’t cooperate (we found out later it was overloaded with gift card purchases). It took my money just fine, but it wouldn’t validate the cards.
The staff person called the manager over and she tried it. Nope. They tried again. Still not. So they refunded my money, and asked me to pay again and they started over. Still no validated cards. This took about 15 or 20 minutes. I had to leave to go back to the office to see a client. The manager took my card, and gave me hers.
She asked me to come back when I could, promised me they would call tech support and figure it out. The thing was, the manager and the staff person apologized about 4 times that this wasn’t working. The manager recognized how this was taking more time. She regretted the inconvenience. She was a little upset at how it wasn’t working, and worried aloud how that was impacting my impression of her store. I bought one additional card at a different amount…and she insisted on giving that one to me “on the house” (that one worked, for some strange reason), saying that was the least they could do.
The second time I went back, with tech support on the line, the gift cards went through successfully. In the end I got my cards…but when all was said and done, the cash register took my money twice for them. I checked my bank account the next day…and though “the system” was to reimburse my money, it hasn’t yet. The manager asked me to call her (specifically asked me to not make the trek to her store…phone was fine) if there were any problems. I called…she wasn’t at the store, but at a charity event Tim Horton’s was serving coffee at. She called me from the event in less than 90 seconds, promising to check into it.
So…this gift card purchase which I was planning on taking about 10 minutes to do, start to finish, has now taken a couple of lengthy trips to the store, a phone call, and it’s still not done.
I’m still out the money.
But I’m not mad or upset or frustrated…because the staff and management at that Tim Horton’s on Pembina Highway were so great. I’m on a first name basis with the manager…she’s great. They’ve handled it so well…taking responsibility for the problem, acknowledging and validating the inconvenience, expressing regret…the whole “inevitable interpersonal event” which was in itself a problem, was handled so effectively, my relationship with the Tim Horton’s and its staff across the street is stronger now than it was before the event.
I trust them that this will yet get fixed, and I’m pretty chill about the whole thing
That’s the thing about “Inevitable Interpersonal Events”. They happen. The fact that stuff happens that is hurtful, harmful, embarrassing, goofed up is just a natural part of being a human being in a relationship with another human being. But, as I read (about four dozen times this week—way too often!!), Inevitable Interpersonal Events are “ripe with opportunity” to “strengthen the relationship” by how the event is handled.
(Of course, the flip side is that it is “ripe with danger” (straight from the textbook) to weaken the relationship by not apologizing where appropriate, taking responsibility, acknowledging the impact, or otherwise processing the event effectively with the other.)
Stuff happens in relationships…that’s a given. It’s not a ultimate failure to get wires crossed, misunderstandings to occur, and make mistakes. While efforts to decrease hard things from happening is important, hard stuff is going to happen despite best efforts. It’s inevitable.
What happens after…how you handle that inevitable event, is likely to be more important than the original gaffe in the long term memory of the relationship.
How much effort do you put into relationship repair?
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