Some days I am not proud of my behaviour. Yesterday was one of those days.
Construction has been going on in space which adjoins our shop for the last ten weeks. Despite assurances from the landlord that we will not be disrupted during trading hours noise, dust and difficulty with access have been almost a daily occurrence.
Yesterday it got to me. On one of the busiest greeting card days of the year – the day before Mother’s Day – I arrived at the shop to the piecing sound of an angle grinder working on steel reinforcement. This was happening in the cavity next to our main internal wall. The sound in the shop was dreadful. Customers were approaching the shop and walking out.
My team had called centre management and each time between 8am and 11am and the noise stopped for two of three minutes. I called centre management and asked for the manager. I was told it’s the weekend and she does not work weekends and that it’s not a centre management problem and that the development side of the business is responsible. I called the manager of the project from the landlord’s office. She said that it was a centre management issue.
After hanging up from these fruitless calls the security guard – the person they deputised to deal with the problem – presented at the office. Bad timing. I exploded. This is where I behaved badly, very badly While I had to raise my voice to be heard over the awful construction noise, I was too aggressive and used strong abusive language. He sooked off saying he’s not paid to listen to this. Fair enough in hindsight.
The noise stopped two minutes later and did not restart for the rest of the day.
Looking back, I am not proud of being so rude and aggressive. Even though all I could see at the time was Mother’s Day card sales collapsing, I should not have lost it with the security chap. It ruined my day as it took hours to lose the anger and pain of the experience. It was difficult to serve customers having just had the experience.
When the security chap and I late made up, we bitched for a while about how management – from the landlord’s development office and from centre management – conveniently get out of dealing with these issues.
I’m glad that the centre is finally being upgraded. Unfortunately, the most significant works are occurring in an area and abutting a wall which is only shared with my shop. It other tenants were affected then I am confident the work would be scheduled differently. That’s it’s only one, they seem prepared to cause all manner of disruption including entering our shop in the evening without having a guard present and despite their promise of a guard.
Some days I am not proud of my behaviour. I guess seeing that in hindsight is, of itself, helpul.