How to Avoid Turning Into a Jerk When You’re Surrounded by Jerks
Working in retail, I still remember one of my worst customers. He handed me a quarter and what looked like a single one dollar bill. I said, “Sorry, the total is two twenty-five.” He pulled apart two crisp bills, which I didn’t notice were stuck together, and slowly counted, “One…two. Do you speak English? Do you know math?” I was fuming, but I said nothing. I was, however, short with everyone else that day, until a friend asked, “what’s your problem?” The problem was: I let that jerk turn me into an jerk, too.
This is something that happens to me all the time, and I think it happens to a lot of us. You’re a nice enough person, but you’re put in an environment where everyone is rude, and next thing you know, you’re rude, too. Maybe someone just gets under your skin and you don’t even realize it’s happening. Or maybe all of your friends are kind of jerks, and you gradually start becoming more like them.
Whatever the scenario, this happens because rudeness is contagious. In a study published in the Journal of Applied Psychology, researchers had subjects reply to a neutral email. Some of the subjects watched a video of a rude interaction before replying, and their replies were a lot more hostile. That experiment and two others were enough for researchers to conclude:
Specifically, we show that rudeness activates a semantic network of related concepts in individuals’ minds, and that this activation influences individual’s hostile behaviors. In sum, in these 3 studies we show that just like the common cold, common negative behaviors can spread easily and have significant consequences for people in organizations
Whether it’s rude coworkers, nasty Internet trolls, or just impolite strangers you encounter out running errands, here’s how to avoid catching someone else’s jerky behavior.
It’s Probably Not About You
When a stranger sarcastically asks if you know how to count, it’s hard not to take it personally. However, this had nothing to do with me. Sure, I made a mistake, if you can even call it that, but it certainly didn’t warrant such a bizarre reaction.
As Tiny Buddha points out, another person’s rude behavior it’s rarely about you. Maybe it’s a coping mechanism. Maybe they feel inadequate or defensive. Or hell, maybe someone else was rude and it rubbed off on them. Writer Avery Rogers explains the motive behind her own rude behavior:
When I became depressed, though, my temper shortened and I felt far more irritable…. I started to become rude and unkind myself. I lashed out at people, or, more commonly, gave them passive aggressive excuses for distancing myself from them. I even became prone to insulting people as a way of protecting myself if they didn’t like me. I didn’t make a conscious decision to be mean. I didn’t wake up in the morning and think, “Today, I am going to hurt someone’s feelings.” It just happened in the moment when I was feeling especially down on myself…When someone is rude for no reason, especially a stranger, it is rarely a personal assault, even if you accidentally did something to irritate them.
Rogers explains something I’ve always known but didn’t really take to heart until I started trying to change my own behavior: you can’t do anything about someone else’s behavior, but you can choose how you react to it.
It seems hokey, but there’s a lot of power in that idea.
Choose a Different Reaction
I live in a big city, which means I can encounter a hell of a lot of rudeness just going out for groceries. You get cut off in traffic. People steal your parking spots. They run into you with their shopping carts. The list goes on. Once, a whole series of these things happened to me, and during the drive home, when another car put on their blinker to get in my lane, I actually said out loud, “I’m not giving you an inch.”
In other words, I was being a total asshole. In that moment, I realized being surrounded by jerks during a simple trip to the grocery store had turned me into a defensive, rude jerk too. I also realized I had a choice. I could choose how I reacted to the series of rude interactions I’d had that day. In doing this, it helped to understand that their actions were totally separate from who I was as an individual.
It’s tough to remember not to take things personally, but now I use my irritability as a trigger. When I notice bad behavior rubbing off on me, I try to do the opposite of what I want to do, which is to be defensive and rude. Instead, I go out of my way to be nice, even though I’m in a bad mood and I don’t feel like it. So instead of not letting someone in my lane, I’ll wave them over. Rather than assume someone is trying to cut in front of me in line, I’ll offer to let them go in front of me if they have fewer items. At first, I did this just to break the cycle of rudeness. But I’ve noticed that it actually helps turn my mood around quite a bit.
Psychologist Elana Miller would probably approve of this method. In an article on the “Art of Not Being an Asshole,” she suggests:
Expecting everyone else to conform to your rules is a losing battle.We go around getting frustrated and frustrating other people. Sounds like a lot of unnecessary frustration to me.
You could spend 100 pages writing down all the rules people should follow and it would still be missing the point, because it’s the concept that’s important, not all these individual rules. The concept is actually straight-forward:
Be aware of yourself and your behavior, and avoid asshole-like actions.Be forgiving when someone else is an asshole, because they probably didn’t mean it the way you think they did.
This means spending less time paying attention to all the annoying things everyone else does and more time paying attention to all the annoying things YOU do.
Instead of reacting to someone else’s actions, you take control over your own.
Be Assertive Without Being a Jerk
Some rude behavior is harder not to take personally, especially when it affects you in other ways. For example, let’s say a coworker throws you under the bus. You’re now on the hook for their mistake. It might not have been personal, but that comes at little comfort when your boss is upset with you and you were planning to ask for a raise soon.
Encountering rudeness can have a big impact on your performance, too.
In an article for the New York Times, researcher Christine Porath explained:
According to a survey of more than 4,500 doctors, nurses and other hospital personnel, 71 percent tied disruptive behavior, such as abusive, condescending or insulting personal conduct, to medical errors, and 27 percent tied such behavior to patient deaths. My studies with Amir Erez, a management professor at the University of Florida, show that people working in an environment characterized by incivility miss information that is right in front of them. They are no longer able to process it as well or as efficiently as they would otherwise.
In one study, the experimenter belittled the peer group of the participants, who then performed 33 percent worse on anagram word puzzles and came up with 39 percent fewer creative ideas during a brainstorming task focused on how they might use a brick. In our second study, a stranger — a “busy professor” encountered en route to the experiment — was rude to participants by admonishing them for bothering her. Their performance was 61 percent worse on word puzzles, and they produced 58 percent fewer ideas in the brick task than those who had not been treated rudely.
When dealing with issues like this, you still want to be aware of how you react, but simply being nice might not work. In fact, ignoring the problem with kindness could make things worse later. At the same time, being rude could cultivate an environment of rudeness, which would be counterproductive. If you’re dealing with a social underminer or a bully at work, there are a few ways to be assertive without becoming a bully yourself:
- Distance yourself: Keep your social media accounts private, ask your boss to move your desk, and/or avoid sharing any contact or information with them.
- Confront them about their behavior: Be upfront about how you feel and address their behavior objectively. Most bullies will back down as soon as you call them out.
- Tell someone who can help: If nothing else works, you may need to have a conversation with your human resources department.
All of these options are better than trying to get back at a coworker by turning into a jerk yourself. Some argue that jerks get ahead, but as Porath explains, the studies show otherwise, leading researchers to conclude that rude people get ahead despite their rudeness, not because of it.
Try a Few Mental Exercises
If you’re having a hard time not letting someone else’s rude behavior get to you, there are some mental tricks you can try:
- Give Them a Mental Hug: Try to feel compassion with a rude person and understand why they might be behaving like a jerk. Giving them a hug, mentally, can help you empathize with their actions.
- Acknowledge Your Emotions: When you’re feeling angry or upset and reactive, sit with your feelings for a moment and identify them. Think objectively about what you’re feeling. For example, instead of “that mean customer made me feel belittled,” I would just say, “I feel belittled.” This helps you keep the situation under control by separating your emotions and staying in the present.
- Find Your Inner Toddler: Try to “think big” and imagine that you’re a toddler throwing a temper tantrum over ice cream. As an adult, you realize there are more important things in the world, because you have a bigger perspective. When I dealt with my own anger issues, a friend suggested reassuring that inner toddler, too. In the case of my rude customer, I’d say something to myself like, “Why did that make you mad? Because you don’t feel smart sometimes? That’s okay, we all feel that way occasionally.” Not only does this exercise acknowledge why you’re angry in the first place, it makes you realize their rudeness really isn’t that big of a deal for you as an adult.
It can be tough to avoid catching someone else’s rudeness. Sometimes we don’t even realize how much someone’s behavior affects us, and we don’t even realize we’ve become rude ourselves. With a little awareness of the situation and some self-reflection, it’s easy enough to avoid becoming a jerk when you’re surrounded by them. And on really tough days, a few mental tricks can pull you through.
And in some cases, a little distance can work wonders. Especially if you’re used to being around people who are rude all the time, you might get to a point where you don’t know any better. If all of your friends or coworkers are jerks, try spending time with new friends. Find a coworker who’s not caught up in the office incivility. Get out of the big city once in awhile. Being around other people or less stressful environments can help you readjust your perspective.
Illustration by Tina Mailhot-Roberge.
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How to Avoid Turning Into a Jerk When You’re Surrounded by Jerks
Fix Scratches in Wood Furniture with Olive Oil and Vinegar
Got a piece of wood furniture that’s all scratched and beat up? Fear not. Olive oil and vinegar can rescue it from that sad state.
Domestic Bliss Squared shows how rubbing on a 1/2 cup of vinegar mixed with 1/2 cup of olive oil can make a wood surface almost like new again (even when furniture polish and orange oil failed before).
I tried it on my coffee table with similar, positive results:
Better than using a walnut, since it’s easier to apply and you likely already have olive oil and vinegar on hand.
DIY: fix furniture scratches in wood furniture | Domestic Bliss Squared
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Fix Scratches in Wood Furniture with Olive Oil and Vinegar
AR endurance findings, at a rental range – The Firearm Blog
12 Best Sites to Get Royalty-Free Stock Photos
The Internet is flooded with places to buy stock photos or download them for free, but that means that you have to sift through a lot of junk to find that one perfect image. We want to make your job a little bit easier, so we looked around to find the best places to get royalty-free stock photos. Going forward, we’ll include example photos from each source so you can get a taste of what’s available without having to sign up at a bunch of different sites that you may or may not end up using. And, of course, there are…
Read the full article: 12 Best Sites to Get Royalty-Free Stock Photos
Get Big Fast: “500 Club” Delivers Teachers For Code.org
theodp writes: The Waterloo Cedar Falls Courier reports that Ben Schafer, an associate CS prof at the Univ. of Northern Iowa, was recognized at Code.org’s annual summit for training 570 K-12 teachers in Iowa, which is equivalent to 5.5 percent of all U.S. teachers trained. Schafer ranked No. 2 in the ‘500 Club’, a Code.org affiliate of trainers who trained more than 500 teachers in the first year of the program. Code.org’s K-5 Affiliates "deliver one-day, in-person workshops to local elementary school teachers to teach computer science in a format that’s fun and accessible". A Term Sheet explains to potential Affiliates that "Code.org will pay you $50 per workshop-attendee to cover costs, including food, and to compensate you and any teaching assistants." According to a White House’ Fact Sheet, Code.org plans to use $20 million in philanthropic funds to train 10,000 teachers by fall 2015 and 25,000 teachers by fall 2016. You can follow their progress on Twitter, kids!
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Get Big Fast: “500 Club” Delivers Teachers For Code.org
Shoekicker Finds The Best Price on Your Favorite Running Shoe
When you’ve got a running shoe you swear by, you’d think shopping would be easy—but shoe makers change styles, and stores can be fickle in what they keep in stock. Shoekicker comes to the rescue by finding your shoe and telling you who has the best price.
The site doesn’t yet include listings from local running stores, but its creator is planning to add that feature soon. For now, it’s best for older models that you’ve grown to love but that have become hard to find. Fortunately, shoes fitting that description are often available at a deep discount if you know where to look—and Shoekicker does.
Vitals is a new blog from Lifehacker all about health and fitness. Follow us on Twitter here.
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Shoekicker Finds The Best Price on Your Favorite Running Shoe
How a DBA must look to a Developer, after improving a query…
How a DBA must look to a Developer, after improving a query from 3 hours run time to 2 minutes run time.
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How a DBA must look to a Developer, after improving a query…
How To Shoot A Shotgun
Unlike most other shooting sports, shotguns are fast-paced and full of action. Whether it’s trap, skeet, sporting clays or upland bird, you’ll be using a lot of shells, targets will be numerous and your success will be high. This is how to start shooting.
Basic Equipment
To start, a basic, pump-operated shotgun is going to give you a reliable, affordable, fun option; cycling the action on a pump gun is just an iconic experience. The Weatherby PA-08 is a great gun starting at just $399. For adult men, a 12ga is the most versatile gauge, but smaller women and children may prefer the lighter kick of a 20ga. Or, just rent whatever your local range has available.
You also need eye and ear protection. $5 safety glasses will get the job done your first couple of shoots, but just like with binoculars and scopes, quality optics make a huge difference. I wear a pair of Randolph Engineering’s Falcon shooting glasses. Since I’ve made the switch from cheapos, I now enjoy clearer vision and a wider field of view. Yellow lenses are a good all-round option, working to increase contrast, but purple may work better if you’re shooting clays in bright environments. Ideally, you’ll have glasses that give you lens options for different conditions.
In my ears, I’ve worn Howard Leight MaxLite plugs for over a decade. They’re some of the quietest disposable plugs out there, and also the softest. So they’re both effective and comfortable, as well as affordable. Big ear defenders may cut a little more sound, but can get in the way of a mounted stock. These work just as well on a motorcycle as they do on a loud airplane with babies crying or on the gun range.
You’ll also need something to hold your shells. A basic shell pouch is a good, versatile, affordable option that will work with whatever you’re wearing. Bonus points if it makes room for both fresh and spent shells; you’ll need to collect those as you use them. A shooting vest performs the same job, while maybe also adding some blaze orange for field use, or even a game pocket. Pick a lightweight mesh one, you’ll be able to wear that over any clothes in any weather.
You’ll also need a gun cleaning kit, be sure to thoroughly clean and oil your gun after any shoot; gun powder is corrosive.
Shooting Disciplines
Trap: The most basic and easiest one to start with has you stand behind a house that lobs clays up and away from you. Clays are thrown at 45mph. No matter your gun’s capacity, you shoot trap using a single shell for each throw.
Skeet: Two houses on either side of you throw clays across your front. You move between shooting stations which see clays thrown either individually or in tandem, from both houses in opposite directions. Skeet is much harder than trap as the clays are closer to you and moving side-to-side. American skeet throws the clays at 45mph; International at 90mph! You’ll use two shells for this one.
Sporting Clays: Like golf, but with a gun, you walk between different stations, each throwing the clays in a different manner. They come towards you, away from you, across, upwards, downwards and some even roll across the ground. It’s hard, but rewarding and is both a fun group activity and great preparation for hunting.
Upland Bird: Turkeys, pheasant, quail, dove, partridge and similar land-based birds. Each is its own, unique challenge, but together this group represents the iconic ideal of shotgun hunting; this is where you get to wear the tweed and the wellies as you stroll through the countryside.
Waterfowl: Duck, geese and similar and generally conducted from a blind or boat.
Shotgun Types
Single-Shot: break-action like an over/under or a side-by-side, these fire only a single shot, but are accurate, cheap and reliable.
Pump: Basic, reliable, affordable and able to hold multiple shells, pump guns are all anyone ever needs, but aren’t as fancy or convenient as the other options. You could keep that $399 12ga Weatherby for life and use it for everything you read about here without a problem. For hunting, and in some states, you’ll be restricted to a total capacity of three shells.
Semi-Auto: Like pumps, these store multiple shells in a tubular magazine, ejecting and feeding them using gas or inertia from the preceding shot. A little more money, but also a little faster to fire. A great option if you may need to follow up shots quickly, while keeping the gun mounted.
Over/Under: A style of double-barrel gun with a break action that’s popular for both target shooting and hunting. The advantage of a double-barrel is that you can choke each differently, optimizing each for a specific range; typically the first barrel to fire will be choked for closer shots, then the second will be choked for a slightly longer distance, giving you the ability to make a follow up shot if necessary. A selector enables you to chose which barrel fires first, for a little more variability. Most fancy shotguns are now over/unders.
Side-by-Side: Also a double-barrel gun with a break action. These are now out of fashion and you’ll tend to see side-by-sides on older guns. These are classic gentleman’s guns and objects of much elegance, which also means they tend to be simple designs with fixed chokes. Some dedicated fans claim side-by-sides are a better option for hunting than over/unders because you can use the unique sight picture created by the two barrels to accurately repeat leading distances on fast-moving birds or targets. On any double barrel gun, the two aren’t totally parallel, converging their shot on a point about 40 yards out from the muzzle. The shot overlaps through this distance, so there isn’t really a difference in aim no matter which you use. My girlfriend’s dad gifted us a couple of ridiculously nice side-by-sides, so this is what we shoot.
What’s A Choke?
Chokes constrict the end of the barrel and control the degree to which shot spreads out as it fires. Most shotguns now have screw-in chokes, allowing you to alter the shot pattern to suit your needs. This is much preferable to fixed chokes, typical of older guns, which lock you into certain patterns and ranges.
In order from widest pattern (closest range) to tightest pattern (furthest range), chokes range from: Cylinder (< 20 yards), Skeet (22.5 yards), Improved Cylinder (25 yards), Light Modified (30 yards), Modified (32.5 yards), Improved Modified (35 yards), Light Full (37.5 yards), Full (40 yards), Extra Full (> 40 yards).
Those ranges are general and are also heavily dependent on what type of shell, size of shot and amount of powder you’re shooting. But choosing the correct choke for the job is vital to shooting success.
You can read more about shotgun shells, sizes and whatnot in our accompanying article, What’s Inside A Shotgun Shell And Why.
The Mount
Determine which is your dominant eye and hold the shotgun on that side of your body. Bring it up to you shoulder and rest your check against its stock. You should be bringing the stock up to your cheek, not lowering your head to to it.
Stand with your front foot pointing at your target and 60 to 70 percent of your weight over your front leg and lean into the gun. As you follow a target, twist at your waist.
You hold the shotgun at rest when you’re not shooting, then raise it to your shoulder, point it and fire when a target presents itself. Being able to mount the gun from rest in a quick, repeatable way that keeps its barrel in line with the target is the key to good shooting.
Photo: Torrey Wiley
Aiming And Firing
Your eye should be aligned so that you’re looking straight down the ramp, with the barrel parallel with your line of sight and the sight pin just hovering above the barrel. Some guns have a second pin, further back along the barrel towards you, that assists with alignment. That sight pin will put you dead-on with a stationary target. But, shotgun targets move, of course.
The old saying goes, “You aim a rifle, you point a shotgun.” Hitting stuff with one is much more a case of predicting where your target will be when the shot reaches them, then pointing the gun there. And doing that is simply a matter of experience. Plan on spending plenty of time at the range until you’ve figured this out.
Because the clay or bird is moving, the shotgun needs to be moving too. Swing it in the same arc that your target is traveling and keep it moving beyond the trigger pull; that’s a good follow through. And continuing to track the target is also what enables a follow up shot, if that’s necessary.
On a rifle, you slowly squeeze the trigger so that movement doesn’t upset your aim. On a shotgun, just pull the trigger rapidly.
Photo: Matt Biegacki
The Process
I fired a shotgun for the first time when I was probably 12 or 13 years old (great sport for kids), then occasionally throughout the years. It wasn’t until we got those guns early this year that I started shooting in earnest. Shooting doves last November, on a borrowed Silver Pigeon, I knocked down seven and fired 100 shells. Yesterday, for season opener, I limited out at 15 birds in less than three boxes of shells. I’m by no means what anyone would describe as a good shot, but I’m able to enjoy the sport with reasonable proficiency and success. Invest in some decent equipment (as detailed above) and spend a few days at the range and you will be too. This is a fun, intuitive sport that’s enjoyed by all ages, in all parts of the country. That it also puts healthy, natural food on the table is just an added bonus.
Top Photo: Municipal Archives of Trondheim
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Music Video: Joe Biden Sings “Buy a Shotgun”
I’m no fan of the current occupants of the White House… but yeah, this is funny. By now I guess everyone has heard of Joe Biden’s foolhardy advice to buy a double-barrel shotgun – and whenever you feel threatened or unsafe, stroll on outside and “fire two blasts outside the house.” It went something like[…..]
The post Music Video: Joe Biden Sings “Buy a Shotgun” appeared first on AllOutdoor.com.
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Music Video: Joe Biden Sings “Buy a Shotgun”