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<\/a>Cristin slammed the kitchen door behind her when she came home from work a few weeks ago. She threw her Starbucks apron on a chair. \u201cMom, a new girl named Ashley started today, and I\u2019m supposed to train her. But I can\u2019t stand her!\u201d<\/p>\nI looked up from the bills I\u2019d been paying at the table. \u201cI\u2019m sorry, Hon. What, exactly, is the problem?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, first of all, she\u2019s rude. She obviously doesn\u2019t know how to operate the cash register, even though she worked at another branch of Starbucks for a year. And when I tried to show her how to do it, she told me she doesn\u2019t like register\u2014she prefers making drinks. I\u2019m the supervisor. She\u2019s a barista. She\u2019s supposed to do what I ask.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo what did you do?\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cTo be nice, I put her on bar. But she\u2019s so slow. Instead of getting the drinks out, she flirts with every male customer and backs up the line. And when I asked her\u2014nicely\u2014to try to speed things up, she told me I was jealous of her beauty. Mom, she\u2019s not even pretty.\u201d<\/p>\n
I took my reading glasses off my nose, folded them, and placed them on the table. In my mind I was back in an aerobics class in the early 1980s. There, always flirting with Ken, the hunky male instructor, was a young woman named Lynn.<\/p>\n
How annoying she was. The way she always got to class early to make sure she would snag a spot up front. The way she tousled her hair before the mirror to ensure it was its Farrah Fawcett best. The way she giggled and chatted with Ken as he was setting up his music. The way she wagged her shiny-leotarded hips to the pulse of \u201cIt\u2019s Raining Men.\u201d<\/p>\n
Every time I saw her I was peeved at her, but I was twice as peeved at myself. I strive to be a warm and giving person, to treat everyone I encounter as I\u2019d like to be treated myself. Lynn put me to the test.<\/p>\n
Whenever I entered the health club and felt my pique begin to rise, I\u2019d focus mind, spirit, and body in an effort to beat it down. First, I\u2019d reason with myself: Jan, you don\u2019t even know her; she\u2019s never done anything to hurt you. Next, I\u2019d turn to prayer: Please God, give me patience with that flirt. Then, I\u2019d take pragmatic action, moving as far from Lynn as possible and averting my eyes.<\/p>\n
But one day as I performed this ritual, Lynn came up to me and smiled. \u201cCute legwarmers,\u201d she said. \u201cThey go great with your leotard.\u201d<\/p>\n
We wound up having coffee after class. She told me she taught high school math. Her school was a taxing place to work\u2014cantankerous principal, rowdy students\u2014so she rushed to aerobics every evening to help relieve her stress.<\/p>\n
She told me she was recently divorced and felt lonely and down about herself. Her husband had been having an affair with a woman he claimed was more attractive.<\/p>\n
She also asked me to talk about myself, and when I did, I could tell she listened closely. She insisted on paying for the coffee. Within weeks, we became friends.<\/p>\n
I learned quite a bit from Lynn: How a person\u2019s annoying behavior often masks insecurity and pain. How compliments can open people up and shatter resentments.<\/p>\n
I was lucky Lynn had thought to praise my outfit. By doing so she\u2019d disarmed me and enabled our friendship to begin. And I realized that this could have happened sooner if I\u2019d stood up to my hostility when it first reared its ugly head by choosing to give Lynn a sincere compliment myself.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve done this many times since I met Lynn. Whenever I feel irked by someone, I try my best to move beyond my gut reaction, discern the person\u2019s strengths, and extend an honest compliment.<\/p>\n
This has rarely been difficult to do. When I was bugged by a law school classmate who frequently brown-nosed professors, I told her I admired her mastery of Torts. She thanked me and confessed that she was struggling with her courses and fretted she wouldn\u2019t earn good grades.<\/p>\n
When I was piqued by a new lawyer colleague who sent me frequent, needless memos, I told him I appreciated his hard work. He explained he was grateful to have joined our firm; when he lost his previous job, he feared he\u2019d have to practice on his own.<\/p>\n
When I was peeved by a young Polish priest who gave incomprehensible sermons, I told him I enjoyed the way he sang the Mass. He smiled and said he\u2019d been striving to reduce his Polish accent, which he worried was too thick to understand.<\/p>\n
Did the compliments I gave stop the behaviors that had bugged me? Sometimes, but that\u2019s beside the point. It\u2019s not my place to try to change other people; it\u2019s my job to change myself and become tolerant and embracing. This takes constant work.<\/p>\n
Did the praise that I extended always lead to lasting friendships? No, just occasionally. But it always dissolved the enmity I felt and smoothed relationships.<\/p>\n
So I looked at Cristin. \u201cYou know, Hon, maybe Ashley acts the way she does because she\u2019s feeling insecure. She\u2019s new at your Starbucks, after all. Or maybe she\u2019s jealous since you\u2019re the one in charge. Or maybe she has problems outside work. Have you ever tried to praise her?\u201d<\/p>\n
Just yesterday, Cristin came in the kitchen door at the end of her shift. This time I was putting groceries in the fridge. Cristin took a milk container from the table and handed it to me.<\/p>\n
\u201cMom, I forgot to tell you, I gave Ashley a compliment a couple of weeks ago. I told her she has great rapport with customers. Right away she began helping more with tasks and doing better work. She\u2019s even stopped flirting with the guys. And today we went out to lunch together. She\u2019s really kind of nice.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Jan Vallone <\/a>is the author of\u00a0Pieces of Someday<\/em><\/a>: One Woman\u2019s Search for Meaning in Lawyering, Family, Italy, Church, and a Tiny Jewish High School<\/em>, which won the Reader Views Reviewers\u2019 Choice Award. Her stories have appeared in The Seattle Times, Good Letters, Faith & Values in the Public Square, Catholic Digest, Guideposts Magazine, English Journal, Chicken Soup for the Soul, <\/em>and Writing it Real<\/em>. She lives and teaches writing in Seattle.<\/p>\n