A ONE PESO INCIDENT

I talked with someone today that got kicked out from work este...asked to resign after she "slipped" from her job. One day she was attending a customer and that she shortchanged her by one peso resulting to heavy bouts of words between them. They became too personal already. The sad thing was that...it was that one peso shortchanged that triggered the incident.

She carried such guilt and regret since it took much toll and weight on her shoulder loosing the money to support her child. Her meager salary prior to the dismissal made her buy milk, provided small allowance to her husband that does the sending and fetching of her little boy to and from school and food for the family.

It really broke my heart listening to the story. I saw the pain in her eyes and helplessness. It has happened already and her employer considered it a grave mistake (i did not further comment on the company's decision). Still, she was given the consideration by making her submit a resignation to give her at least clean slate to apply to another company.

I would like to further illustrate a similar situation. Not so long ago, I happened to visit a jail and was able to mingle with prisoners. Most cases committed by the inmates were related to loosing temper causing them to land in jail.

Emotional intelligence by Goleman (1995) defines it as being able to reign in emotional impulse. Furthermore, it also means being aware of one emotional impulses and that of others and use this knowledge in responding to a particular situation. Goleman however, states that when there is a sudden upsurge of emotion causing one to be overwhelmed and react not commensurate to the challenging situation points to emotional hijacking.

EQ stresses further that the most seductive of all emotions is anger. Many of us fall short in the aspect of managing anger. Let me derail a little my discussion to citing a particular company trainer that facilitated a training on personal leadership that presupposes leading others effectively. And as I understand it, if we fail to atleast manage our temper (emotions), we fail to shape an intense emotional outburst of anger from others (or any extreme display of emotions).

One small thing may bring one person to grievous mistake leading to a lifetime of regret if not properly dealt with or managed. We normally feel emotions. In fact they are natural. Yet, we have the final say as to how long we would allow it to linger and last and how we creatively deal with it.

One peso can be too small a reason to loose a job, right?...