She waited for a break in the conversation to jump in and attack.
I had been explaining a tax return (as best as I can) to her friend or partner, but hadn’t gotten very far in my explanation before she wagged her finger towards me. She demanded to know why she didn’t get a certain deduction on her taxes. She waived a paper in my face saying her friends got this deduction and why didn’t she. United Way promised to get those deductions. The paper was a flier from a United Way in Fort Myers, Florida. I tried to explain that I’m not the one who does the tax returns and we’re a different United Way. She again demanded to know why she didn’t get the deduction. I again tried to explain that I can’t answer that question for her, but could try to find out. She was sure we made a mistake. I acknowledged that was a possibility, our volunteers are good, but sometimes make mistakes. I suggested (unhelpfully) that when she picked her taxes up a week ago and signed for them – that was the time to ask that type of a question. I was trying to get her to take some ownership of the situation. She said she didn’t notice it until she got home. I pointed to the sign on the table and said that’s why I’m required to have every client read the statement that says they are responsible for their own tax returns and for reviewing the work. I give every client time to look over everything. Most don’t. This is an “all sales are final” type of situation – once I see them sign off indicating that everything is ok, I electronically file their taxes. She yelled some more. She said she talked to another friend who talked to an accountant…. at this point, I had to let her know that her friends in other states and their accountants may have different situations than hers. I offered to have one of my volunteer preparers review her return again and if there’s a mistake we could file an amendment. She said we better do something – this was our fault. She complained that the volunteer also messed her taxes up a few years ago – we should stop using him. I said I know nothing about that, I wasn’t here then. She complained that we don’t do a good job. I reminded her that this is a free service staffed by volunteers, and that she does have the option to use other services. Her friend who was with her and looked a little embarrassed had tried to calm her down a few different times. At one point, I told her she’s shooting the messenger – I was trying not to get defensive. I am not trained nor certified to review her taxes, I simply coordinate the program. While I understand taxes better than most people, I can’t explain what circumstances qualify for which credits… I explained to her that the software, provided to us by the IRS, walks our volunteers through everything and is designed to ensure people get the best return possible. She insisted that someone was wrong. I also explained that even if a mistake was made, it would have been precisely that, a mistake. Nobody is out to cheat her. Our goal in running this program is to help people with their taxes, save them some money on the preparation and filing fees, and ensure they get as much money back in their pocket as possible. At this point I was trying to appeal to her better nature hoping she might recognize that we’re doing our best to serve our community. It’s our small attempt at improving economic conditions. She was blind with rage and unable to see that we, especially me, have nothing to gain from not getting her as many credits and deductions as possible. She wanted accountability. Colleagues in other parts of the office could hear her raise her voice at me. I tried not to take it personally, but it felt very personal. I’m just a guy trying to do his job and help some people along the way.
I take these responsibilities seriously. The entire time that she argued and I fumbled through the pages of her return, I was thinking what if we made a mistake? I couldn’t see any mistakes, but without looking at it further I couldn’t ensure that a mistake wasn’t made. And when someone is demanding answers, asking for time to find answers is seldom received well. As it turns out, our volunteer had done everything right – she didn’t qualify for the credit she was demanding. When she came back to pick her papers up again, she continued to insist that we were looking at the wrong credit. I bit my tongue… if you’re certain, and if you have better tax knowledge than my volunteer who just spent extra time on the phone (with me) looking up tax guidance related to that credit, perhaps you should be doing your own taxes. She didn’t apologize. She was still physically shaking with anger. I understood that she was upset about a lot of different things – primarily that other people are getting things and she is not. She was upset probably because she felt helpless – I can understand that. She took her papers and walked quickly out the door.
This was how my Thursday started. Actually, my Thursday started with a 45-minute commute in a driving rain. I was listening to a podcast about gratitude and wondering how to practice gratitude as the 18-wheeler next to me sprayed clouds of water everywhere and occasionally swerved in the wind. The weather here (as I’ve complained about before) can make me downright miserable. It’s been cold, damp, and rainy for days. Given the commute and the weather, I think I did alright with the irate customer. But… I could feel the impact physically. The adrenaline rush and crash of a heated confrontation. It took me some time to get back to functioning normal. I imagine it did for the woman as well. This seems like an unkind thing to do to each other – render other people (and ourselves) stunned and useless because we struggle to understand the root of our own anger.
As a co-worker and I de-briefed, we talked about things like grace, kindness, and decency. I mentioned the podcast from my drive in. The guest talked about a study he had conducted in which people were taught/instructed to practice gratitude and mindfulness. After a few weeks, they were put into an experimental situation where they took the last seat in a waiting room. Then another person came in wearing a boot or a brace for a broken or sprained foot. Among the people who had not practiced gratitude, something like 14% of them would offer up their seat to the newly arrived guest in physical distress. Among those who had practiced gratitude, the number jumped to somewhere around 50%. Perhaps just listening to a podcast about gratitude was enough to help me keep my cool.
While my colleague and I agreed that this woman’s behavior was unacceptable, I found myself offering up defenses or justifications for her. I don’t know what else she might be dealing with. I don’t how her morning went. I don’t know when she “discovered” the mistake she thought we had made, but I can almost guarantee that she spent her entire car ride over to our office preparing for confrontation. We all know what that looks and feels like… we have the argument eight or ten times in our head before we’re even in the same room with the other person. Our worst arguments begin in silence and usually because we anticipate not being heard. We become determined to speak our mind and hold our ground. She felt as though she had missed out on something… as though money was being given away and because of something beyond her control (some dumb volunteer making a mistake), she was going to miss out. Her sense of fairness had been violated…. and that is always dangerous territory.
Crabs in a Bucket
If you’ve ever gone crabbing and kept the crabs in a bucket, you’ll know exactly what the phrase means. They scrabble over each other, they claw and pinch. If one starts to climb the side of the bucket, the others pull it back down. They sometimes rip each other’s claws off. I’ve used this term before when I think about how humans, in lots of different situations, pull each other down and tear each other apart. I’ve had female colleagues say that they don’t like working with other women because they tear each other down. I’ve seen impoverished communities “tell” on each other if they think someone is gaming the system – which then gets written into the unwritten code of not snitching. In the corporate world, getting ahead is highly valued – sometimes, perhaps often, at the expense of others. It wasn’t until recently that I learned this phrase has racial connotations – many people have used it to describe the black community. Even more recently, I read something that gave me an a-ha moment. Yes… we’ve all seen this behavior. Our tendency is to see it as a community flaw or character flaw. What someone from a black community wrote in response to this type of a description was that we’re failing to acknowledge that crabs aren’t supposed to be in a bucket. Give them some space, give them some resources, and they behave differently. We live and work and play in a system that treats life as a zero-sum game. Our entire sense of justice and fairness is rooted in how we perceive our space in the world – especially as it compares to other people who share that space with us. Grace, on some level, is about being able to go beyond our own jealousies and disappointments. Gratitude is a potential salve to the statement, “I want what they have.”
As I spoke with my colleague and tried to process, I had to look within to find times when I didn’t practice grace (there are plenty). I remembered that I skipped my cousin’s wedding because two or three months prior, my own fiancĂ©e had left. I knew I wouldn’t be in a good space to go to the wedding. Not only were we supposed to go to the event together, but it was supposed to be us. I wasn’t going to be able to be happy for my cousin because I felt the world had dealt me some unfair blow and I wanted (deserved) what she was about to have. While the two situations may be wildly different, the root feelings are similar enough. In my line of work, I hear a lot of people complain about other people who are on welfare or collecting unemployment… and so often I think this is an unfortunate projection of internal unhappiness. “I suffered for what I have. I earned what I have. I don’t ever catch a break…. why should they?” This is the opposite of gratitude…. and don’t get me wrong, I am fairly vehemently opposed to the idea that people should be thankful for the few scraps they get. I just think that it does no good to take it out on other people who are also struggling to get by.
Where I Could Have Done Better
Logic seldom works in emotionally charged situations. I know this… and yet routinely fail to change my approach. How might things have played out differently if instead of acknowledging her displeasure and trying to counter with logic and mutual ownership, I had said, “I can see you’re upset, can I get you a glass of water, is there anything I can do to make you feel more comfortable?” This is a hard lesson to learn, and an even harder one to put into practice in the heat of the moment. Kindness, and sometimes humor, has a way of diffusing situations. I want to do better at keeping this front of mind.
I also think that it was a mistake for me to use “a volunteer program” as a defense. For one, all of our volunteers could be better trained. I could also spend more time trying to understand how to explain complicated situations to clients. Time, effort, exhaustion, and a pandemic all work against us in providing better service, but we have to acknowledge that we could do better. But perhaps most importantly, people who can’t afford professional services shouldn’t be relegated to second-rate service. People at food pantries deserve better than that dented and outdated can of asparagus. People in poverty or on the edge of poverty or just regular old folks should have access to the best financial advice around. A more just world means equal access and because so many nonprofits operate with so few resources, we end up thinking “well, it’s better than nothing” when maybe we should be demanding better.
I would have liked the entire situation to play out differently. I have no control over how this woman walks through the world and can only hope that she was having a bad day. Being upset that she didn’t get the same tax credit her friends got isn’t the problem, and yes, her anger was misdirected… but it might not be a lack of gratitude or grace. Because I don’t like to think of people as malicious or intentionally hurtful (though I’m sure some are), I prefer to look at other factors. At root (maybe), is a system in which you have to fight and scrape for every last bit… because we’re all in this stupid bucket, we don’t know why, and someone keeps telling us there might not be enough to eat.