Recently, I posted 35 Questions to Help You Know Yourself or Others Better. One of its questions was, “What do people misunderstand about you?” My Psychology Today article today offers two composite letters from people who feel misunderstood.
Recently, I posted 35 Questions to Help You Know Yourself or Others Better. One of its questions was, “What do people misunderstand about you?” My Psychology Today article today offers two composite letters from people who feel misunderstood.
Speaking of being misunderstood, I have one for you. I wonder if your clients ever experienced this.
ReplyDeleteI meet every other week with my boss to go over the most pressing projects I’m working on. I explain what I am doing for each project and usually why I am doing what I am doing to be as clear as possible. In one of the meetings my boss repeated everything I told him (not verbatim but close) and then asked, “Does that make sense?” I had to do everything I could to keep from laughing. I managed to just smile and say, “Yes it does.” But lately he’s been asking this in nearly every meeting. It is annoying, not to mention a waste of time. I want to say, “You just repeated everything I said. How could I NOT understand?”
Also, my co-workers are saying the same thing when they request I do something for them. In fact, it happened a couple of times this week.
I find this very condescending. What are they thinking? “She’s an idiot and I disdain her so let me ask her in the most condescending way I can if she understands.”
I am in my sixties and these people are all half my age or younger. I figure they think I’m old and slow, and they probably don’t want to work with old people.
What’s your take?