Losing My Cool

It was the day before the start of the long weekend and the advent of the Ox Year. All around, the office was beginning to be shrouded in a cloak of festivities and joy. Work should be winding down. For the Line Finance and the Business Analysts, budget numbers were in the midst of finalising. All templates were supposed to be submitted by this day.

My Business Analyst could not tie his numbers. I decided to help him given that he was not Finance-trained, so reconciliation of numbers could be an arduous task. As I could not make the decision for him on where to throw the differences, I made him sit beside me while I brought him through the differences. He became flustered and refused to take in what I was telling him ten minutes into the discussion. Perhaps he was too stressed out by all the numbers as it was his first time taking a business analyst role. Perhaps he was running out of time as it was nearing knock-off time.

He started to get angry with Finance for creating all these templates and started shouting at me. He refused to listen to what I was saying. I could feel the heat rising in my head. Moreover, I knew he had started shutting his mind off from me as he crumbled under the stress. The reason why I was so familiar with what he was going through because I had gone through what he was going through about a year ago.

I could not take it anymore. I started raising my voice at him. In gist, I scolded him for blaming Finance. I told him that if I were not trying to help, I would have just told him what were the differences instead of sitting down and running through rows by rows with him on where the differences and how we could reconcile them. It was the first time I had shouted so loudly that even my subordinate dropped me a message to ask me if I was alright and if I needed help.

After I have managed to get his attention, I gritted my teeth and continued to speak to him in even tones. Finally, we got the whole spreadsheet reconciled and sorted out.

I felt bad for shouting at him, but I refused to let myself be a doormat. Moreover, I felt that why I needed to subject to his shouting when all I was doing was helping. Hopefully, he would not take it too personally.