Interpersonal conflict is one of the most common situations we will face in our daily lives with our family members, friends or spouse. One of the examples of interpersonal conflict that I had came across was when working in a pharmacy department in one of the local hospital during my vacation.
During my stay there, some of the new nurses were told to approach Mike, one of our staff, to obtain a booklet from him urgently. Mike was the only person who distributes the booklet to the nurses at a certain time of the day. However, the time for collecting the booklet had passed. Mike, who tends to stick to his working principles, immediately refused to give in to them as he afraid others might take advantage of it. On the other hand, the nurses, who were strong-headed and new to the job, refused to give in too. Moreover, it was an order from their supervisor to collect the booklet. As anger got built up, one of the nurses started yelling at Mike, saying “Can you just give it to us as it is your duty to do so.” Mike raised his voice in a defensive manner and replied, “no means no, which part of it you do not understand.” I was just two rooms and yet I could hear their yelling.
Out of curiosity, people started to gather around Mike’s room to see what actually had happened. The yelling from the nurses continued for quite sometime. At last, they finally gave up and went off. Mike was very shocked about the nurses’ bad attitude towards him as they are new. He felt that he should be respected as he has been working in the company for more than 30 years.
Every individual working in an organisation has to follows rules and regulations, are they mend to be broken so easily? New employees being rude to senior staff, what should be done? Does yelling back at them helps? Is Mike in the right position to make his stand such that others will not take advantage of him in the future?
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I felt that Mike was just afraid that people might climb over his head and not respect him at all. While in the nurses case, they are just scare that they will get scolded from their supervisor for not getting it. From the way they yell at each other, it doesn't help with the situtation at all. The new nurses could have probably just explain to Mike properly, on why they are late for collections. While Mike on the other hand should understand on different situtation and not just stubornly refuse.
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