What Is the Difference?

What makes a request from one person truly sound like a request, while the same request from someone else sounds like a demeaning order?

I have tried to figure that out for the last few weeks. It isn't the tone of voice, at least I don't think so. It's not saying "please" while making the request or a "thank you" after having fulfilled the request.

It seems to me to be an overall attitude. I believe that some people can make a request, forgetting the niceties of please and thank you and yet have it still come across as a request. There is a feeling or sense of gratitude even when it is unspoken.

Perhaps the difference lies in what is done in between the myriad requests. I believe it is in the attitude of the person making the request.

I was a nurse for over 20 years. I am now a volunteer in a hospital one day a week. Everyone I volunteer with knows that I used to be a nurse, but no longer practice. Nursing, like being Catholic, is something you don't just get over. You may no longer practice, but all the rules and regulations, all the information, are still floating around inside. You can't get past it.

I spent 12 years trying to anticipate the needs of those around me. It is what made me a really good OR nurse. I knew that Dr. A always looked at the x-ray reports as soon as the portable in-room x-ray marked a spot. And so, unlike my peers, I had the chart open for him to read the x-ray. It always made him smile. It made me smile, too. I was doing my job, and doing it well. It really is the little things that make the difference in job performance.

And so with volunteering, I try to anticipate the needs of the nurses. The longer I've been in one place, the easier it is to learn the routine and flow and be able to plan accordingly. It is simply what I do. Nurse A likes a copy of this while Nurse B doesn't. Therefore, I make a copy for Nurse A and don't for Nurse B. How easy is that?

Some days are more hectic than others. It's been that way since the dawn of time and is no different whether I'm a licensed nurse myself or the volunteer helping the other licensed nurses. There is a feeling of togetherness or divisiveness that permeates a room. The togetherness feeling fosters a sense of gratitude whether the magic words are spoken or not.

Perhaps it is an overall attitude. Complaining people, crabby people, whining people, tend to bring the mood of a room down. Even when they say please or thank you, it is with a sense of necessity and has nothing to do with the sincere appreciation of the endeavors of others to help make the day go more smoothly. And that, I believe, is the crux of the problem.

Some people are naturally willing to accept and give help and they tend to offer sincere hints at gratitude for help given in return. Crabby or complaining people tend to look for what went wrong, what is going wrong, or what will go wrong in the near or far future. To them, life is just one damn thing after the other and there is little appreciation or even notice of all the good that is going on around them.

And so, there are times when I feel like I have truly helped people who are involved in a demanding and stressful job. And then there are times when I feel like a subservient idiot who should be thankful that the world has allowed me to keep breathing. Amazingly enough, I do more, go more out of my way, and find more enjoyment in helping the former and spend less time in actually helping the latter. Making, I suppose, a self-fulfilling prophecy for the whiner.

Thank you for reading this.