Quite Contrary

     A couple of years ago I worked with a flight attendant...we'll just call her Mary.

     I thought she looked familiar:  "I think we've flown together."

     "No, we haven't."  Mary said immediately.

      We fly with thousands of people and everyone does start to run together.  If someone said they remembered me, I would just feel rude for forgetting them.  

     Mary and I worked in main cabin together on that trip and it was total misery.  It took me a while to figure out why.



     We had some things in common.  She had a sense of humor...at moments.  But there was all this tension; even the smallest interaction seemed difficult.  She just wore me out.

     I asked if we were on the same schedule the whole month.  When Mary said we were, I said "Oh, okay, great."  But, I was really thinking:  Oh crap.  I'm going to have to trade every single one of these trips.  I can't do this all month!  

        I kept wondering what I was doing wrong.  Why was it so hard to get along?

       The very first interaction should have been a clue.  The woman argued about everything.

       She said she was wearing a pedometer she'd just gotten at a health fair at work.  I said that must be interesting since flight attendants walk so far in a day.  She said:  "We don't walk that far."

       I asked how far she'd walked that day (We were only half-way through one of our easier days.)  She said she'd walked 4 and a half miles.

     "I think that's more than most people walk in their work day."

     "I'd say it's way below average."

     ...okay.

      I commented that someone's lavender shirt was very pretty.  Mary said the shirt wasn't lavender...it was lilac.

     She said she was painting a room in her house and had never done any painting before.  (I could hardly imagine being a grown woman and never having painted anything...I paint anything that doesn't move.)  I told her about a show I'd just seen on HGTV where they said you should roll in 'W' shapes to be sure and cover all the texture on a wall.

     She said that would make it come out uneven.  (Uh, yep - I, who'd painted dozens of rooms, and the expert on the TV show,...knew nothing compared to her.)

     By day two of the first trip I wanted to kill her.  I wanted to tear my hair out.  I wanted to run screaming out the door...even if we weren't on the ground.

     If I were going to be mean describing Mary, I'd probably have gone with the all-purpose term of 'bitch' at that point.  But it was more complicated than that.  I could tell she really meant no harm...she just couldn't help herself.  It seemed it would, actually, kill her to agree with anyone.  It was against her religion or something.

     I'm probably way too far down on the 'go along and get along' end of the spectrum.  I figure the most important thing is to get through the work day.  I don't want to marry these people.  I'm never going to see them again...

      Her idea was to methodically convince the entire rest of the world that they are WRONG and she is RIGHT.  She couldn't let anything go.  Nothing.  She could surely 'argue with a fence post'.  She'd probably win, too.

     I ended up working every single trip of the month with her.  No one wanted to trade with me.  Clearly, her reputation preceded her.

     I decided to treat the whole thing as a lesson.  I've noticed when I don't deal very well with some type of situation, it just keeps coming up again and again.   I took this as a challenge to figure out how best to handle her.

    I looked at her like a particularly cranky lab rat.  I came up with a hypothesis:  She is a Contrarian.

     I defined terms:  A Contrarian must disagree with everything that's said.  There is no compromise in a conversation with a Contrarian.  They need to have the final word.  No matter how small the comment, no matter how petty, no matter how casually you say it...they must refute it.  The idea of 'casual' doesn't exist in Contrary-land.

     I studied the creature and it's habits:  She was brilliant at turning every little interaction into World War III.  It was like spending a month straight in an appointment at the Argument Clinic from the Monty Python skit:  I'd say I didn't want to argue.  She'd say I did.  I'd say Two Forty-Five,  Mary'd say Quarter to Three.  I'd say Up.  She'd say Down...

     I experimented with different tactics.  Arguing back didn't work...she loved it.  She wanted to argue all day.  More and more it became clear that staying quiet worked best.  I tried not to react at all but she was very clever at drawing me out.   It was like a game to see how long I could avoid any real communication with her.  The minute I said something...anything:   Bam!  She'd pounce on it.  And I'd think:  "Dang it.  She got me again!"

     I, eventually, trained myself to give no reaction to her contradictions.  I learned to just smile serenely and change the subject.  If she contradicted something I said, I'd say something like:  What's your favorite brand of deodorant?  How 'bout those Lakers?  Look!  Something shiny!...

     Through my research I concluded that Contrarians feed on getting people agitated and annoyed.  My unwillingness to react really started getting to her.  She started disagreeing with other flight attendants, van drivers, the people checking us in at hotels...

     Luckily, she never really argued with passengers.  At least I only had to deal with Mary.  Adding a lot of irritated passengers to the mix would have been way too much.

     I consider it a major victory that I got through the month.  I didn't kill her, and I didn't check myself into a padded room.

     Periodically, I'll hear her name come up, and everyone just groans.  It's like:  "Oh, *groan*, Mary...ugh."  And they, immediately, look tired.

---

     I was reminded of all of this because I flew with a new-hire last month who was just like her.   I didn't mind so much this time because a) I really have learned to deal with Contrarians, and b) This girl is junior to me!!!)

     After her 4th or 5th argumentative response to me saying things like:  Good Morning.  (No, it isn't.)  Nice pilots.  (I heard the First Officer was a jerk...), I picked up on what was going on.  I felt like saying out loud:  "Oh!  You're a Contrarian!  Why didn't you say so?"

     From then on, I just let her talk.  I smiled.  I nodded.  I found any reason to be where she wasn't...

     She, eventually, got bored and went off to argue with someone else.
   
     The poor guy working in main cabin with her was slowly going crazy.  He came up mid-way through the first day of the trip and said:  "What is it with her?  She's impossible!"

     I shared my Contrarian Theory.  At first, he was unconvinced, but by the next flight he said:  "That's it!  I just told her that this would be an easy service since it was light."  (Few passengers.)  "She said it would be hard because the passengers were really demanding.  I said I like the new paint job on the planes - she said it was ugly."

     I confirmed that this was Classic Contrarian behavior.

     The rest of the trip he'd come up and tell me how good the new-hire was at twisting things around, and how he wasn't reacting at all.

     It made her absolutely crazy.  It was like she was slowly imploding before our eyes.

     Yeah.  It was fun to watch.

   
What's your favorite 'Crazy co-worker' story?