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PROGRAM D-7859
If you’ve ever had to deal with someone who was very demanding, rude, intimidating, and generally obnoxious, then you can relate to our friend, Fran. In our on-going story of Fran and Jesus on the Job, Fran is learning to re-frame a difficult customer, Marge, who has been making Fran’s life pretty miserable. After praying that the Lord would help her to see Marge the way he does, she realized that Marge is very frightened, and Marge even told her why: she’s scared of losing her job.
Fran works frantically to complete Marge’s job on time, and a little after 3:30 she has it done. “Whew, we made it, Lord,” Fran says to Jesus, as she calls Marge. The same abrupt greeting comes as Marge answers the phone, and Fran tells her she has the report ready to e-mail to her.
“How many pages is it?” Marge asks.
“It’s about 12 pages,” Fran replies.
“Took you all this time to do 12 pages?” Marge replies with sarcasm.
Everything in Fran wants to strike back at Marge. She killed herself to get this report ready and Marge can’t even say thank you. She opens her mouth to voice some of her frustration, but she hears Jesus say, Remember Marge’s new frame: Frightened.
Suddenly Fran can see Marge in this new frame—with fear all over her face. So, instead of venting her anger, Fran says, “I agree, Marge. As hard as I’ve worked, seems to me like it ought to be about 100 pages. But I wanted to make sure there were no errors and that everything was laid out very clearly. If you have to present this to your management, you don’t need a silly error making you look bad, I figured.”
The phone is quiet for a few seconds, and finally Marge says, in a quieter manner, “Well, that’s true. At least you kept your promise and got it to me by 4:00. Send it to me right away, and uh, thanks, Fran.” With that, she abruptly hangs up.
“’Thanks, Fran!’ Did you hear that Lord? She has never before thanked me for anything,” Fran says in amazement as she hangs up the phone. “I guess new frames can help—even with difficult people!”
Fran thinks about that conversation: I didn’t say anything to her about being frightened, but I guess the fact that I saw her as frightened rather than obnoxious changed the way I responded to her. That, in turn, changed the way she responded to me. Interesting, very interesting, she thinks with a grin.
Can you think of someone in your life that you need to re-frame? You may be amazed at how it helps.