Dear coaches,
I am having trouble with the R line of my models (unintentional and intentional), in the sense that I don’t see how it comes back to the thought. I am regularly stuck on the R line, so I’m thinking it might be because my models aren’t very “clean”.
Context/thought download: When Covid first started, my associates and I disagreed on what was an appropriate reaction. Our business was a grocery store, whose legal status was a cooperative and participatory company. I created it with three associates in 2016, and new employees were encouraged to become associates and help run the business. So by 2020 there were 10 associates. There was no hierarchy, and everyone was paid the same salary regardless of seniority (it was a beautiful utopia designed to encourage employees to participate and give their best to the company they now jointly owned, but that backfired because not everybody has the same definition of what “giving their best” means). I am using past tense because I was so disappointed with people’s behavior for so many years that I ended up leaving a year ago (the Covid crisis management being the final straw). But I often think about it and can’t seem to move on, especially since my boyfriend still works there.
As a rural grocery store selling basic food and supplies, when the Covid crisis started people panicked and started to stock up on supplies. And because schools and restaurants were closed, people ate more at home (instead of eating out for lunch) so were buying more food from grocery stores. So our sales increased by 30%. Some of the associates panicked as well, thinking we were all going to die, and stopped coming to work altogether, locking themselves up in their homes. Some of the associates’ wives panicked and said it was too dangerous to keep working and they needed help with the children, so the associates regularly took weeks of unpaid leave based on how bad the media was saying the epidemic was developing, to reassure their spouses and keep the peace at home.
I completely disagreed with these choices because if we had all done the same, the store would have closed and the business would have gone bankrupt (loss of revenue, losing the stock when the food goes bad, with still having to pay the rent and most expenses).
Also if all people working in supermarkets had acted like this, society would have fallen apart and there would have been riots in the streets if people couldn’t get food. Also we pride ourselves with working with 80 small local farmers and artisanal food producers who would have been in a lot of trouble if we had stopped buying their products. But the people who usually boast about how much good we do by supporting the local economy only cared about themselves in the moment of truth.
So basically the associates who did come to work had an increase workload of 70% (with the increase in sales and having to do other people’s share of the work), and I went into burn out (had a lot of stress, couldn’t sleep because I was so outraged by the unfairness of the situation). The people who abandoned us in the heart of the crisis never said sorry for what we had to go through or thank you for holding down the fort, and still say that they stand by their choice (even though none of us got sick because we took all necessary precautions, and we’re all young and fit and not the “high risk population”).
I know that technically these are all thoughts but I so heartily believe them to be true, my brain has so much evidence, that I really have to force myself not to put them as circumstances in my models… It’s like I intellectually know that this can’t go in the C line because unfortunately I have all too many examples of people who don’t agree (that’s the whole problem), but in my heart and soul I am so utterly convinced by this.
Here’s the unintentional model:
C: Associates disagree on the appropriate behavior during Covid.
T: They should be ashamed of their selfish behavior and at least say they’re sorry
F: Outrage
A: Can’t let go, lose faith in mankind, close myself off, hate on them, ruminate.
R: “I am ashamed of my behavior”? But I’m not. Or “I wish my behavior today would be different” ? In the sense that I wish I could move on? But I think I have trouble letting go because that means I would have to forgive them and I don’t think they deserve it. Or maybe I can let go without letting them off the hook…
Intentional model:
C: Associates disagree on the appropriate behavior during Covid.
T: I am learning to accept that people can disagree on anything.
F: Acceptance.
A: Move on.
R: ??
Thank you for your help and sorry if I was ranting in my thought download.
