Work, the Holidays, and Anger Management

It's been a while since I've posted because I've had my hands abundantly full. The time between Thanksgiving and the New Year is always the worst for a claims adjuster. We have a lot of people out on vacation (therefore fewer people to do the work) at the same time that the work load dramatically increases as people have accidents while buzzing around doing Holiday Stuff. At the same time, it's common for someone in management to suddenly initiate a particularly time-consuming project requiring a lot of meetings or additional work from everyone, usually because they were supposed to get to it by the end of the year and hadn't quite managed to do it until now. The activity level in our office is often like a retail store during this same time of year.

Most of the people we need to deal with are a whole lot less patient around the holidays, and this year we have the added bonus of a weak economy. I've seen more suspect claims in the last week than I have in the last two or three months combined, and I doubt that's going to improve anytime soon. Unsurprisingly, I've seen a lot of people who might have shrugged off a few bruises in better times now demanding substantial compensation for "all they've been through", which is usually a single trip to the hospital to be checked out and a few days of soreness. I'm not saying that being in a car accident is a day at the beach (I've been in more than one car accident myself); it's just that a lot of people have a wildly exaggerated idea of what their level of the experience is worth in dollar terms.

The irony is that people who really are seriously injured are too busy coping with genuine physical issues to waste time screaming at claims adjusters, while the ones who raise the most fuss are the ones who've been involved in accidents where you can't even see the damage on their car. There's a lesson for everyday life here and I'd like to say I've fully learned it, since I see it on a daily basis, but I'm sure even the best of us lose their sense of proportion from time to time, and I don't qualify for "the best of us".

Things piled up on me badly at roughly the midpoint of this week, and I had a minor blowup with a co-worker. Not loud, but tense. I'm not happy about that, all the more because I seemed to be getting a much better handle on my temper while under pressure, and this was a big step back in that regard. My reaction was at least partially (if not fully) justified, but that's not a valid excuse for my choice of words.

I barely spoke for the rest of the week, apart from necessary business conversation, and kept my cool no matter what for the rest of an especially busy week. I'm not feeling good about how things played out, and yet I don't feel it's appropriate to apologize any more than I already have. It can take a long time to heal the wounds caused in just a few moments.