Hot Air Balloon - People's Intentions

This will surely apply to the workplace and family dynamics.

As I've come to learn, the more we are exposed to people and situations, the more we can understand the intentions behind some people.

Is someone friendly?

Is someone pretending to be friendly?

What is the intent of someone who sees you everyday, then decides to message you asking whether you are still frequenting a particular place?

In other words, I'm training myself to read between the lines when people talk.

Sure, they look great, act friendly, but what are their intentions.

Are they trying to extract some information from you?

Are they trying to make fun of you?

Few years ago an incident happened to me, and someone who I thought was a well-wisher was not only a backstabber, but this person was the LEADER OF THE PACK that sought to cause me grief.

Since then, I am trying to assess situations more clearly.

But I don't want to show that I am apprehensive.

If you act too friendly at a workplace, people may take it the wrong way.

If you act too serious at the workplace, people may think something is wrong with you, try to determine your weakness, and attack from there.

Perhaps I am over-thinking this.

But people who act too serious never get ahead.

And people who act too friendly may land in hot water.

How to balance the two?

Recently, an incident happened at work. I instinctively knew that the person was full of Hot Air (based on past experiences), yet others around him thought he was great because spewing out Hot Air takes talent.

And this person was such a nuisance to my work, but we have to be polite and courteous.

Then, this person did something disrespectful. When I confronted him, he tried to back-track, saying he meant it as a friendly gesture. I didn't believe him one bit.

Needless to say this Hot Air Balloon is no longer disrupting my work under the guise of "being productive"

Ok, I'm glad I let it all out.

 

And I really needed this judgement this week. I've been assigned more challenging tasks at work, and the only way to cope is to work with other people from other departments who are more experienced in certain areas of the job. Luckily, I was able to be polite, smiling, professional, while (hopefully) protecting myself.