A few months ago, someone came around my workplace. It was a weekend, official duties ended the day before, meaning my boss wasn't around. He had been around for a while, as our workplace is a workspace. After some time he came to me and asked me a few questions.
I'm always a bit on edge with strangers and rightly so because of the nature of my environment. I didn't trust this stranger but I was willing to hear him out. He mentioned that he was looking for my boss and needed his help with a project he was working on. He asked me for his contact and I told him I couldn't give it out without his permission but what I could do was reach out to my boss on his behalf.
I messaged my boss and gave him a little preamble. While we were waiting for his response, this stranger started asking me lots of personal questions. I was already uncomfortable from the onset and just gave curt responses to his questions. My boss took a while and at this point his patience had run out. He then asked for my contact and I told him I wasn't going to give it to him.
His reason for asking for it was viable to him, but I didn't really want to have anything to do with him so I refused. It was at this point that this dude crashed out. It was appealing to me how he felt that I couldn't refuse his request. Mind you, I've been trying to help him throughout our conversation and linking him to my boss.
He told me lots of things, some were aggressive, some were mean, some others were just plain funny. I just ignored him and focused on my work.
I remembered this event and up to this point, I still don't know what I did wrong to that guy. It's a funny memory but it's sad that people don't anticipate that they will not always get what they want. And not everyone will bend to your will and show up at your beck and call. You may have to build relationships and service them before you get what you really want.
I learnt that a while ago and it's something worth sharing.
