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Climbing Mountains, Breaking the Bad Habits and other Miracles We Expect

This week another workforce development professional was case conferencing with me about a customer she had in her job readiness class for TANF customers. She was frustrated because the customer was disrupting the flow of the class with her flow of comments about her personal issues, therefore sucking up the time of and energy out of the class.  As a result of our conversation, the customer was referred for additional support services for barrier resolution.

I could sense the frustration on her face. As a facilitator, you expect everyone to be open, willing, and ready to accept the information we are presenting, but the truth is that very little of the people that we work with are at that point.  

So why are we frustrated?  We are expecting miracles from people. We are expecting people to Climb Mount Everest in bare feet. We are expecting people to have one conversation with us and the light bulb goes off in our head and they can do it. Sounds like a workforce development fairy tale!

§  Negativity- This is something that many people, employed or not have an issue with. It is hard for people to look at their lives, even when they have jobs, homes, and stability and find that everything will be ok. It is so easy to find that you should have something bigger and better. Many people have a big case of this.  So, why do we expect that our customers, that are unemployed to be positive. It’s hard and takes work to be positive when your life is unstable. Maybe they are homeless or in unsafe housing? Maybe their children are in danger?  How can you be positive when you do not have food security or your mental and physical health care needs are not being met? This is a tall order. Although being positive will help anyone get through a difficult time, the greater the barriers, the higher the mountain is.

§  People will do things because we said so. – If that was true, we could eliminate One Stop Career Centers and replace them with online videos on what people need to do to get employed. Although the videos may help some people, most of the time, they do not. That’s why the One Stop Career Centers exist and why we see the same people over and over again. Truth is some people need to hear the message more than once. Some people need to hear the message from different people. Some people will hear the message, not believe it, and then come back to wonder why they are still unemployed. Some people will hear the message and never take any action or do the opposite action.

So what as workforce development professionals should we do to ease our frustrations and help our customers.  It all starts with us. Empathy is the ability to put yourself in someone else’s shoes for a moment.  We need put everything in perspective. So the next time you hear a coworker say “I am so upset, Jane always misses her appointments and then walks in whenever she feels like it.”  You can remind that coworker that Jane is a single mother trying to find affordable and safe childcare and a job at the same time. In the big picture, Jane may not be able to handle all these tasks and the appointment time may not be the priority.   In perspective, do the behaviors of others really frustrate us if we put it in perspective? Hopefully by understanding the perspective of another we can achieve peace within ourselves. Another result will be better customer service and ultimately customer satisfaction.  


Questions and comments are welcome. Feel free to email me at kcirincione@gmail.com. I would like to wish all the Veterans a Happy Veteran’s Day and thank you for your service. Certainly I would not have my 1st Amendment freedom and this blog if it were not for the men and women of the armed services fighting for our country. THANK YOU! ~Karen Cirincione

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