Open Mouth. Insert Foot.

My mother always told me that if I didn't have anything nice to say, don't say it at all. She was that kind of person, I have so much respect for her for for being that way. I obviously got the ill-tempered trait from my father's side. I've put my foot in my mouth plenty of times; in fact one of my new year's resolutions was to be more mindful of my words and actions, which would allow me to think before I speak (or email, or blog or text etc). So far, so good and I am happy to announce the culprit of this post is not me.

As a part of day job I attend career and job fairs to promote the industry. We have a lot of very useful information that we collect from a very credible source -a human resources council specific to our industry. Their sole purpose is to recruit, train and retrain those in our industry. They don't pull statistics out of hat; they do extensive research and provides tools and training to industry associations and firms -such as the one I work for- to deal with issues in our industry's human resources.

Yesterday I attended an event in which my workplace is a sponsor. As a sponsor, we got to set up a booth for students looking for career information. One of the mentors of these students had a problem with one of the statistics (a industry salary average) we had on a banner. So, she decided to yell at me, making a scene in front of everyone present. She thought I was just a face behind a table, little did she know how long I've been doing my job for and what I know, or even what organization I was there representing.  Like a lady, (unlike her) I waited until she was finished her rant, smiled and simply handed her an information sheet with the stamp of the human resources council specific to our industry that provided us with the offending statistic. She threw it at me, told me she'd know because she worked in the industry and stormed off.

As I see it, here is where she went wrong:

- as a "mentor" for these group of students, she was not setting a good example of professionalism
- she basically admitted she makes less than the average person in her position which means she is not good at what she does or has yet to develop. (In which case, she never will with this attitude)
- as someone who had been invited to the event (she was either a teacher or volunteer) she made a big mistake by yelling at one of the event's sponsors (the company I work for)
- she admitted she was from the industry so there is also a high possibility she is also from a member company of my workplace

Her boss could be on the board of directors for where I work. Or, the event could lose our sponsorship over this. That will not be the case, but it could happen.  Either way,  she's bruised a relationship between my workplace and the event. If only we had all made a resolution to think before speaking.