The No Complaining Rule: Positive Ways to Deal with Negativity at Work

Chapter 6. Traffic

"What are you doing?" she yelled out her window as the driver next to her tried to cut in front of her. "Just stay in your own lane. Don't you see I'm here!" I pity the person who tries to mess with me right now, she said, looking at herself in the rearview mirror. I can't believe Dan wants me to come up with a plan to save the company from negativity, she thought to herself. I can't even save myself.

She didn't know how much more she could take. Just yesterday her doctor told her that he detected something "of concern" in her yearly physical and wanted to run some more tests. She knew that breast cancer ran in her family and was terrified that she would be the next one in her family to get it. As she drove home inch by inch, stopping and going, she thought about her doctor's appointment the next day and tried to figure out how she would fit it into her schedule, knowing how adamant Dan was that she create a plan by Monday. After the year she'd had, she certainly didn't want to tell anyone about one more problem in her life. She needed the job to support her two teenagers and also knew she was lucky to work with a leader like Dan. He was the one man in her life who wasn't a jerk. She debated whether she should tell her children about her medical tests and decided to wait until she received the results. They had been through a lot this past year, and it was clearly ...