The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

The Selfish path to romance. Download chapter one for free. Dr. Kenner.com, rabbit, you are dealing with some stress at work.

Yes, I am, Doc.

I can hear it in your voice.

Yeah, tell me what's going on. Well, I'm a heavy equipment operator in the oil field, so it's a rather stressful environment in the first place. We've always got deadlines that are really tight. It's always rush, rush, rush, rush.

Yeah. Well, yesterday, I made the mistake, I suppose, of using some company supplies out of a company vehicle that one of the other operators was using just for transportation.

Yeah. This morning he confronted me about it. I said, "Yeah, I got fuel out of the truck from my machine because I'm behind. I can't keep up with all the fueling all three machines and a truck."

Oh, so you took some fuel from that truck.

Yeah, it's okay. No, I'm just trying to hear you clearly because, yeah, okay, right. You do this every day, and I'm kind of out of I'm not accustomed to doing that, so go ahead.

It's nothing unusual in this company. We're in this line of work. But if one of the trucks has got extra equipment fuel left over, yeah, to get it and use it where you need it.

Yeah, well, I'm not sure why this guy got so upset, yeah, unless maybe he's selling the fuel after hours or something. I was feeling from the company baby. But this morning, he confronted me when we were filling our tanks and threatened to punch me in the face.

Okay, so he's threatening physical force and what? What is your recourse?

Well, at the time, oh, thanks.

Oh, you're breaking up a bit. Sorry.

At the time, I was pretty upset whenever he confronted me there in public and started getting loud and abusive and told me, if I ever touched again, I'd punch him in the face.

Yeah. And so look, dude, man, that's company property in a company truck, yeah, and it was late in the evening, and you're not using it, so I've got a right to take it. Yeah, you tell me, I'll put a padlock on it and I see you look at my truck again. I will punch you in the face.

Okay, okay, so I told him, you know, man, I don't have time for this. I got stuff to do, so I got my truck and I left the area.

Yeah, I went to the job site. Yeah, over the course of the day, I start getting phone calls from other employees on our other job site, yeah, wanting to know what's going on. What's going on? Yeah? Because I talked to the boss about this guy flipping out on me, and he's a great, big muscle-bound bodybuilder guy.

Oh, no, okay.

Yeah. And I was a little bit worried about it because, you know, I'm not a very physically fit person in the first place. Yeah, I told the boss, you know, keep the guy away from me. Don't keep him on any job with me because if he does come after me, I'm gonna pick up something. I'm gonna defend myself.

Right now, I'm hearing from other employees that he's going all over the company, telling everybody I'm a rat, that I've turned him in. I tried to get him fired, and he's gonna catch me after hours, and he's gonna stone me in on mud.

Okay, so this sounds like an elite you're talking about workplace violence. He's made a physical threat against you. It sounds like you did everything, from the way you're describing it, that you did a lot of things right, that you just said, "Man, I don't have time for this." So you didn't escalate it. You didn't say, "I'm going to punch you back." You didn't threaten him. You went to the other person. You first, you tried to reach the guy by reason, by telling him, "Look, it's company property, and it's fine to do this." The second thing is that you sound like you dealt with him decently. Then you went one step further, which you absolutely morally needed to do for yourself and for the situation, which is to tell your boss about it. Now, I don't know how it got out in the field, whether your boss said something.

I don't know how the other side of it, I went on to work, and I've been out there all day hearing phone calls and rumors coming back at me from my other friends in this company. By Wow, dude, what'd you do? This guy's out to get you now.

Okay, you need facts, and it sounds like you need to go to the next level for your own protection, which would be what?

Well, really, other than me finding a different job, or him finding a different job. I don't know what else I did. I might get police to file a restraining order or something.

Yeah, that's what crossed my mind. I might, I might at if you do have a human resources at the company.

No, unfortunately, we don't.

You don't, I'm not sure, right? I might just contact the local police and ask them for as much guidance because if you're dealing with potential workplace violence, man, you want to catch it early and you start, yeah.

This has just been bugging me all day, yeah, and it would bug any, I think, any rational person. It would bug because you have a physical, vague threat against you, and before it escalates, you don't want to escalate it. You don't want to counter-threaten him. And you haven't done that, you know, you walked away from it. But because he feels really threatened, now you can ask your boss for advice. Is there a boss above your boss?

Nope, no, owner of the company.

He's the owner of the company. I would ask him for guidance, and then you independently can go to the police and just say, "problem is that he inherited the company from his father when his father was killed in an accident." Okay, three years old. What? He has no idea how to deal with this. Another thing becomes recently disabled and she can't drive.

Okay, so it's really so your life comes first. You could try, Hey, I gotta interrupt this because we've got to pay some bills. 30 seconds, that's it. A very quick ad, and then Alan will be back. Romance.

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Huh? The Selfish path to romance that is interesting. So your life comes first. You could try going back to this guy and just, I mean, if he confronts you, I wouldn't go seek him out. If he confronts you, say, "man, you know I regret that I did that," and you know, it's not an apology. You regret that you did it because of him, but you might try to diffuse him, you know? But my guess is, usually when someone's pulse is above 100 meaning they're really angry. It doesn't have to it's usually, you're not the primary source of this guy's anger, the guy that's angry with you, this bodybuilder who's angry with you. You know you're not the primary source. You, you're just someone that happened to be in the way. You know how someone can be mad at something else, and then you happen to catch it. You happen to be the dog in the path of somebody who was angry and they kicked the door.

I'm afraid that it's thoroughly focused on me, right?

He is focused on you.

He is focused on you, trying to get into my motel room, and he's over there, across the way.

Oh, he is, oh, I would call the cops. I No, I think you need to call the cops. I need he has crossed the line. I would do that for myself. I would do that for my kids. I mean, ultimately, it's your decision. It is your life. Though he's not messing around, and if he's a bodybuilder, I don't know his psychology, but it doesn't sound like it's that stable. So I would, I would really, I think you're right to have focused on it rather than to, you know, laugh it off or something. But I think it's beyond what you can do. I mean, I wouldn't be able to physically defend myself. I would, I would need to keep all the cops on him. I'm going to lose my job.

But you have your life, you years of effort in this company, and I don't plan on, you know, it's going to be a tough call. I don't know what it what you can do, whether you can hire a private investigator or somebody guard for yourself, it's just that you're going to need to document what's going on. If people have been sending texts or tweets or emails, you might need that evidence with the police. You need if you think of what you would do if it was your son in this situation or a loved one in this situation, what advice would that you give them? And that's the advice you'd want to give yourself.

That's not good advice, because I know what I do. If somebody was threatening my child situation, what would you do? I would react quite wrongly, strong.

Okay, you don't want to react strongly. You want to react self within self-defense. So I would get the consider getting myself mannered first listen. I know we need to wrap it up. I would consider getting support from outside. You know, it's ultimately your choice. Listen. Thank you so much for the call.