Monday, April 12, 2010

H.A.L.T

I was accompanying my friend to a bank. He planned to apply a credit card. He’s so new with the process that he asked so many things. Right there, he was assigned to a marketing guy. Based on the conversation they had, I presumed that the marketing guy was an impatient man. I could tell from the way he explained the process. Wait! He didn’t explain anything. He was bubbling angrily by using the banking language. That’s what I heard. Of course, we all know that the customer with lots of questions and the impatient marketer wasn’t a good combination. My friend felt like he wasn’t treated properly as a customer. So, he turned down the application.

What’s the root causes? It’s simply because of the anger or temper or … can we simply say ‘losing control’?

Losing control of ourselves could possibly lead to something bad. Well, it resulted that way most of the time. I like one of my friend’s timeline on Twitter. It says, ”Reasons why you don’t let your anger off in public are you might be not right and instead of solving the problem, you will blow it up.” So, we can conclude that losing control of ourselves is not beneficial.

Well, some of us would think that talk is cheap. Yeah, I know. Let’s try to figure out how to make it easier to avoid losing control. We probably can start from the symptoms. I myself define the situation that people tend to lose control. It’s HALT. What’s HALT? Halt (in English) shares the same meanings with ‘to stop’. In Bahasa, we have Halte Bus (which I believe halte is adopted from halt). Halte Bus is bus stop. In short, when we get HALT, it means we have to stop. That’s simple.

Okay, what does HALT stand for? They are Hunger, Anger, Lose, and Tired. Hmm, I don’t think it’s necessary to give illustrations of people that are in those symptoms. I believe that you’ve experienced it by yourselves. What should we do when it comes? These are the conditions we should stop. I mean, we must stop! Halt means we have to think before we act, but if we don’t want to think, shut up. It’s simple. When we start feeling those symptoms (like hungry, angry, tired or lost), shut up and think. By doing that, we won’t lose control and won’t let it off.

I am about to conclude. So if you’re thinking that you got a problem with temper, you’ve got the answers already, fellow. Please pay attention on those symptoms. When you feel those and then HALT! Remember, let the anger off in public is not beneficial. First, you may be not right. Second, instead of solving the problems, you’ll blow it up. To top it off, you will make a good relationship with others. Hey, that counts for me!

I guess this is just another frantic thought of mine.