Psychology

Working at a bank as a customer service representative provides an opportunity to interact with a lot of people. While most of the interactions are pleasant, some customers behave irately due to bad circumstances and unpleasant experiences with our banking system. This is where the fallacy of approval arised, as I used to blame myself for the customers problems. No matter how hard I tried, it was impossible to make some customers happy and that made me feel inadequate. However, I began to notice that the same irate customer would be happy on another day, even without trying hard. Thats when I realized that my quest to win everyones approval was just impossible. The sooner I accepted that, the more satisfied I felt with my job.

As I am a Brazilian and not an American by birth, I used to feel awkward about my accent when I first started to work in America four years ago. In the beginning, I was self-conscious and worried about what my co-workers thought of my speech pattern. I even used to be a little concerned when a customer asked me to repeat myself. This was a classic case of fallacy of perfection, as I wanted to sound like a native speaker right from day one. When I started to observe different speech patterns even among native speakers, I realized that there is no such thing as the perfect accent. As I started to interact with more people, I began to realize that people were more interested in what I was saying and not how I was saying it. This not only made me more confident, but also helped me get forge strong relationships at work.

When I first started working in the bank, the job involved a lot monotonous tasks. Hence, fatigue was starting to show up and this led to a minor incident. When I was advised by the manger to be more careful in future, I made it a habit to expect the worst-case scenario at all times. This fallacy of catastrophic expectations made the job even more tiresome, which affected my efficiency at work. One day, I came across a magazine article that explained how things are not always as bad as they seem to be. Since I wanted to make a serious change, I decided to let go off the fear and got back to being my calm self. From that day on, I feel much lighter at heart and that makes more efficient worker. Overcoming these fallacies have not only helped me advance my career, but also grow as a person.