Ashley Espinoza

COMM 2110
Personal Change Final Paper
Date: May 1, 2018

This paper will the personal change I have made this semester. My goal was to change
some habits that have been putting a strain on my social interactions. I decided to try
this task out at my job. I am a front desk person at the South Jordan Fitness and
Aquatic Center. My job is to talk to the patrons and make sure they have an enjoyable
experience.I applied one of the strategies provided in the textbook that used three
simple steps to make sure I am actively listening. These steps include stopping myself
from getting distracted, look at non-verbal cues to keep the conversation going and
listening and taking mental notes. I have found that I have created a stronger
relationship with those I interacted with. Although I have made some progress, I still
have a long way to go.

Unwanted Communication Pattern

I have a habit of getting angry when someone does something I find annoying or says
something I find offensive. I want to change this action because it is destructive
behavior. There are times when I have overreacted to a situation and it backfired in my
face. I have found that when I get angry, my judgment gets cloudy and I get distracted.
In these instances, I am not actively listening to what other people are saying. I need to
de-escalate my anger in my mind and step back to hear what the other person is
saying.

Here are a couple examples:

● When I got my first job in retail, I was surprised at the things people would get
mad at. Since I was new, many people were understanding about how I didn’t
know how to properly use the cash register. During my second week, a woman
came to me with several coupons. I remembered in the handbook that we could
only use one coupon at a time. I politely explained this to her and she insisted I
was wrong. I told her that I may have been new but I still knew the rules. After a
while, she went off on this huge rant about how she and her family have been
shopping at this department store for thirty years and how I was too stupid to do
my job. I then told her that she could go to another store. She soon got ahold of
my manager and started complaining about me. My manager calmly told her that
she could only use one coupon but gave her another 15% off. That day I could
have been fired for reacting the way I did. Luckily, my manager was very
understanding of the situation.
 ● During the last week of senior year, I was lounging around my math class when I
notice a guy laying on the floor. He was one of those guys that didn’t really care
about anything and didn’t put in any effort to succeed. I was always taking
pictures of people falling asleep or goofing off. I took a Snapchat of him on the
floor and captioned the picture, “*Sigh* It is so hard to be a straight white guy.”
After class, he sent me a message saying that I had no right to say that and that
my life as a minority was not hard. I didn’t say anything and he kept messaging
me. At our graduation party, I ran into some of his friends. We were all comparing
math final scores when he came up to me. He asked me why I never responded
to him and I politely told him that he didn’t want a conversation, he wanted an
argument. After a while, I forgot about the incident until he direct messaged me
on Twitter. He asked if I was ever going to respond to his messages. I became
so annoyed that I posted the entire Snapchat and direct message conversations
on Twitter. I decided to leave off his name for privacy reasons. I didn’t want any
contact with him anymore so I blocked him on all social media. Some of our
mutual friends recognized the conversation and told me that I was overreacting.
Others just stopped talking to me altogether. It has been almost a year and I
have regained a relationship with some of these individuals but there was
significant damage done. I should never have posted the initial post or the
revenge tweet. It was not worth losing those relationships.

In both of these instances, I didn’t actively listen to what these people were trying to say
to me because I was too focused on how angry I was. In the first incident, I was so
insistent that I was right that I wasn’t listening to what the customer was saying to me. In
the second incident, I let my annoyance take over and I didn’t think about the
repercussions of my actions. If I had known how to use the information I know now, I
would have salvaged those broken relationships.

Strategies
When I finally realized that I needed to change these habits, I decided to use the Stop,
Look, Listen strategy to fix my problem. I wanted to learn how to actively listen to not
only maintain my current relationships but create new ones. I wanted a better outcome
to my communication.

For my strategy, I wanted to focus on active listening. Beebe (2014) outlines several
steps that makes sure I am actively listening:
 1. Stop (pg. 129): In this technique, I will tune out any distracting competing
messages. I must become conscious that I’m being distracted and talk myself
into being focused

2. Look (pg. 129): I must become aware of the person’s non-verbal cues and
monitor my own movement to keep the other person engaged. I need to establish
eye contact and avoid weird movements.

3. Listen (pg. 129): I need to create meaning behind the other person’s verbal and
non-verbal messages. I must mentally take notes to be used later and link details
to main ideas.

Constraints
I ran into a couple issues when I was attempting to change my communication skills.
The most restricting issue was my inability to hold back my anger. Although I try to keep
the thought at the forefront of my mind, it was hard for me to tell myself to calm down.
There was one instance where a mother was not watching her children and they were
playing in the weighing area. Only people 14 and older were allowed so this made me
concerned. I told the children calmly that they couldn’t be there. They left but came back
a few minutes later with their mom. They told her that I yelled at them. I explained to her
that I was just telling them that they couldn’t be in that area. She argued that it shouldn’t
matter unless they are hurting themselves. Just as she concluded, one of her kids
dropped a 2-pound weight on his foot. He was crying loudly, which attract some people.
The mom began blaming me for putting weights around a small child. The argument
soon escalated and I had to throw her out of the building. I told her she couldn’t come
back until she and her family followed the rules.I let my anger get the best of me and I
should have.

Another constraint I had was somewhat out of my control. I found it was hard for the
patrons to trust me. I am one of the youngest employees at the front desk. People
usually assume I’m 16 and don’t listen to what I have to say. In one instance, a young
college couple came up to me. I was helping them to find the best payment plan for
them. I tried to sympathize with them since I am a college student myself. They looked
at me confused and said that I could not possibly be old enough to be in college. I told
them I was almost 19 and they were shocked. I soon realized a lot of people had this
same mentality. I knew I needed to change this perspective on be before I lost all
credibility. There were some instances where I felt like I resolved both constraints
perfectly.

Implementation
When I started this behavioral change, I knew that the first thing I had to do was
overcome my first constraint. These reactions were first nature to me. This was not
going to be easy. In conversations that I felt angry, I needed to step back from the
situation and evaluate my feelings.

In one specific instance, I had to apply my listening comprehension skills when dealing
with an angry patron. We have a rule where parents have to swim with their children if
they are under 6. A man came in with his 4-year-old daughter and was infuriated when
he heard our policy seeing as he didn’t bring his swimsuit. He started yelling at me right
in the face and I really wanted to yell back at him.

Instead, I decided to keep a level head and let him know that if he couldn’t comply with
our rules, he had to leave. I was not usually one to handle those situations but my
supervisor was unavailable. When she came back, I told her everything that happened.
She was impressed that I kept my cool and taking authority. I am usually one to yell
back in an altercation so I was proud of myself for knowing to stop myself.

In another instance, I have a coworker that is constantly talking, to the point where it is
extremely annoying. She would always talk about the guys she meets in St. George
when she visits her parents. My coworker usually ignores her but I found that it was
hurting her feelings. I would never want to make someone feel bad for expressing
themselves. I knew that I had to be the one to make her feel heard.

Instead of ignoring her like my coworkers do, I decided to listen to what she was saying,
even if I honestly didn’t care. I found this approach to be useful. She seemed happier
when she left that night. She told me that she appreciated me listening what she had to
say and that we are starting to become friends. Even though I don’t really want to be
friends with her, I was glad that I made her feel heard.

The second thing I had to work on was getting the patrons to trust me. Since I am so
young, it was harder than I thought. I just kept pushing and pushing until one patron
started to divulge information. I kept mental notes so I could talk about it again later.
These practices really helped.

In one instance, one of our regular patrons, Ruth, came in to tell me about her week.
She told me about how her son was asking out a girl to prom tonight. He bought In-N-
Out and was going to make a poster saying “Are you In or Out to going to prom with
me?” I started asking question likes how he knew this girl and if he had a crush on her. I
gave a small suggestion that Ruth tell her son to bring flowers along with him.
As we were closing, Ruth came and told me how she texted her son and suggested
bringing flowers. It turned out being a massive success. The local flower shop was
closed so he brought her a sunflower and the girl loved it. It turns out that she grew up
on a farm that had a sunflower field. I don’t think it was the main reason she said yes,
but it definitely made an impact. I felt good about making Ruth and her son happy.

In another instance, it was my supervisor, Katja’s, twentieth birthday and we at the front
desk all decided to each get her something. I remembered that last week she had a
couple bandages around her fingers. When I asked her about it, she told me how she
and her boyfriend werehunters that used bows and arrows and were constantly cutting
her finger on her bow. With this small piece of information, I knew what to get her.

My friend works at a sports store and casually mentioned that they had archery gloves
on sale. As soon as I heard this, I knew I had to get them for Katja. When she opened
her present, she screamed in excitement. She was so shocked that I would remember a
small fact that she had casually mentioned a week prior. I feel like that this really added
to our relationship and earned me some brownie points with my boss.

Results
After implementing these strategies, I have found a large improvement in my
relationship with the patrons. By applying these strategies to reach my goal of actively
listening when patrons talk to me, I have found that people feel more comfortable to
come with facility problems. I somewhat started to take an authority position at the front
desk. I will continue to apply all these strategies to communicate with the patrons. If I
feel my attention is weaning away from the subject, I will stop, look and listen (Bebe,
Bebe, Redmond 2014 pg. 129).

Recommendations
I definitely plan to use these strategies in the future because they improved my
relationships. Specifically, I plan to focus on trying to control my emotions and stopping
myself from overreacting to a situation. I will continue to use these strategies with my
friends, family and the patrons at work. After a while, it will become a habit and not a
chore.

Work Cited
Beebe, Steven A., et al. Interpersonal Communication: Relating to Others.
Pearson/Allyn and Bacon, 2014.