I love being nice. Giving compliments, making people smile and responding positively to questions, comments and requests always makes me feel good and makes those around me happy. However, though I still stand by kindness in most situations, recently I’ve learned that my habit of saying "yes" and being amiable was masking another trait of my personality: my inability to disagree or say no to people, especially in situations where my best interest will be compromised.
These situations in which my kindness was tested the most occurred during my brief stint as a minimum-wage worker. Though my job was for the most part tiring and dull, I made some decent money from it and, for a while, I was satisfied. However, after a few months I realized that I would not have enough time to focus on my personal and academic obligations if I kept going, so I decided to leave my job. I gave a two weeks’ notice, a courtesy that most at-will employers ask for but don’t always receive, and readied myself to leave work and focus on school and my own projects full-time.
I had always been stretched a little too far while working. My manager would frequently ask me to stay an hour after my scheduled shift, and since we were understaffed while I was working, I worked way more than I expected to. But once I announced my plans of leaving, I found myself being given way more than I could or wanted to handle. I’d be scheduled for double the amount of hours I’d listed I could work, and my manger consistently tried to persuade me to stay longer than I’d planned, even going so far as to say that I was selling her short on my two weeks (which I wasn’t). These things all made me super conflicted – on one hand, I wanted to help out and do what was asked of me, but I also knew that in taking on more work, I would be compromising other parts of my life that I prioritized over work. Saying "no" in this situation was very difficult because of my non-confrontational personality and inability to displease people, even though it was the absolute right thing for me to do.
Eventually, I realized that I couldn’t keep sacrificing myself just to avoid a confrontation that might be only mildly uncomfortable. And, even more importantly, I discovered a truth about most minimum-wage-paying franchises: in their eyes, employees like us are expendable, but they will take advantage of us if given the chance. Being “nice” once and taking on a larger workload will turn into a constant, a favor will turn into an expectation.
In the end, I had to be firm and express exactly what I could and could not handle, with no room for doubt and with nothing left up to interpretation. Though I still really, really enjoy saying yes and doing favors for others, I now know that in some instances it’s necessary to draw the line and make the decision that’s right for me, even if it means saying no and not being the nicest person in the moment.
