by Cody Hodge

Created on: March 06, 2009

Everyday you go into work, and you tend to have some sort of plan as to how you want your day to go. Unfortunately, that plan usually gets thrown out the window as soon as you walk into the office. Life never goes as you plan it, and the best people are the ones that can deal with those sudden changes the best. Interruptions happen on a daily basis, and you have to learn how to deal with them.

When dealing with interruptions, there are several options. You can yell and scream like a small child having a tantrum, you can roll your eyes and wonder why people keep bugging you, or you can smile and deal with it as best as possible. If you are on a team where others recognize that things change, and that you may be needed in more than one place at a time, life is much easier. Nonetheless, you still need to handle being interrupted correctly.

Sometimes people will be dumb, and interrupt you at a bad time, like when you are talking to another employee about an issue, or when the head of the safety board is inspecting your plant. Obviously this is not the time to mention that you need to go on break, or that Jimmy spent two extra minutes on his lunch. However, you need to realize that if someone bothers you with a question at a bad time, you need to keep your cool.

Blowing up at someone for interrupting you is not going to solve anything. If it was an important matter, then you will just look bad. If it was a minor issue, you will look unaccessible to employees, or unaccessible to your co-workers if you aren't a manager. This is unprofessional, and will make you look bad to your colleagues. When you are at work, everyone has been interrupted at least once during the day, and it happens to everyone.

Interruptions can sometimes be a good thing. Today I was working on replacing a couple of shifts that we had lost due to emergencies. While trying to replace them, I was interrupted by an employee who needed a rain jacket, and a customer who had to have balloons blown up for her. While blowing up the balloons, I remembered an employee who I could call in on short notice, and who would take the shift.

After blowing up the balloons, I called him, and he took one of the shifts, and the more pressing one to boot. If I hadn't been interrupted, my mind wouldn't have been free to wander, and think outside the box a little bit. By staying calm, and just letting the situations unfold, I was able to come up with a rescue plan for my night, and things went a lot easier.

Being interrupted can be annoying, and if you interrupt, make sure you aren't being rude. If you are interrupting, and the matter is a minor one, you risk coming off as rude, and nobody wants that. If you need to interrupt, do so at your own risk, and make sure it is important. If you are the one being interrupted, just stay cool, and in the flow of the day. Nothing ever goes as planned, so you can at least take that for granted.

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