Have you ever been asked for a favor and before the person asking has even finished their sentence, you already knew that you WANTED to say no?
But you said yes instead because you felt guilty, didn’t you?
Requests for favors can cause us a lot of stress when we are deciding how to respond. We are navigating feelings of frustration, resentment and guilt while trying to maintain professionalism and manage the relationship.
To give you an example, I was recently discussing some projects that I had been working on in a casual conversation with some friends and acquaintances. As I discussed the Career Development projects that I had been working on, one of my acquaintances took the opportunity to tell me about a job that he was planning on applying for.
He then said, “Hey, I’m going to email you my resume so that you can look it over and edit it before I apply tomorrow, okay? What’s your email address?”
My first thought was, “Excuse me!?”
But of course, I had to quickly filter these negative thoughts and emotions, pause for a moment and silently break down this request:
- First, he was an acquaintance, not a close friend, so I was surprised that he had made such a bold request to begin with.
- Second, he completely ignored the fact that resume writing was part of my job and something that I got PAID to do. He was expecting this service for free.
- Third, he really didn’t ask if I could do him a favour, he TOLD me that he was going to send his resume to me for my review.
- And lastly, he gave me less than 24 hours to complete this favour, without considering what my schedule might be.
Despite all of this, the guilt took over and I blurted out “Sure, I’ll see what I can do,” and gave him my email address.
I instantly regretted it.
In order to satisfy his request, I had to interrupt my work schedule which put a lot of added pressure on the deadlines that I was facing. In the middle of my work day, I begrudgingly looked over his resume, and realized just how much work was involved.
My perfectionism kicked in, causing me to put in far more time that I bargained for, because I ended up rewriting his entire resume. This forced me to work late in order to catch up on my own tasks. The whole experience was absolutely miserable, however it could have been avoided if I had learned how to deal with the “Can you do me a favour” scenario.
The “Can You Do Me A Favour” Scenario
The “Can you do me a favour” scenario is a highly common situation that we experience within and outside of the workplace. Saying yes all of the time, especially when we don’t want to will cause undue amounts of stress and frustration. Most importantly, this added stress can affect our wellbeing.
