100 Business Days Out: Day 68 - Peace Offerings

I had to use all of my detente and peacekeeping skills today for the finishing of this house project. As I mentioned yesterday we have been trying to bring it all together and get it done without causing any neighborly issues with the noise ordinance, etc. Well, today the top blew off the steam kettle. I had trucks and backhoes and and pavers, etc. here all at one time it looked and sounded like a full on construction zone. And lo and behold at about 11AM, a renter across the street came over and got in my face and basically accused me of ignoring the noise ordinances and ruining his vacation. He caught me right in the middle of me trying to get the paving guy to hurry up and stop using his equipment and move towards doing things by hand, trying to find my mason to get back here and finish his part of the job and my general contractor was frustrated with me trying to play by the rules, so I did my best to try and explain the circumstances to this neighbor but after he continued to get in my face, I just told him, "it is what it is and he was going to have to live with it". That was obviously not the best neighborly love response I could have given him. You know those conversations that you have at the office that don't end well and there is enough tension in the air that you could cut it with a knife and you avoid the person at all costs for the next day or so? Well, that's what this felt like. I went about my business for the next couple of hours but that feeling of not having peace was hanging over me like a cloud. So, I just bit the bullet, went inside and grabbed a good bottle of wine and walked across the street and apologized for how I reacted. There was a reason the Indians brought a peace offering, because whatever tension was in the air dissipated the moment the bottle of wine left my hand and entered his. We should do this more at work. We should have peace offerings that can be used to fix a problem between people and teams. And, we all know that at all times there is someone that could use a peace offering to make their day go better. Life and work is hard enough without the tension and stress that we add on to it with our reactions and responses. So, a little more offering of peace would go a long way for all of us.