Next Job: Hostage Negotiator?

I tell you, I deserve a Nobel Peace Prize or something.
 
Relations between me and Ass't Man at work have been stuck, stuck, stuck. I've been waking up at night dreading the future at work. 

I. Negotiating with a Hostage Taker

Then I read an article written by a hostage negotiator, Chris Voss, about handling relationships stressed by Covid. (Plus, in my case, by working in a post-lynching, ransacked store.)

The basic advice is:

Give the other person a hit of oxytocin.

(You know, oxytocin is the social-bonding, "cuddle love" hormone.)

In the case of kidnappers or people you live with, that means letting them know you hear and understand them. 

Listen and repeat back their points.
KEY: Never say "but...".

(As a peregrino on Camino said, "Everything after but is bullshit.")

Since the technique is based on negotiating with kidnappers, there's no advice to "remember you love this person."
You aren't going to love a kidnapper. Love is not the point. 
Resolution is.

"Being heard" (with no ifs, ands, or buts) produces oxytocin: 
it makes a person feel good, which creates a little space for negotiation.
Then you can ask, "How can we make a plan to move forward?"

I'd already tried that script. I hadn't been able to get past Ass't Man's demand that I agree to do what he says at work.
I wasn't able to lie and give him that assurance, and I wasn't able to talk him around to another vision. 
So we'd just stayed stuck.

Biking to work yesterday, I was wondering what else I could do to "create oxytocin" for Ass't Man, so I would suffer less.

And it came to me.

II. The Strategic Use of the Truth

When I got to work, Ass't Man was standing with a couple coworkers.

"Hey, everybody!" I said.
"Let me show you a photo of good team work. This is how I'd like us to work together."

I got out my phone and pulled up a photo.

Everyone came to see except Ass't Man, who looked at me suspiciously.
"You too!" I said. "I really want you to see this model..."

He came over and looked at my phone.

This was what he saw.
.

.

.

Him and me, painting the boarded-up store windows a month ago.
[I've blocked his face for privacy--he's smiling.]

Here's the trick: It's true, and I meant it.

We really had worked beautifully as a team that day. It had all come together almost effortlessly---I had paint, he had brushes, we agreed on the mood of the slogans.  He'd painted "Justice 4 George" on the other window, while I painted Faith Hope Love.
It had been fun and fulfilling.

Well. My tactic (the strategic use of the truth) worked instantly, like sharing ice-cream with a baby.
Oxytocin all around!

"Let's remember this as our Home Base," I said.

Yes, yes, yes.

 III. When did I get good at this?

The past few weeks at work have been VERY WEIRD for me:
I keep stepping up as a negotiator. And it keeps working.
Not always right away, but as this shows, I can back up and reapproach.

When did I get good at this? 
I don't know! 

What's weird is this is not how I see myself, not how I've usually operated. I've usually quit jobs when they got to this point. 
(I thought about it this time too, but I don't want to give up the BOOK's! That part of the job is inoperative right now (which is hard), but it will return.)

In the past, I've usually taken things personally.
I do, of course, have personal feelings about Ass't Man, but they are not the point. He's not a friend. He's not family. He's someone I have to work with.

Well, but I do know how I got better.
I've written here often about wanting to deal better with my feelings of resentment---wanting to melt resentment like a block of ice, or wanting to side-step the blocks it throws up--
or wanting to befriend it--a piece of Buddhist advice I adopted from  Thich Nhat Hanh. (Like creating the good-feelings of oxytocin, I see now!)

I've often felt my efforts and desires to melt resentment was hopeless.... I think, however, that gradually I got better at it, almost without noticing. 
And better at seeing that interpersonal problems often aren't actually personal at all.

I just want to sleep through the night without worrying about work.
Last night, I did.