I hear you on the mom thing, too. My mom doesn't do the comparison thing, amen. She "fixes" and I've learned to divert her attention. 🙂 However, her friend was "fixing" things too, and in one case, her comment was so outside of what we were talking about (and inappropriate) that I nearly said something I'd have regretted.

Better to just let the comment pass without warranting it with a response. But like you, implosion was a real threat. LOL

Clients are people, too. (Unfortunately) 😉

Working in medicine for four decades taught me EVERYTHING I ever need to know about dealing with difficult people, Lori. SHEESH! When we humans aren't feeling chipper, peppy, and perky (and our bodies are giving us grief)is when we're at our crankiest. LOL!

I've found the #1 approach to putting out the fire of furry and frustration is to validate/acknowledge the other person's feelings. Let them blow off some steam and then reply, "I understand how you feel." Or "I can hear the disappointment/frustration/anger in your voice and I want to help." You get the picture. Just reassure them they're being "heard".

Don't get me started on the "mother" thing. I love my mum to pieces but she's a piece of work! And if I have to hear how "wonderful" her friends' daughters are and how much they "care" about their mothers, blah, blah, blah, I'm going to implode and explode, simultaneously. 🙁

LOL! You've got it about the eggshells.They were crunching most of the weekend!

I'm good at biting my tongue, yet know a lot of people – young and old – who seem to thinking having an opinion means they need to share it with the world. I think I mentioned my aunt said some rude things and defended herself by saying at her age (early 70s) she'd "earned the right" to say what she wanted. My response (but not to her, LOL): "You can never earn the right to be rude."

I've gotten pretty good at dealing with difficult people. It started as a kid. We had a couple of relatives who loved embarrassing people (not the aunt mentioned above – she was often a target from her sister-in-law), so I made a game of predicting what they would say and do anytime we had to see them. It was simple since they were so darn predictable. They had no idea how to react when I only laughed at comments I saw coming a mile away.

Sometimes it gets tiring walking on all those eggshells  — especially 10 miles in one day, huh, Lori?

I remember a kitchen contractor coming here a year or so ago. He was so damn busy trying to talk fast and tell us what we wanted he never heard what we actually wanted. He had a date with his wife (their anniversary) and his head was not on the job. So why accept an appointment for that afternoon, I wonder?

Had he slowed down, he'd have gotten out of here in ample time AND he'd have known what it was we wanted. We might have hired him. But he was so hyper and inattentive, we weren't sure he'd do the job we wanted.