(no subject)

I like the vast majority of people I interact with at work, which is awesome, especially given the size of my group and the other groups I'm in regular contact with. But, of course, there are some people I don't like, mainly just for that visceral "rub me the wrong way" thing, or because my first encounter(s) with them were them behaving badly.

For a variety of reasons, I've wound up having more personal interactions with several of these people over the last couple of weeks, and in every case, I've come away from it liking them substantially more than my first impression. None of them is going to become my new best friend, or even my new best friend at work, and in several cases, I still really dislike how they go about some project that relates to me or my time ... but it is really great to have a personal connection and sense of seeing each other as people who like each other, even if we're on really different pages or are working somewhat against each other on particular topics.

It is a great reminder of how valuable it is to take the opportunity to see my opponents or the challenging people in my life as people, and even when we're still generally distant, to find those places of connection and put energy into them.