blog #1

Mateo Ovalle
HCOM214
Blake Rodgers
3/5/15
                                                         Emotions in Conflict
    Conflict is just part of life and is inevitable no matter how much someone tries to avoid it. In my life conflict arises quite frequently. Four common areas where conflict occurs is within a family, roommates, romantic partners, and work. I handle each one of these types of conflicts differently and my emotions vary with each one.
    When I have a conflict with my family I usually feel anger within me. I feel anger because every time a conflict comes up I feel like everyone in my family goes against me or tells me im wrong just because Im the youngest one. One conflict that occurred recently was with my mom. She got frustrated with me for using my tax return money to put a down payment on a car. She thought the money would have been better spent paying of my school loan. Her reaction was yelling at me through the phone and telling me im too young to be buying a car and that I was fine the car I had witch was my dads, but I felt obligated to return it since it was not mine. I got really upset with my mom and ended up yelling back at her and not picking up her calls for about a week. In this situation I felt like my mom was babying me and did not trust me to make these kind of decisions on my own. Eventually I ended up calling my mom and I just talked to her how I felt about her always trying to baby me and for once just to let me grow up and do things on my own.
    My conflicts regarding roommates and romantic partners are the same since I live with my wife in a rented room. Conflicts always arises over me not cleaning up after myself and her always saying I never do anything around the room. I admit sometimes I like coming home after work or school and just eat and relax for a while before I wash my dish or clean, but every time I do this she goes on a rant about how I never help out. This really annoys me because I do more then my part when it comes to cleaning. I always wash my dishes, I take out the trash, fold blankets, and sweep. Although I may not do these things right away, I eventually still get them done and it just irritates me how she accuses me of not doing anything. I usually handle these sort of conflicts by just ignoring her because I know if I argue back then the conflict will just explode and I just don’t see dishes being worth a fight.
    Conflicts at work are a constant between me and my manager. I honestly can not stand looking at her. She thinks she’s better than everyone, which she cleary isn’t because she’s 40 something and still working at burger king. Conflicts usually arise when she tries to get me to stay past my shift. I hate when she tries doing this because it takes time away from my school work and personal life. At first I would always say yes to staying longer because I was new and wanted to seem like a good worker. After a while I grew the courage to say no and the first time I said no, she told me I had to stay because someone called in sick. This angered me because I felt like it was not my responsibility to suffer for someone calling in sick. Instead of going off on her and risk losing my job I calmly just told her that I could not stay and that it was her job as a manager to figure it out, and I just clocked out and left. Ever since that day this manager  has been on my case and is always makes me do grunt work like sweeping and mopping the dining room and taking out the trash.
    Although I handle each of these conflicts differently I guess the common emotion is anger and I feel like I handled all of these situations in a decent manner.