Tough Situations – How Do You React? Quiz! February 24, 2021 You will see nine cases here that describe difficult situations. For each question, select the answer that best describes your behavior.Make sure to mark the option that would be your actual reaction and not that one that you think would be ideal. You'll see that in some situations it seems more appropriate not to do anything, but in other cases it is worth take some action. Our emotionally intelligent response is always influenced by the situation and circumstances. Nevertheless, psychologists have developed certain suggested patterns of behavior that prove most practical in similar situations and that are most expedient based on emotional intelligence. These have been marked as good answers in the quiz. However, don’t worry if you don't pick the right answers! They should rather be regarded as suggestions that might help you make reasonable decisions about your behavior and reactions next time. Once you have answered all the questions, you can look at the explanations, which describe why that is the most appropriate reaction in a given situation. 1. You are an ambitious and hard-working content editor and have recently joined a successful marketing company. You’re just spending your first week at your new job when your direct boss’s boss added you as friend on Facebook. You ask around a bit, and you learn from your co-workers that the big boss doesn’t send friend requrests to everyone (not even to your direct leader), just to young and attractive colleagues like you. What do you do? I accept the friend request. I delete the friend request. I mention this to your direct leader and tell him or her that I don't like this. I ask him or her for advice what to do. I schedule a meeting with the person who sent you the friend request. The best is to clarify it personally. 2. You take your 3-year-old kid to the playground. A friend of yours is around, too, together with his 3-year-old child. You suddenly notice that the kids start quarreling on a bike, shouting, starting to fight, and already tearing each other’s hair. Your friend suddenly jumps in there, grabs his own child, and drags him away from the scene of the fight, then trounces him agressively for what happened. You and the other parents are watching this in shock. How do you react? I don't do anything. Every parent raises their child the way they like. It is not my business. The other parents in shock need to be reassured somehow. Therefore, I explain to my friend that such a fight might occur in case of kids. I offer him to teach a few techniques to handle situations like this. I wait 15 minutes, and then tell my friend that his behavior was inappropriate. I buy a book about child raising and give it to my friend. 3. You work as a foreman at a road construction company. You and your team are working on the hottest days of summer, it is 39C degrees. Your task is to widen one of the main roads by one lane. You were originally given five weeks to complete the work. Two weeks have passed, and your boss is informting you today that due to unforeseen events, you will have to get the job done in four weeks instead of five. That means you only have two weeks instead of three more weeks. You know that if the team works hard, you can finish the job on time, so one week of downtime shouldn’t be a problem. The next day, however, you face the team grumbling indignantly. They have had enough of the strained work and complain that they cannot work in such heat. The pace of work is slowing down, and instead of moving faster, they are working much less than they should. What do you do? I explain to my boss that we cannot finish a five-week-job within four weeks. In order to get the rest of the team embarked upon the job, I dismiss the person complaining the loudest. I talk to the co-workers as a team. I explain to them that as a leader, I bear the responsibility, but I definitely need their help to keep the shortened deadline. I don't do anything in this case. There are always some delays to expect in road reconstruction, therefore some slip will be acceptable for everyone. 4. Your lawnmower is broken, so you decide to ask your neighbor to lend you his. As you turn it on, the mower suddenly makes an explosive sound and the cable ignites. Fortunately, the flame brakes off immediately, but obviously the machine has become unusable. The flame burns your hands a little, but the injury is not severe. Clearly the accident wasn’t your fault, but you’re sure your neighbor won’t believe you because he tends to blame others for everything. What do you do? I involve another neighbour with whom the original neighbour gets on well. I hope that the third party helps me admit and settle the problem. I show my injured hand to my neighbour and pressure on him to pay the bandage, ointment or medical treatment. It was his machine that caused the injury, this is not upon me. To show my gratitude, I bring a can of beer to my neighbour and offer to drink it together. I wait till he gets tipsy a bit and only then I tell him what happened. I offer to pay half of the price of a new lawnmower. 5. You graduated with honors from the best university in the country, and you immediately take a middle position at a well-run company. Shortly after you joined, you will be surprised to find that in the first few months, you were able to gain more new customers for the company than most of your colleagues in the last few years combined. What’s more, some of the old co-workers have been dragging you down here for five or six years now, yet they haven’t been able to approach your results. Even though as a leader you are kind and direct with your co-workers, you still find that they miss out on corporate programs, gossip about you, and are jealous of your success. What do you do? I request to terminate my leadership position in order to be on the same level as my colleagues. I do nothing. I hope that my performance will speak for itself. I confront the malevolent co-workers and tell them it was not me who insisted to be a leader at all costs. I act how leaders on the same level tend to do in a similar situation. I show my gratitude for their advice and express my feelings about their useful experiences. 6. You are the host of a department team meeting about introducing a new product. As you write on the white board back to the others, you suddenly turn around and notice that one of your co-workers is mockingly imitating you, greatly exaggerating your movements. The rest of the team seems to be having fun, though at the moment of the unveiling, they all suddenly freeze. What do you do? I finish the meeting right away and ask my boss to be assigned to another team. I pretend I haven't noticed the taunt and I continue the meeting. I laugh and say that everyone may have weird gesticulations. As an example, I also demonstrate how funny the imitating colleague speaks when he or she delivers a presentation. I say sarcastically that this team seems to be stuck at adolescence. 7. You like one of your co-workers very much who treats the office staff with homemade cakes every Monday. Everyone is happy with the free delicacy, so it always runs out fast. The staff always praises the cake maker out of courtesy, although the truth is that the cookies are not delicious at all, and everyone knows that. Either too sweet or tasteless; either uncooked or burnt. It all tastes particularly horrible. One day, this colleague comes up to you and excitedly tells you that a big dream of her life may come true: she will soon resign because she is up to open her own bakery shortly. She adds that there is no family behind her supporting her financially, so she plans to take out a large loan in order to open the bakery. What do you do? I convince the co-workers that we need to talk to this person and tell her that her cakes never tasted good. She has to understand that opening her own bakery is the worsd idea, because the business is expected to go bankrupt shortly due to poor quality. I wish the colleague the best. I cannot ruin her big dreams. Next Monday, I buy a bunch of cookies at the city's best bakery. I secretly place them in the kichen, right next to the cookies of my colleauge. I watch what happens. I talk to my colleague privately and tell her that I have doubts about opening her own bakery. 8. A close friend of your close recently had a baby. The mother is convinced that her baby is the most beautiful child in the whole world and maybe in the entire universe. The truth is, however, that the baby is not beautiful at all, in fact, she is not even nice. One is almost embarrassed to look at her, as she has a surprisingly distorted face, protruding ears and watery eyes. The mother keeps posting the photos of the baby on social media without a break. In every post, she is overwhelmed by how wonderfully she is to be blessed with such an amazingly extraordinary daughter. You are sure it’s only a matter of time before someone comments negatively about your friend’s posts. What do you do? I tell my friend that the baby is ugly. I tell my friend that if she makes a star of the bay in such a way, it may cause bad feelings for parents who have less beautiful kids. I don't say anything. I should not disappoint a mother who is so proud. If I am with a company around the baby's crib, I silently signal to others that I agree with them that the baby is not nice. I suggest them not to tell the mother the truth. 9. You work as a cashier at a grocery store. Suddenly, a mother with three young kids is next to pay. As she places the goods on the conveyor belt, you immediately notice that besides milk and oatmeal, she bought unhealthy, sugared candies and two bottles of wine. When the mother wants to pay, it turns out she didn’t bring enough money with her, so she decides to put back the milk and oatmeal. She then hands you over her pay-one-get-two coupon for the wine, which unfortunately expired yesterday, so you cannot accept it. The mother gets extremely angry. As only 12 hours have passed since the expiration date, she insists that you accept the coupon. She also says that she knows for sure that it takes you only one click in the system. The lady is actually right about this: you can easily reset the coupon expiration in the system if you want. What do you do? I lie and tell the customer that is she wants to use the expired coupon, she has to ask permission from the store manager. I tell the lady that if wine isn't worth buying without the coupon discount, she may put it back and choose milk and oatmeal instead. I reset the coupon expiration date in the system and keep continuing my tasks. It is not my business what customers buy and what they don't buy. I ask one of my co-workers to replace me in the cashier and kindly take the lady aside. I mention her that there is an excellent crisis center nearby to help parents in difficult situations.
