While you can't always deal with people in this way, this is a good way to understand people and to deal with them.

I remember, when my mom was having trouble with various things, she would sometimes jump on me for something I thought was small. Granted, I had upset her, and often, it was my fault, but a very very minor thing we could have resolved turned into a rant. I learned to ask her, "Mom, what's bothering you. If she started again on the same rant, I interrupted and said, "Mom, what's really bothering you?" Keep in mind, this doesn't excuse being a jerk. This is when a minor issue turned into a major panic. Often, when I asked the first or the second question, she said, "okay, I'm worried about X..." She's been dealing with pain and other things over the past year or two, along with other family issues outside of me.

Anyway, by asking these two questions, and understanding that she had other issues present, she often began telling me what was really bothering her and I could become her earpiece and counselor. Usually, after she had let out everything that was really bothering her, she felt better, and she really owed me no apologies for jumping on me. I've been there. I've taken it out on the dog, or a cat, or some other member in the family.

The key is, don't judge. Now that I'm in Retail, this attitude makes my life a lot easier. I've had customers come in ranting, and leave apologizing to me. I never accused them of being unreasonable, I just listened to what they had to say, sometimes sympathized with them (I often had the same issues with our corporate policies that they had), and by the end, they felt I had heard them out. Understanding goes a long way.

Still, one of the funniest encounters I had was when I was closing our store with a manager I came to like (Who later moved to another store, but who I still talk to regularly at night on Steam). Anyway, a customer came in asking about his PC (we are one of the two office supply stores in the U.S. who still do computer tech work). I had been off for three days, because I'm part time and corporate won't spring for more hours and keeps demanding more. Anyway, I came in that night, and after I had been on staff for about an hour or two, a customer comes in asking about the status of the virus removal on his PC. It normally takes us about two days. I think this guy was early. I hadn't had a chance to catch up on the tech bench, because we were inundated with customers when I walked in (I'm the only technician on night shifts, and if five customers need me, there's only me and I have to attend to all of them in order (and some of them are old people who have 50 questions so that they can buy the "perfect" printer, but they won't one that's cheap on ink and costs less than 50 dollars).

Anyway, I haven't had time to read 3 days worth of notes from my coworkers, and as soon as this customer comes in and asks me the status of his PC, I locate the paperwork and find the description of a rather virulent virus that my coworkers have had trouble with, even with our virus removal software. There aren't many more details, so I inform him of this. I explain to him that I've been off for three days (before his PC came in), and I apologize for the issue. He smiles and nods, and says, "Thank you."

I then see him walk over to my closing manager (the one I' m buddies with) and talk with him for a bit. I can't hear either one of them over the obnoxious and distractingly noisy store muzak (I've had to ask customers to repeat important information because they were speaking below the level of the speakers and other noise). I just go back to my job. I do hear the guy say, "thank you" to my manager, and he walks out as I look to expedite his computer repair.

Anyway, this manager walks up and asks, "Was he alright to you?"

I say, "Yeah, he seemed pretty nice, why?"

The manager says, "Well, he called you an idiot."

Considering I had just come in after a three day break due to being part time, and I had no prior knowledge of his PC, I just got a good laugh out of the situation and told my manager not to worry.