There are irritating, troublesome people about us. Of what use is it to be irritating in our turn or to add to the trouble? Most offenders have their better side. Our wisest course is to find this and upon the basis of it build up a better relationship.

There's a fellow in your office
Who complains and carps and whines
Till you'd almost do a favor
To his heirs and his assigns.
But I'll tip you to a secret
(And this chap's of course involved)—
He's no foeman to be fought with;
He's a problem to be solved.

There's a duffer in your district
Whose sheer cussedness is such
He has neither pride nor manners—
No, nor gumption, overmuch.
'Twould be great to up and tell him
Where to go. But be resolved—
He's no foeman to be fought with,
Just a problem to be solved.

This old earth's (I'm sometimes thinking)
One menagerie of freaks—
Folks invested with abnormal
Lungs or brains or galls or beaks.
But we're not just shrieking monkeys
In a dim, vast cage revolved;
We're not foemen to be fought with,
Merely problems to be solved.

St. Clair Adams.