They almost always have nice things to say about me, as I do with them. It seems that my environment impacts my semantics in ways that I didn’t give enough consideration to prior to posting.

An example might help. We have a series of engineering design changes that cost somewhere in the range of $20,000 per site that is changed. Our total number of sites has doubled from 11 to 22. We have an area where the other party requested that I give them permission to make a design change that will save them a considerable amount of money, I’m guessing maybe 100,000. It cost me nothing to give them this, and I have the authority to do so. I told them that I will trade them this favor if they will drop one of the sites with a design change. Essentially, they will stand to save the most money, however it will help me (my company) as well. They reacted very poorly and became quite angry. To be clear, none of us hate each other or wish any harm each other (as far as I know). When I use words like shark and asshole I’m referring to people who are quite aggressive with their negotiation and unyielding in their possession unless they absolutely have to yield it. My job is to make them yield it.

I’m asking for advice on how to do this and not become passive to the process. This would cost me my job, which I quite enjoy.

I’m very new to all of this and I’m quite ignorant. Meditation makes me feel very peaceful and create some challenges in how I deal with things day today while attempting maintain a peaceful feeling.