When you’re an event planner, you’re going to have to meet hundreds of people in the process. And it is likely that at least one of those people you aren’t going to agree with or you just don’t vibe with their personality. However I have several tips to deal with people you want to punch. First of all, put yourself in their shoes. Why are they acting the way they’re acting? Why are they saying what they’re saying? In their shoes, it may be a bit easier to understand where this person is coming from and from their point of view, you could possibly sympathize with them and why they are the way they are. For example, if a client is yelling at you, you would be mad right? What if you found out that that person is yelling because he/she is already stressed from working 60 hours a week, finding out his/her cousin has cancer, or if they just got broken up with? If you are aware of their situation and put yourself in their shoes, you could understand why they’re being difficult. However, this may not be the case. In some cases, you genuinely will just not like how a person handles things. In this case, your most important tool is communication. If someone is acting a certain way you don’t agree with, talk to them about it. Offer them a solution on how they can express their actions better. In my experience, an acquaintance of mine said something that really annoyed me and in response, I said something rude back. She was the one who ended up talking to me first, communicating with me that she didn’t mean to get me upset and offered a way to ease tensions. That spoke volumes to me. Because she was able to communicate how she felt towards how I responded to her, we were able to fix the problem faster. Lastly, you may just have that person who you don’t like. You’ve tried putting yourself in their shoes and you’ve tried communicating with them, but they are still rubbing you the wrong way. I hate to say it, but as an event planner, you have to just deal with it. It is your job to try to put on the best event as you can, and if this means temporarily dealing with difficult people, you have to push through it. It may be hard, but putting on a facade may be your best bet. Encounters like this occur in every industry, but in this case, most of the time they are temporary and if it means your event will be successful, you have to stay cool and collected, even if you feel like pushing this person off the edge of the earth.