Rudeness

Tonight my supervisor handed me an investigation from a citizen reporting that I had been rude & "gone off on her." Initially I told my supervisor "Oh, then I probably was." I know that I am not always the most patient person with irrational and angry people and have on occasion not handled various situations in the most tactful way. However, in this case, I ended up writing in my declaration that I did not feel I had been unreasonable in my dealings with this woman. So I can't go into any details and that's fine, because all I wanted to say here is that I surprised myself --I really thought I was going to cringe when I listened to the wave file --hearing myself "going off" on her, but instead I found myself thinking that given all the circumstances of the call I had done my best to remain calm and rational with a completely irrational caller. I did not raise my voice (although it was strained at one or two points) and I attempted to direct her to other options. I did say she was accusing us of lying, but well, that was the truth. I hope the upper echelons see it my way, but really it doesn't matter because I am confident that I handled it as well as any other dispatcher would have. I kept thinking..gee, maybe they should pull a call where I really was rude to someone & play it for her...(Oh wait, I hope they never run across those calls)...