Tell me about a time you wish you had handled a workplace situation differently.

"During my undergraduate program, I worked part time as a waitress to help pay my way through college. One evening, I was waiting on a very rude customer who was clearly intoxicated. The customer was saying some mean things about our staff and, in the moment, I couldn't help but defend our staff and tell the customer he was being rude and out of line. He began yelling and walked out of the restaurant to only come back in five minutes later and demand to talk to the manager. While my manager could clearly tell that he was being out of line, I still had second thoughts for how I handled the situation. Confrontation is something that I typically avoid, but my emotions got the best of me that day. To this day, I feel like I do a much better job of keeping my emotions in check in situations like this."

Most people cannot handle every difficult situation with the utmost grace at all times. No matter who you are, there is undoubtedly a work-related situation that makes you cringe a bit when you look back. Answer this question by giving a story-based example of a time you reacted to a scenario in a way that you typically try to avoid. Outline the situation and describe why you reacted the way you did. Focus the bulk of your response on the actions that you took to repair the situation. Also, include details about the lesson you learned.