Describe a time when you were friendly to someone you didn’t like.

You should say:

• when and where it happened
• who this person was
• why you didn’t like this person

and explain why you were friendly to this person on that occasion.

[You will have to talk about the topic for one to two minutes. You have one minute to think about what you are going to say. You can make some notes to help you if you wish.]

Generally speaking, it is actually quite a challenging task to become friendly to someone if we don’t like him or her. I also faced such a challenge about a year ago, and today, I would like to share that story with you.

This not-so likeable person was a senior nurse at a public hospital in my town. I needed to visit this nurse because I needed to get an oral vaccine for my little cousin from that public hospital. But, as I visited him, he told me in a very harsh and authoritative tone that I missed the scheduled vaccination just a couple of days ago. Getting a bit confused, I politely asked him to explain what he really meant by saying that I had missed the scheduled vaccine. And he seemed to get really agitated and told me that the kids from my area were scheduled to have their vaccination a couple of days ago, but I had missed the schedule, and as such, I would need to wait for at least a couple of hours to get the vaccine until he was finished with other kids.

By the way, nobody had told me earlier about the vaccination schedule based on “areas”, and I even tried to tell him that. But he didn’t really seem to be in any mood to listen to my valid excuse. Needless to say, I got a bit frustrated with his uncooperative attitude, but, then, I told to myself that he was probably having a bad day at work, and therefore, I would need to be friendly and composed with him until getting that vaccine for my little cousin.

Anyway, I was friendly to that person, mainly because it was an important vaccine for my cousin to have, sooner rather than later. Besides, that vaccine was not available at any private hospital or store, as it was a government project, so I had no other option but to be friendly to that nurse for the sake of getting that vaccine, and also considering that maybe he was not always rude and perhaps he was having a bad day.