Behaving Badly

I’m breaking in a new boss. Six weeks in, she’s awesome and she thinks I’m awesome, but the honeymoon hit a bump this week when she called to chide me for failing to review the standards of employee conduct (I didn’t make the deadline and the system ratted me out to her). “So,” she says, “what’s that all about?”

Tongue stuck firmly in cheek, I replied, “I don’t believe in standards of conduct. People should be free to behave like screaming orange toddlers.”

Of course I was kidding. She got the joke, we had a laugh, I clicked “OK” on the standards webpage, and that was that.

Only it wasn’t. Not really. What happened to “If you can’t say something nice, say nothing at all”? That’s what I was taught, and though I have occasionally strayed from the principle, for the most part, I try to practice kindness, tolerance, and socially acceptable behaviour. This last quality seems to have dropped significantly in standard, but I insist on maintaining the level of manners my parents still expect of me. I also happen to know a good many kind, generous, cooperative, polite and responsible people. The world is full of like folks, in every culture, religion, and race.

I wish they got the same level of attention afforded the ranters and ravers. I support freedom of speech and the right of people to have their own opinions, but we have become so ill as a society that the sickest of us are now media heroes and world leaders. We’re a step away from televising public executions, yet we are conversely outraged at the merest whiff of a perceived insult to a stranger. I’ll leave the examining of that contradiction to Bill Maher, who is better equipped to articulate my dismay ... but I have noticed this:

Paying attention to unacceptable behaviour only encourages it. Ego loves a reaction, so aim a camera or facilitate a panel discussion on its antics, and it will ramp up the output. When I hear my voice getting louder, it’s accompanied by the anxiety of my point being negated. If that happens, egad, I might have to accept another’s view and maybe change my mind. My comfortable reality may be proven false! Worse, my value as an intelligent being may be compromised, so even if I’m wrong (especially if I’m wrong), I’d better outshout my opposition. Volume equals conviction, right? And conviction means I’m right, right?

Riiiiiight.

Let’s make good behaviour fashionable again. Do something kind for someone today. Say something nice, or say nothing at all. Take the sting out of ego’s plot to ruin the world—or at least your little corner of it.

With love,