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Quote, “No one wants to work with someone who makes them feel beat down all the time, or someone who they simply can’t understand, or someone whose reaction to every issue is to start wailing about the end of the world.” Great advice from Catherine Powell, aimed at programmers but good for anyone who works with people, on the lost art of being nice.
Perhaps is seems lost because there is now a second generation of humans being raised and forced upon us with the notion that common courtesy does not apply to them. This must be taught at an early age, reinforced, opportunities given for practice, and above all, modeled at home and in public.
Woe and a curse upon the two generations of parents who have abrogated this responsibility…
Not all have to be sure, and Miss Manners (Google her) is grateful for your existence, if you fall into the category of parents who have diligently taught this skill, such that is comes as second nature to those you have sent out into the world to interact with others…
and we are grateful to be in your presence, and in the presence of your progeny, whether still growing or now in the workplace…
For those pitiful parents who have thought teaching manners and courtesy might take a little time (it takes a lot…that’s the job you signed up for) or perhaps think it’s not worth the effort (it is…just ask anyone who knows them)…
it has caused us to cringe in disbelief at restaurants, shopping encounters, job interviews (!), lines at the DMV and bank, on the highway, in the cubicles next to us, the office down the hall, the management office up the hall, vendors of all shapes/sizes, and heaven forbid trying to conduct simple commerce over the phone or heaven help us, if, and, usually when, there is a problem!
And if we are talking about the progeny still below the age of adulthood…
the “lost art of being nice” doesn’t begin to cover what is needed, and…Oh, don’t get me started….
On the bright side…perhaps observing or being the victim of a lack of courtesy can and should cause us to stop and take stock of ourselves and make sure we are the ones dispensing it so as not to BE the horrible example we may have just witnessed.
It is also an opportunity as well to be the giver of grace as I am calling it, or the “Be Nice” that Catherine Powell discussed, which is so sorely lacking in the world of human relations, whether at work, or elsewhere. This is a lesson I am slowly learning. More grace…less wailing…works.
said Mom
at 4:42pm on Monday