My dad officially took a step towards retirement last week. This was a momentous occasion that was overshadowed by the COVID-19 crisis. Anyone moving towards retirement is a cause for celebration. My dad moving towards retirement is kind of earth-shattering, for him…and well, for me. While both my parents have always encouraged good, honest, hard work, I believe I get my work ethic from my father.
I want to be clear that a good work ethic, or at least the one instilled in me by my pops, is not just a function of regularly showing up. It is so much more than that.
This is not a blog post where I wax poetically about my ability to kick ass at my job. That would be boring as fuck and honestly, a little bit annoying. Rather, I want to focus on one particular element of having a work ethic that I witnessed for much of my life and have endeavored to take on and emulate in my own professional life.
My father has not always been treated well at work. He has been maligned, disrespected, and condescended to by fellow practitioners, his staff, his employers, and well, his patients.
In the spirit of brutal honesty, this shitty treatment was not always handled in the best fashion by my dad. To be clear, I am not talking about how he treated those treating him like crap because he didn’t. He internalized. He buried his frustration, sadness, and hurt deep inside of him where it ate him alive. I am using the past tense, because he has worked so very hard to shift that paradigm over the years. He talks about the situations that harm him. Maybe not all of the time but in the most perfect way possible. In a way that allows him to stay healthy.
You know what he never, ever did? He never, ever exhibited or provided a lower standard of care to people who did not treat him well. I am NOT talking about being a doormat people. My father is no pushover. He has just always fundamentally understood that you cannot let others take away your ability to shine. To allow your service or product to be impacted by another’s behavior is to give that individual free reign over your reputation. Reflecting your exacerbation in the actual doing of your job is to substantiate the callous and inaccurate meanderings of someone who doesn’t deserve that kind of validation.
But how does one separate not giving someone a reason to criticize or smear you from being a sucker? Where is that line and how do we find it? Well, the first rule of thumb is to stay calm. Or at least pretend like you are even Steven. Your insides might be alight and you might be feeling like you are jumping out of your skin, but you never let that person see it. You acknowledge what they are saying without apologizing or rationalizing their words. You give 100% to the task at hand to make certain you have no regrets. You plant a seed in your brain about that person so that you are mindful about your future interactions.
Giving 100% does not mean going above and beyond. It means doing your very best. Those who attempt to unseat you or cause you pain do not deserve your extra good graces. They deserve just enough to see that you mean business.
I am not trying to pretend like this is an easy task. This is one of the hardest things you can do or will do. It is almost unbearably challenging to remain service-oriented in the face of someone else’s anger, disdain, and well, bullying. But here is the thing, if you don’t, you only hurt yourself. You are not going to ‘teach’ that person anything. You are just going to add fuel to a wild fire. It makes no sense. You might think it will feel good to tell them to fuck off, and it might for a moment, but 9 times out of 10, you will feel deeply regretful of that action. The person you’ve told to go scratch has now solidified a negative view of you (as ludicrous as it may be) and you will get that yucky, uncomfortable feeling that one gets when someone has spun us out. It is truly a lose-lose.
Please don’t misunderstand me. I’ve seen my dad lose his shit, much like I’ve lost mine on many an occasion. But that has been within the confines of his safe space, surrounded by his people.
If you can master this particular behavior in response to people who shit on you at work, I promise you it will change you. I used to unravel and then instantly regret my spinning out. Don’t get me wrong, the people I was interacting with deserved my wrath and more, but I hated that I let them see me that way. I despised that I stooped to getting in the muck with them.
You know what changed it all for me? It wasn’t anything my dad said to me. It was observing his behavior. He had been complaining about someone he was interacting with in a professional setting. They were just awful. I’m not going to get into specifics to protect the confidentiality of this story and its participants. But needless to say, I did not think highly of their behavior, at all. And it was continuous and occurred on more than once.
I was in my dad’s office a few days after he shared these stories with me. Imagine my surprise when I saw my father interact with this person in the most reserved, professional fashion. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I expected him to be out of control. But my first thought was, wow, ____________ does not deserve such kindness. But you know what I also got to witness? The discomfort of this other human. I got to see first hand how my father’s unwillingness to sink to the lowest common denominator actually deflated this person. I literally saw shrinking. I am not saying that this person was all of a sudden kind or appropriate or professional. I am saying that something akin to peace was created. I’m saying that my father took the high road and it was a beautiful thing to observe.
In our society today, so few people take the high road. That holds true for co-workers, family members, real friends, social-media friends, and just fellow humans. We are a society that mostly willingly jumps into the mud these days, I’m afraid. There is something very comforting about knowing that I’ve been taught to take a cleaner and less troublesome path. And THAT has made ALL the difference.
Talk to you tomorrow.
L.
thepathtoworthy.com 