..but I do believe in fair.
No matter what job you’re in, no matter how high up on the ladder you go, you always have to deal with assholes. It’s as simple as that. You think if you get to a certain level, if you own your company, or become a CEO with thousands reporting to you, or are retired and shouldn’t have to suck up to anyone any more, you will become inoculated from dealing with jerks, stupids and just simply bad, nasty, mean spirited people? Forget it. Just look at Obama and see what kind of malevolent people he has to deal with all day.
I certainly have had my share—after all, between academia, business and the non-profit world, I have lots of opportunities. By far the worst are those that have a slickness, a patter, a pseudo – political savvy and know how to manipulate the misinformed and the dimwitted into acting against their own self-interest. The fast talking director, vice-president, senior administrator, COO, or dean who convince the unthinking and lazy that a glib promise and a smile is something they could put in the bank and use to pay the gas man. And year after year the bad people get away with it, and you know, well, really you pray, that one day it will change, but you can’t tell how long it will take…or if you can hang in there for that long…
And then one day, you walk into your office, and your bête noire has been fired. Just like that. All along he had been having an affair with a giraffe or embezzling money from a charity for babies with no lips, or had been found guilty of plagiarizing his third grade report on Denmark. And just like that, the world appears to shift a bit and, at least in your little corner of the world, seems a bit more in balance. Maybe he’s shipped off to Jukkasjarvii’s Ice Hotel to chisel ice blocks, or to Colgate-Palmolive to test the new shampoo created from bull urine. Or maybe he just stays in his job, stripped of power, control and relevance, diminished in the eyes of all who won’t meet his.
I may not sure I trust in karma, but every once in a not so frequent while, life turns out fair. And for that, I will be eternally grateful.
