Off the Grid: Not Necessarily HR – A Matter of Perspective

Somewhere there is a woman telling her husband a story about this crazy driver that blew his horn and made obscene gestures to her as she was trying to make a right turn out of the Danbury Fair Mall parking lot. Well, I was that crazy person. Of course, I saw the situation much differently. She did not even slow down at the red light as she lurched in front of my car when there was nobody behind me in the lane of traffic… if she had bothered to look for a safe opening. Slamming on my brakes, laying on my horn, and shaking my fist at her, I mouthed the words hoping she would understand, “You crazy bitch!” Turn right on red in Connecticut doesn’t mean you have the right-of-way when there is traffic, but I see people coasting through intersections putting their lives and that of other of us crazy people at risk almost every day. Don’t get me started about merging onto I-84. “It’s called an acceleration lane, idiot!” as they slam on their brakes in front of me rather than ease onto the highway. I must look like I have a lot of insurance.

Driving is a privilege and the right-of-way is not something that can be taken for granted. That rule should apply equally to other situations in life as well. Any idiot can send an email and most of them do. It is so easy to hit “reply all” on a message sent to a distribution list, but that doesn’t mean you have to do it. I actually got one of those from one crazy idiot and immediately shot off a reply that he should not reply to everybody when giving his response… which would have been good advice until I realized after about 20 emails and one face-palm moment that in my haste I had just done the same thing. “Idiot!” Oh well I guess we all make mistakes, only most are not sent electronically to the boss’s boss.

There are many who operate on the philosophy that the world belongs to them. They preach lessons that need to be followed by everyone except themselves. Sometimes we teach by our own actions and don’t even realize that the example we set can have repercussions. When my son was in driver’s education class in high school, he got reprimanded by the teacher during one road test. “When you take your driver’s test it might be a good idea not to use the phrase, ‘Nice signal, asshole!’ even when someone does something wrong that makes you angry.” I can’t imagine where he could have learned that.

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