respectful

…Aretha Franklin spelled it out: R – E – S – P – E – C – T.

The question is are you respectful? Several situations have arisen that make me question other peoples actions – but I turn it back on myself. Am I respectful? I am the class clown who was too shy then but now readily act the part. Anything for a laugh and if it brings on a good belly laugh – anything goes. But have I gotten caught up in the laughter and forgotten about the common courtesy I should be extending to those around me?

Years ago, I worked for a man who would hand write out memos and then pass them to me. He would prioritize them for me by writing HOT at the top of the page, if it was particularly important there might be HOT HOT HOT across the top of the page. The dilemma for me was when I began to type it up, I saw that this was written in haste and under bad humor. When he would calm down, he would surely rewrite or forget the whole thing. But HOT HOT HOT was not something I could ignore. My device was to type it up, but make obvious typo-s and then pass it back to him as a draft. I hoped that he would read it and then make the right choice. Sometimes I had to be blunt about it.

Email changed all that. A hot temper could pound out a snappy reply and hit SEND before the brain had a change to scan for content. And when you hit SEND, it was gone and in the INBOX faster than you could cry out, OMG!

I watched how quickly an inconsiderate email could cause a company to go over the falls. One email went out, a scathing response was rallied back, accusations, betrayals, and threats responded. Where I sat I watched as the President and her Vice President played this high stakes game of tennis – serving one strong email after another. It usually ended with someone being fired or quoting. Right then and there. I learned to return such an email with a face-to-face meeting to defuse it before it went awry.

No longer in the corporate world, I now wince when I see it happening between friends. Often the first volley is sent with copies to a handful of mutual friends as if to gather witnesses or show support. I don’t know, but I beg you to be respectful in your communications with one another.

Last story: Another boss had a hot temper and one day he decided that his new recruit wasn’t being honest with him. He had offered him the job, he had accepted but had to have some time to wind down his current position. My boss forgot about this and picked up the phone and left a highly charged and x-rated voicemail for him ending with the threat that the offer was no longer valid. He slammed down the receiver to punctuate the fact that he was proud of the position he had taken. No one treated him like that. Later that afternoon he received a call from the recruit. He was calling from out of the country and had just concluded his commitment and was reporting that he would be home and reporting to work in three days. Stunned by this and at the same time realizing that he had been wrong to leave that message, he quickly added, “Oh and by the way wait till you hear the funny voicemail I left you.”

Disrespect begets disrespect, never the other way round. Likewise, respect begets respect.