Indignation.
Could it be that the indignation we express when the boss catches us out, is less about a true injustice, and more annoyance that the boss saw through our ruse?
The Salute.
Once appointed as an officer in the armed forces, every rank junior salutes and calls you ‘Sir’.
For most officers that is humbling and slightly awkward. You know you’ve done nothing to earn that respect and you know that they know you know. It’s almost as if each salute is accompanied by a knowing wink.
For some officers, that is the natural state of affairs and they never grow in response. Those officers give commissioned ranks a bad name.
For the rest of us, the first salute began us on our path to earn and be worthy of the institutional respect.
Each crisp salute and curt ‘Sir!’ a reminder of our unearned status and our need to keep trying to earn it.
To get better.
To serve.
Returning salutes never made me feel superior. Decades since my first, it remains humbling.
Then you get promoted and there’s another layer of saluters below you.
Then another.
One day we leave full time Defence and go out into the rank-less, salute-less, Sir-less, corporate world.
No more knowing what courses the person above and below us has passed to reach their place in the outfit, nor the pay they receive.
No days punctuated by salutes given and returned.
Nudging us to remember we serve something higher than ourselves.
Imagine a Workplace.
Imagine a workplace where an employee could say this to their boss:
‘I don’t have the self-confidence to apply myself fully to the work you expect me to do. So instead I spend a lot of energy thinking of ways to appear to be as competent and diligent as I think you require me to be to keep my job. I’ve worked out the minimum I need to do to keep up appearances, including a menu of excuses I have for both myself and you if I fall short. I know that you don’t have the time or will it would require to monitor me enough to gather the evidence you need to prove what I know about my mediocre performance. So I rely on this to get away with my mediocrity. So, in a way, I blame you for me not pulling my weight.’
And the boss could say this back:
‘I just want the work done so I can do mine and we can be successful. I haven’t go the time or desire to supervise you enough to either lift your performance or have enough evidence to ask you to leave and not get sued.’
What Will This Mean?
A bad boss asks themselves before a decision:
‘What will this mean for me?’
A good boss asks themselves:
‘What will this mean for others?’
An Audience of One.
Then there’s the sycophant who organises a meeting or presentation that includes the boss - and no matter how large the audience, we soon can tell it may as well only be one person.
Asked and Answered.
I’m always amused when the person who organised the presentation and introduced a speaker and encouraged us all to pay attention and learn from them - proceeds to answer most of the speakers questions of the audience.
The Foolish and the Wise.
The foolish need only be right once to remain fools.
The wise need only be wrong once to remain wise.
The Naked Truth.
Being confronted by the truth is like reclining in a European spa and looking up just as an old man emerges naked from the thermal bath.
The Beastly Boss.
The boss enters the room, covered in soot and filth with documents in hand.
The worker - early to arrive - awaits him.
Immaculately cloaked in unblemished, virginal white.
Fresh from giving alms to the poor.
Knowing and speaking only Virtue.
Innocently oblivious as to the injustice about to fall upon them from the grubby, grubby hands of the beastly boss.
A Terrible Tradition.
Britain has this terrible tradition of undermining and disregarding and sort of eliminating so many of the people who are the most aggressive warriors in a recent war. When Nelson destroyed most of Copenhagen, he was greatly criticised at the time. - Marcus Gibson
Only the observer and historian have the luxury of perfection.
The Dribble.
The rules of basketball could allow players to carry the ball to their basket and score.
But that would be boring.
So they added the dribble.
More difficult = More skill = more interesting.
Life.
God.
Kind Child.
For a child to be kind is incredibly brave.
Already vulnerable by virtue of her age, she chooses another behaviour that is misunderstood as weakness and easily exploited or even mocked by her peers and adults
No wonder few kind children grow up to be kind adults.
