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| Treating you like family "We don't treat other people like family and I'm sure they thank us for it." |
Saturday 9th Sept 2006 |
| I once had to fire a guy because he
was too
hard to work with. Everyone hated him, he treated people
badly. He would call co-workers and staff stupid, lazy, and
blame
all of his
shortcomings on everyone else. When I told him why I was letting him go
he said, "I like to be frank and honest with the people
I work with, like they are family." It shocked
me. When I was telling the other people on the team why I let
him go
and they all said what I thought, "I hope he doesn't really treat his
family
like he treated us." I'm older and wiser now and
have come to
realize
that he was right about treating us like family. I was right to fire
him because you can't treat customers, and coworkers like family.
Your family treats you badly, at least mine does.
They
love you
and maybe it is because they love you that they treat you badly. I have
never had a stranger say anything as mean as what my wife or kids have
said to me. I thought of this on the way back from getting a hair cut with my son. He turned to me and said, "Have you ever thought of some kind of hair replacement treatment. " I looked at him funny and he said," I'm just asking?" I told him, "No, it is expensive and you have to do it for the rest of your life. " He nodded his head "Yes" in agreement and said, "You're right, You're not trying to move up any more." That got another funny look from me and he said, "It's "Hair and Height" if you want to be successful you have to have "Height and Hair." He went on to say, "It's a fact really successful people are attractive, tall and have good hair. You can't do much about your height and since you are as successful as you are ever going to be it makes sense that you don't want to spend a lot of money getting your hair back." I just shook my head and thought well as least this will make a good story. He wasn't trying to be mean, if anything he was trying to be nice. He was giving me good career advice and agreeing with me. I assume he was thinking about it because every old photo of me at his age could be a photo of him. He was looking over at me and thinking, "I don't have to look like him when I get as old as he is, if I get as old as he is. I could work out more, and get my hair replaced." He is not the only one in the family that keeps trying to be nice to me. Katie tells me, "I like to cuddle with you because you are softer than Mom." Cheryl tells me, "Maybe something is wrong medically, your belly shouldn't be that big. You don't eat that much and you ride your bike. You should be a lot thinner than you are." I know she is trying to be supportive and wives can get away with stuff like that. If a husband said something like that he would be living alone with half of his stuff. Every guy knows the only answer to the question, "Do I look fat in this?" is a quick and decisive "No!" Women can and do say anything they want, such as; "You need to toss that shirt out it shows off how big your gut is. "Those pants make you look short." "Those glasses make your face look fat." "You should never wear a stripped tie, it makes you look heavy." "I think your pants don't stay up because your belly is so big." Imagine telling your wife, "That dress doesn't lay right because of your pot belly." By the way just for the record my wife does not have a pot belly. All of her dresses hang wonderfully. She looks more like my daughter then my wife. Strangers in stop us in the street just to tell her that she could do much better than me. I would also like to keep all of my stuff and I don't want to live alone. I know that I have not aged well, in fact when I posted a very well written article with a 20 year old photo of me I got more than a few comments asking why I had a photo of someone else on my website. I blame it on computers. Before I started working on computers I had a 28 inch waist, I looked 10 years younger than my age and could hustle up a flight a stairs without a pulling out my inhaler. After computers, well lets just say none of that is true. I know this but I'm also capable of deluding myself into thinking that I'm one bike ride away from fitting into my "Dress Blues." My loving family knows how to boost my ego with supportive statements like, "Why are you keeping your old uniforms, you are never going to fit into them again." "Can I have your Army jacket the old Vietnam era jackets are really cool now and you're never going to be able to wear it again." That one is has the added advantage of calling me both Old and Fat. Everyone in my family loves me enough to offer their opinion about my height, weight, hair, or lack of hair, and especially my clothes. I constantly get asked;"Are you going to wear that?" "Are you going to change?" "Do you have something else to wear?" "Your, Jacket, Shirt, Trousers... look too tight." "You have to wear a shirt, someone might come to the door." "Are you are really going to wear that shirt?" "It must be nice to work from home since you can dress anyway you want." "What does your boss wear? They say you should dress like your boss does." This would be bad enough coming from my wife but coming from my 10 year old daughter it is almost too much to take. I kid around with the kids and they kid back, but while I try to be cute they often just try to and get a reaction. Katie will come back with, "Papa your Fat." I give her my, "That is not a very nice thing to say" look. She responds with, "But you are fat. You're not the fattest person, but you are pretty fat." Measuring myself against other people has become a common preoccupation for me but it almost always backfires. I sometimes make the mistake, after seeing a really heavy guy, 350 lbs heavy, of asking, "I'm not as big as that guy is, am I?" My Son, Daughter, or Wife will say, "No. He is taller than you." I remember walking down a long hallway and seeing this older fat guy coming towards me. I was very disappointed when I noticed that there was a mirror at the end of the hallway. My self image has no relationship to my real image. I remember parking my vehicle, grabbing my stuff and walking down the street to an appointment. Two young and very pretty girls caught my eye. I was surprised to see them looking longingly over at me. I was a shocked, but it really started to boost my ego when it became obvious they were checking me out. I thought better of it after a couple of seconds thinking, "Why would two very pretty young girls be checking me out?" I smiled at myself and was surprised to see the prettiest girl smile back at me. She then started to walk over to me. I was so taken aback that I looked behind me to see who she was smiling at. I was alone on the street and my pleasure quickly turned to fear. I was like a dog who finally catches the car. I just stopped and froze. She walked right up to me then turned to her friend and said, "Maybe we can get this older gentleman to move his van?" Of course at least with your family you know they are being as honest as they can be and that they have to love you. I sometimes miss the love when my friends tell me things that sound nice but when you think about it are really back handed compliments. "Man, You've lost a lot of weight." This sounds good but since I weigh 225 lbs and I have weighed 225 lbs for the last 18 years, I have never lost a lot of weight. It only makes me think, "How fat did you think I was before." Someone told me, "You should think about getting laser surgery. You would look a lot younger without glasses." I once was telling people how I always got carded at the bars and off handedly said, "I have always looked younger than I am." The response, "When did that change?" wouldn't have hurt as much except everyone around the table looked over to hear my answer. I blame the whole thing on Television and Movies we see all these fit people with six pack abs. We don't think, "I wish I could look like that." We think we do look like that. At least we think it until we walk down a long hallway with a mirror at the other end, or hear someone say, "I'm not as fat as that guy, am I." |
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