How to Treat People Nice

It feels like one of those basic lessons, the things we pick up from the time we're about 2 years old.  Be nice to people.  It isn't always easy, but if we pay attention, we can usually remember.

We stopped in at a furniture maker, and one of the craftsmen spend half an hour talking with us about how he uses his tools, how he selects his wood, what kinds of pieces he likes to make.  He didn't have to do that — we weren't immediate customer prospects — but he was engaged with the work and we were engaged with him.

We were talking with a friend last night about her work as an executive assistant, and how much she enjoys working with her current boss.  They get along, they joke, and they're effective.  She has a real affection for him, and it's obvious that he's equally happy to be working with her.

We had coffee this morning with a local professional who's giving us advice on starting our business.  He was thoughtful and willing to explain the obvious to us civilians, pointed out common business pitfalls, and was clear about where his professional expertise stopped.

As simple and everyday as these exchanges are, though, it's important to keep them in mind and recognize that we do them on purpose.  Because we were also met this morning by an e-mail from a friend whose workplace has become untenable, who literally has to be reading something on her phone when she walks into the door of her office to distract her from the fact that she's going to endure the place for another day.  The simple struggles of reduced budgets are made into complicated struggles, with recriminations about her commitment and capabilities.  The two years until retirement are seemingly as interminable as Moses and the Israelites in the desert.

We know of a workplace in which the leader is openly proud of having created a culture of fear and uncertainty.  We know of a workplace in which all of the successes are attributed to leadership, and all of the struggles are attributed to ineffective employees.  We know of a workplace in which worker loyalty is questioned for using sick days — not even vacation days, but sick days.  We know of a popular business writer who crows about how important it is to find and retain excellent staff, and who personally is dismissive and demeaning and reduces strong employees to tears.

Businesses are a crucial part of our lives.  We spend half of our waking hours at work; the relationships we have with employers and co-workers are vital to our identity and our mental health.  Why is it so often the case that those relationships are broken?  We're not talking about a GM factory with 30,000 unionized workers fighting against a distant corporate bureaucracy, we're talking about places where every single employee could stand together in a moderately large room.  Why is that so hard to do?

There seem to be a lot of people who missed out on that early training, those basic lessons on how to be kind and generous.  So, although it seems basic and not needing to be said, let's say it anyway:  treat people nice.

(On a related note, our nation took an important step yesterday in treating people nice.  With respect.  With equality.  We know what it means for US to be married, and we're grateful that others are now more able to have that same fundamental joy.  There are still lots of individual states that haven't yet recognized marriage equality — but they're coming around, one by one.  So here's a toast to the end of the Defense of Marriage Act.  Our marriage is best defended when all marriages are defended.)