There is, however, a difference between “letting things go” and “being a sucker”. Someone’s trash can blows over on a freakishly windy day? Pick it up before it gets all over the neighborhood and thank yourself for making the world just that small amount better. Restaurant down the block can’t be bothered to pay for frequent trash pickup, resulting in festering piles of rotting food? Obviously some complaints should be lodged and people fined.
A lot of the office stuff falls somewhere in between - on the one hand, it’s not a big deal to do a couple of minutes of dishes if other people forget. On the other hand, sometimes you get sick of other people using your dishes, not cleaning them, and expecting you to play maid. If it’s getting in your way, I think you have legitimate cause for complaint.
I find that it is useful to ask yourself “Am I angry about this because someone’s bad behavior is causing me harm or discomfort, or am I angry because I feel like bad behavior should be punished?” I used to get angry about people with the shockingly loud car stereos going by in the middle of the night (people are sleeping! don’t inflict your music on the rest of us!), until I realized that (a) I’m awake in the middle of the night anyways, so it’s not like they wake me up, and (b) they’re gone again in a minute. Big deal.
However, I do tend to get involved when someone else is suffering but doesn’t have the money/power/confrontation skills to deal with it. I don’t like seeing other people get shit on.
It’s not that you can’t shape others behaviour, it’s that giving them a wake up call, smack up side the head or whatever just flat out isn’t going to work. Your best tool is your good behaviour. Leading by example.
You will only feel like you’re being taken advantage of if you’re doing what you’re doing and expecting something in return. Never lose sight of the fact that you’re doing what you’re doing for yourself, no one else. If you improve some one else’s behaviour by your example bonus.
You see a similar thing with people who come in early, do extra work, go the extra mile. Then slag others who don’t do the same, or do the bare minimum. These people have lost sight of the fact that they come in early, do the extra work, go the extra mile because of who they are. And the actions or inactions of others don’t really come into it. It’s easy to get confused this way, you see it all the time.
I live with my sister. We’re both in our 20s and thought it’d be fun to rent a house together. We found a great deal on a little house in a middle-class neighborhood.
Our neighbor is a huge busybody. We’re both used to apartment living, so the first few months, he would come over and nag us about stuff (but in the guise of being “helpful”) or he’d nag us when we would walk to the mailbox.
“You guys left the garage door open last night. Possums could get in!” A week later: “I saw a possum in my back yard! I told you!”
“Do you need to borrow a lawn mower?” No. “But your lawn needs to be mowed.” (We’re talking a week or two of growth - it needed a mow, but we’re busy and couldn’t get to it until a weekend.)
He will also force his son to scrape our driveway if we don’t get to it instantaneously, such as if we’re out of town for a day or it snows during work hours. He then fishes for compliments about it as soon as he can. I have told him that we appreciate it, but it’s unnecessary. He keeps doing it.
Now granted, we’re not perfect. It’s a rental house so yeah, we’re not putting in improvements to the shitty plants and stuff. But he’s a pain in the ass. If my empty garbage can sits out for 12 hours, who cares? We’re busy people and we travel out of town to see our parents often (only a day or two at a time).
Pain in the ass. I’ll note for clarity that we have never impacted his property in any way. No garbage, whatever. He’s just a busybody.
Lately, we stopped being nice about his meddling attempts and he’s toned it down – at least until a couple of weeks ago when he tried to convince us to join his “profit sharing” business opportunity. I said no flat out, but my sister tried to find out what it was. He wouldn’t tell us. I’m guessing Amway.
It’s not just a few dishes in a sink or someone doesn’t fill the photocopier; it’s people driving like entitled jerks, followed by dishes in the sink, followed by an empty photocopier, followed by one teaspoon of coffee in the machine, followed by waiting in line for lunch behind people who decide what they want after they reach the till, followed by a paper jam left in the photocopier, followed by people driving like entitled jerks, followed by people parking in the no parking lane because they’re just running in, followed by someone with 15 items in the 10 items only checkout, followed by dogshit on your lawn when you don’t have a dog, followed by your neighbour parking in front of your house when they have a perfectly good curb in front of their own house, followed by someone on a Harley driving by and shaking your windows at 12 o’clock at night. Day after day after day.
D’ya see where I’m going with this? You’re absolutely right that you can’t change other people, and all you can do is let things go, but damn, why do I have to let go SO MUCH, every single day of my life? Why can’t other people have a thought in their heads, like I do? Why can’t I be one of these bubbleheads, just blithely wandering through life, leaving a trail of McDonald’s wrappers and mostly empty coffeepots in my wake?
'It’s not just a few dishes in a sink or someone doesn’t fill the photocopier; it’s people driving like entitled jerks, followed by dishes in the sink, followed by an empty photocopier, followed by one teaspoon of coffee in the machine, followed by waiting in line for lunch behind people who decide what they want after they reach the till, followed by a paper jam left in the photocopier, followed by people driving like entitled jerks, followed by people parking in the no parking lane because they’re just running in, followed by someone with 15 items in the 10 items only checkout, followed by dogshit on your lawn when you don’t have a dog, followed by your neighbour parking in front of your house when they have a perfectly good curb in front of their own house, followed by someone on a Harley driving by and shaking your windows at 12 o’clock at night. Day after day after day."
See, now this doesn’t sound like you’re letting it go. Choking it back is a different fish altogether. I can only tell you what I have learned the hard way; if you haven’t learned the lesson yet, it just keeps repeating itself until you do.
Your high expectations for other people (no doubt a reflection of the high expectations you place on yourself, a good thing!) doesn’t change them. People are people. They leave dishes in the sink, jams in the photocopier, park in inconvenient places, leave their garbage cans on the curb for days and leave grocery carts in the parking lot. Letting these things get under your skin is your responsibility not theirs.
They are not going to change. Get right with it. No amount of harping at them around the office, sneering at them in traffic, or phone calls to city hall are going to change the fact that people are people.
Please don’t misread this to say you should have the dimmest possible view of everyone and only expect the worst. That’s not it. We all do silly things, things that we do unthinkingly no doubt annoy others. No one escapes. Knowing you, no doubt, do annoying things as well, makes it a lot easier. Rest assured just because you can’t identify your own annoying/unthinking things doesn’t mean they don’t exist.
But is is just people being people, or have we allowed the bar to get so incredibly low that any behaviour in society goes? Is it doing anyone any favours to let all kinds of anti-social behaviour go so that we don’t get upset about it?
While I certainly see what you’re saying, I don’t think anyone indicated ‘any behaviour’ goes.
It’s the inability to see the little things as little things that leads to the described behaviour. And equivocating is a way of making it acceptable to get oneself into a twist.
Annoying drivers, jammed copiers, dishes in the sink and carts in the parking lot are not sure to lead to further decay of western civilization.
Accepting what you cannot change (people will be people), and the wisdom to know the difference and all that.
No need to slide down the slippery slope. Just because I do my roommate’s dishes the one time she leaves them in the sink for a day doesn’t mean I’m going to let her dump her trash can in the middle of the living room and smile peacefully at her.
I see the point and to some extent I agree with it, but I also see featherlou’s point–why is it always me who has to adapt to other’s failings?
“it’s just the way he is.” or “she can’t handle X.” has been told to me since I was a wee one. What about what I can’t handle or how about “the way” I am? Why is there no consideration for that by these same people who leave stuff all over, are thoughtless and rude in their habits? I have cleaned up litter and picked up trash cans etc. I don’t mind, but the same is not done for me.
I will never understand this. I’ve learned to let it go, but that question remains with me. If I, no rocket scientist and not even all that nice of a person, can do/handle X, why not he or she?
It’s not that one individual can’t handle putting the grocery cart back, or that ‘he’s just that way’ and doesn’t do dishes.
It’s that in every office there will always be some dishes left in the sink, in every parking lot there will always be some loose carts. There will never come a day when all the bad parkers and annoying drivers will disappear.
It’s not about whether they can do it, because you can do it. It’s about how many times are you going to let this get under your skin before you figure out it achieves nothing but maybe steals a little of your composure. All of the cost is to you.
We’re just saying, if it bothers you act on it (do the dishes, move the cart, clear the paper jam). And if it doesn’t bother you enough to want to act on it, then shut up about it already. Because all the moaning and complaining isn’t changing anything.
And certainly it is possible that you possess absolutely no annoying ways or habits. Surely if you can’t think of any, they must not exist. If you have no ‘failings’ it must indeed be irritating to have to constantly accommodate the ‘failings’ of others.
Seriously, what would happen if you behaved like they behave? My guess is that you would be pretty unhappy in short order. And you know what? I sincerely believe that most of *them *are unhappy. Still not your job to fix them.
OK, I haven’t been here in a few days, so maybe I missed something.
But the OP posted a Pit thread to complain about other people complaining and not being able to let.it.go?
Wouldn’t the true definition of letting it go mean that you don’t bring it up. . . somewhere else. . . including complaining about the same situation on a public message board?
ETA: Oh, and I think that the attitude that people in city hall won’t do anything is pretty self-defeating. They are taking action. . . they’re calling city hall. Complaining without action is useless, but it sounds like they’re doing something about it. And the OP is thwarting their effort. Perhaps if they throw more garbage in the street to pick up, the OP will know the feeling of having someone thwart their efforts.
In the office, I have no problem telling our resident slob to clean her shit up. She will leave remenants of her metamucil smoothie in the blender (it truely looks like liquid shit), her half packet of Splenda (along with the other 3 half packs) on the counter, and her empty tupperware on the break table after lunch, sometimes even a used teabag.
For two years, I’d clean it up and then politely say something about the messes, post a sign or two, all that passive-aggresive stuff. Nowadays I drop by her office to tell her she’s got a mess in the breakroom she’s got to clean up. She has never once attempted to change her habits, if it is a habit. Though at times, it is evident she makes an effort - the teabag makes it to the trash, the wrapper doesn’t. Everytime I say something to her, she reacts as though it was the first time anything has ever been said. She will then get up and clean up her mess. The receptionist has a fit every damn time. I just don’t see wasting energy on it. There just seems to be a disconnect that she even made the mess, not that she’s expecting others to clean up after her. I have often mused that I’d love to see the inside of her home, though I’m certain I lack the guts to actually cross the threshold.
I can’t be like that because I was raised better - I would do it knowingly, instead of out of ignorance of a better way to behave. I’m not trying to be difficult here; this is a topic that I have really struggled with - how much do you accept because that’s the way it is, and how much do you tell someone to knock that shit off already, you’re living in a society here? Do we have a responsibility as people who know better to try to teach people who missed critical social skills in their upbringing, or do we just ignore them and let them continue to be negative forces in our environment?
There is a lot of inconsiderate prickery in the world. My lesson was learned when I took action against the prick by contacting the authority and providing evidence of the transgressions. Even though I still stand by the fact that I was in the right, the authority turned on me. There seems to be a strange epidemic on the rise where people in authority tend to defend the guilty rather than comfort the victim. And that is infuriating, to the point where it multiplies the stress for the victim of the inconsiderate prick.
We, unfortunately, have to learn to become emotionally immune to the abundant assholery of the world around us. Not that you should become a doormat, or that you shouldn’t report the incidents or correct people when appropriate, but you need to keep your thoughts from being tormented by what today’s set of inconsiderate pricks piled onto you.
We live in a world where idiots reign. It is aggravating, but we only empower them if we obsess over it. I am usually the guy who puts away one or more carts on my way into the store. I shouldn’t have to, but someone needs to clean up after the lazy, inconsiderate people. If I get annoyed by the herd of stray carts in the lot and start fuming over it, it will only cause me, and others, to generate a little more hostility toward the world around me, and pretty soon I’ll be lashing out in other ways. So I put the carts away to cushion the potential hostility of the next person to put in and see all of the wild carts. The cycle of evil perpetuated by the lazy man’s shopping carts ends by an action that I take. Putting that spin on it makes me feel like a damn hero every time I save someone else the frustration of dealing with The Inconsiderate Pricks. Then I get to go home patting myself on the back for making the world slightly better, and I’d much rather have that than another evening of tallying up the Assholes vs. Innocent People score.
What do you do?
Well, in one office where I worked, people actually looked up the number, and got on the phone and called his mommy, and asked her to come in to the office and clean up after her spoiled brat.
Several different people got on the phone with her during the conversation. They were nice to her, and very polite, and did not get angry. But they said that they had reminded him of this repeatedly, but they were just not able to convince him the way a mother could. And they didn’t want this to become an issue with management, because as a new employee, that could be bad for his career at the company. And that they were sure that he was concentrating so hard on his work that he just couldn’t seem to remember to clean up after himself. And what day would she be able to come in to clean? She said she would call him that evening and talk to him.
Nobody knows what she said him about this, but from the next day on, he was very careful to clean up his mess in the lunchroom. And he kept it up, so apparently the lesson from mommy did take.
This made me smile, thank you. Even though my example was only theoretical - I don’t actually know anyone who is clueless for that specific reason.
The one best thing I am taking away from this excellent discussion is Anne Neville’s mantra “That’s his problem, not mine.” It will take practice to make it stick, but if I can do that I can see that it will add much serenity to my life.
Roddy
