I don’t see it as a lack of testicular fortitude. It’s more that if you tell people “no” they get all pouty, sad, belligerent, angry, etc. about it because, heaven forbid, the person in charge doesn’t see eye to eye with them about it. People don’t like to be told that they’re wrong or that they’re not special enough to warrant deviation from rules. So you tell them “no, it’s not you - it’s these stupid rules I have to follow” and some abstract thing is the bad guy and you can walk away feeling that your request wasn’t unreasonable or you’re just not good enough to get what you want.
Whether its weaksauce to avoid that hassle and use “the regulations” as an out is not something that I have an opinion on.
Right. You can say we can’t or won’t do that. Saying the reason you won’t is because then you’d have to accommodate everyone similarly is just nonsense.
There’s that. But then there’s not. Is someone who insists on arguing with you really going to say, “Oh you’re right. You would have to make exceptions for everyone. Carry on then”? When they’re at the point of requesting an exception, the “Then we’ll have to do it for everyone” angle won’t fly. Presumably, their whole premise is you won’t have to for everyone, specifically *because *their case is exceptional. Now if case actually isn’t, then they are delusional, but “no exceptions” will do little to sate them because they still believe it is. If it is, then make the exception.
Fortunately, I work in a place where other customers have no idea what we do for other customers, so this doesn’t come up.
Here’s what I think, in case anyone cares. I think some people are making this thread too personal, and applying it to specific instances in their lives, or what ideas they have toward entitled people. There are whiners who think if an exception has ever been made, then they always need to be made, and there are zero-tolerance rule enforcers, who are just as idiotic.
Okay, I just wrote big long post that upon preview, I’ve edited down because it contains boring and irrelevant details about my job.
Here’s what I hope is a concise version: Sometimes at work we require Thing X because it accomplishes X Goal. Sometimes we don’t have Thing X because it does not apply to our customer, but we still need X Goal accomplished. The good thing is we have Y and Z which accomplish X just fine. Great then, right? You’d think so, but tell that to our admin nazis. “We need X because we always need it.” Not really. We’ve made some negotiations so that this doesn’t really apply anymore. “We ALWAYS need X on this type of structure.” Yes, because X gives us such and such protection, but we’ve already negotiated it into Y and Z, so we’re done. “But our guidelines say we need it.” You fucking morons, will you throw your goddamn guidelines in the goddamn trash and understand that this is overkill?! We have already addressed this in our negotiations, and you are becoming a royal pain in my ass!
Then they come out with the “Rules are rules” crap, and then I have to strangle.
Of course your description of why people would say that is completely accurate; but we disagreely sharply about what that says about the person. To me an unwillingness to be the “bad guy” and toss it off onto “some abstract thing” is an act of cowardice. The very essence of testicular fortitude is that you’re willing to stand firm on something and let that pouting and belligerence wash around you because you just don’t give a shit.
Not giving a shit about what happens to you is one thing. Not giving a shit about what happens to the organization you represent and are responsible for keeping out of the courtroom is another thing entirely. If people could only sue a given supervisor for sexism, for example, as opposed to the entirety of Northrop-Grumman and all of its assets, it would be a different story.
I’m a teacher with a “no exceptions” policy on things like attendance (two absences, any reason, and then your grade goes down- if you have a big problem you gotta bring that up with the dean, and he’ll tell me if I need to do anything different)
The thing is that you may have a good reason, but there are fifty people in line with okay reasons, or iffy reasons, or made-up reasons. If I give you the time of day and carefully consider your case, I’ll have to carefully consider the cases of those other fifty people. And then you’ve got me playing judge instead of doing my job.
It’s not so much “if I make an exception for you, then I’ll have to make an exception for others” as “If I make an exception for you, I’m going to have to hear everyone else in town whine about how they deserve an exception, too.”
And then when I reject people’s excuses, they want an explanation. And they get pissed off at “I just don’t believe you” or “couldn’t you schedule your dentist appointment at another time.” When they complain, honestly I don’t have anything good to tell them. It’s just my on-the-spot assessment of the situation. I don’t have any real authority to be making these decisions, and if I get called on them I don’t have anything to back me up. Which means, of course, more whining and wheedling.
I finally got sick of being mobbed after every class by a dozen student trying to tell me why they couldn’t possibly go to my next class. Honestly, I don’t care. Either you are in class or you aren’t. If you aren’t in class, you haven’t done the work (it’s a bit of a lab class) and so you don’t get any credit.
And what does that have to do with making exceptions for someone? Of course if you’re acting on behalf of a company you consider them, but I’m still not sure in what situation throwing out this weak line would be preferable to something more solid.
It’s as solid as it gets: If I’m responsible for the salary and well-being of others, I’m going to be as conservative and cautious as an Alabama granny voting Republican from a Model A. Doing anything else would mean exposing others to risk for no good reason.
OP chiming back in. I guess my post should not be directed at the front line employees who have been told to act in this way and/or will get in trouble if they deviate from the planned course of action. It is directed at the upper/middle management who feels that all situations are the same.
For example, even sven, I understand that you don’t want to hear a whole lot of excuses, but surely you could understand the difference between “I went on a 3 day drunk” versus “I was kidnapped by IRA terrorists and forced to fellate their automatic weapons while cursing my mother”. And since you can understand that, it should be incumbent upon you to be a human being and make that policy of yours a little less inflexible. Even if that does mean telling a few students that their excuses are bullshit. And your superiors should back you up unless compelling evidence shows that you made a very incorrect decision.
I have a rule that kids can not leave to go to the bathroom during class. We break often enough for them to go between and I try to enforce it.
Once in awhile, a kid will ask and I usually say this. “So you want me to make an exception? If I do, you realize I will only make it for you and will have to tell the class I’m not making this exception for everyone else, right?”
Then, I let them go and tell the class I’m not letting anyone else go. I mean, I’m not a super jerk about it. If a kid is turning green or something, I break the rule again.
I guess I hated that whole idea of breaking the rule for everyone just because it was broken for me.
Obviously I can tell the difference between “my five year old child has pneumonia” and “my husband has a cold.” These are easy. The problem is stuff like this:
Student “My brother is sick.”
Me “Can’t your parents or someone take care of him?”
Student “We are orphans”
Me “Really? You’re really in charge of your orphaned brother?”
Student “Yeah”
Me “Okay, whatever, go for it.”
and then the next person comes up
Student “My uncle is sick”
Me “That’s not a good reason to miss class. Sorry.”
Student “You let Bob go when his brother was sick.”
Me “A brother is different than an uncle”
Student “But my uncle and I are really close.”
Me “I gotta draw the line somewhere.”
Student “That’s not fair. My uncle has mental difficulties and I need to take care of him. You have to consider my situation.”
Me “I don’t know, man. Okay, fine.”
Next person
Student “My aunt is sick.”
Me “I have to get to my next class. No.”
Student “But you let Rick go when his uncle…”
Me “That was special circumstances”
Student “Well my aunt…”
Me “I’m late for my next class. I’m sure your life story is very touching, but I can’t do this all day.”
Student “It’s not fair”
Me “I know it’s not. I don’t know what to tell you. I’ve got to go.”
Student “I can’t believe you won’t take my circumstances into account.”
Everyone has special circumstances, and the few that don’t have no problem just making stuff up. It’s not fair to expect me to stand around making arbitrary decisions that I’m going to have to defend when in reality they actually are completely off-the-cuff whatever-feels-right decisions. Any decision I make really is going to be unfair and indefensible. So I make a rule that gives you some choices (two free absences, if you are the sole guardian of your orphan brother it’d be smart to save those for family emergencies instead of using them to sleep in) and stick to it.
Or, I could just tell you to bugger off and save myself a dozen more conversations.
The flip side of “rules” is arbitrary decision making. Once people no longer trust that rules will be enforced equally and fairly to all, then you start getting into favoritism and cronyism.
One would be that it would be about truly rare and exceptional situations where I could at least believe I was making choices based on some kind of criteria and not just my own random snap judgments. If I’m getting a flood of borderline or likely-to-be-exaggerated-or-outright-lies stuff constantly, I’m going to need to draw a clear line and stick to it. I’m an English teacher, not someone in the business of making split-second decisions like “is a sick uncle as serious as a sick nephew?”
The other is that it does not interfere with my ability to do my primary job. My student’s excuses were cutting into their precious class time and my precious free time. My job is to teach, instruct, evaluate, mentor and inspire. While I appreciate my students as individuals, I have A LOT of students. If I have to deal with everyone’s personal lives, I won’t ever get around to the actual business of teaching them the subject I’m supposed to be teaching. If they have a serious problem they can take it to the dean or a councilor or something. They are trained and paid to deal with these things. I’m trained and paid to teach and that’s what I need to be focusing on during class time.
I had a situation that I still feel bad about last semester. A student had a fairly major surgery and a good chunk of the semester. While I feel for her, the fact remains that she missed the majority of a lab-based class. She showed me her scars and was clearly very upset about the whole thing. But I just can’t give credit for someone who didn’t actually do the work required. It’s a sad situation, but it would undermine everything else I did to give a passing score to someone who did not pass, no matter how good the reason is. I told her she had to go talk to the dean or the head of the department or something, and I’d gladly follow any instructions I got from them. I have no idea if she ever resolved her problem, but unfortunately, I just wasn’t the one who could fix it.
Well, it is certain that this kind of logic can be used as a Zero Think policy, much like “zero tolerance” resulted in absurdities. Logic carried to it’s extreme becomes illogical.
Unfortunately, everybody on Earth thinks they are “special” and the rules don’t apply to them, and that everyone should modify their rules, standards, ethics or policies to make an exception for them. Which if you allow this sort of thing, quickly becomes “the rules don’t mean jack shit if the other party whines loud enough”.
I think this perfectly illustrates the problem. The exceptions are not over what you can bring to the sales floor; the exception would be for a person in exceptional circumstances. Let us say an insulin-using diabetic who really needs to have a sugar source in case of emergencies. I am sure other circumstances could be imagined. If I had a child who was in danger of an anaphilectic shock and carried an epi-pen that conflicted with a school’s no tolerance policies on drugs, i woule just figure out how it could be concealed. And if it were found and confiscated, I would not let him back in the school. I have my own rules with no exceptions.
Yes, if you allow one person to have grape juice you have to allow everyone. It is the circumstances that create exceptions.
Is there any situation where “Then we’ll have to do it for everyone” is more appropriate than saying their situation isn’t exceptional? Surely there must be one.
It seems odd to be talking about exceptional situations in general terms. By their very nature, the context applies, so leaving context out of a discussion like this seems to negate the whole discussion.
Fair enough. I agree that these are the circumstances in which exceptions should be made. Of course, there’s always some entitled crybaby who thinks, no matter how ordinary his situation is, that his circumstances are truly exceptional, is outright lying, and/or don’t care about how making an exception impacts your job. Screw that guy.
I think I’m coming from a different angle than you and a lot of others here in this thread in two ways. First, while I understand that the “No Exceptions” policy circumvents a lot of whining and pestering, I don’t care if you whine or pester me. I’ve heard it all, I don’t find your foot-stomping to be distressing, I’m not going to budge, and you’re not going to wear me down. Perhaps if I weren’t mean and old, this would bother me. As it is, your bitching has no affect at all. What could affect me, however, is a valid reason for why an exception should be made, in which case I’m all for it. Otherwise, it’s just noise in my ear.
Also, I’m not in the kind of position you’re in. I’ve noticed a lot of people’s approaches are reflective of their profession. I am not different in this regard; I immediately thought of my job when this came up, and not quibbles I’ve had with my cell phone company, or whatever else. Briefly, my job entails financing stuff for companies. Obviously, all of the information we gather and everything we do for them is confidential, so I never have to hear “But you allowed this for So & So Corporation.” We have basic approval and documentation requirements that aren’t dissimilar from those of any other financial services company. At times, we have savvy customers who want to negotiate some of our terms, because ours are (obviously) more beneficial to us than they are to the customer. They propose their changes, and if we think their changes present no substantial risk, we run it by legal first because as non-lawyers, even if we think their changes do not affect what we’re hoping to accomplish, they may have some magic wording that slipped by us non lawyer types. If legal says their wording is fine, we move on, if not, they fix it and move on.
Now negotiations aren’t something uncommon 'round these parts, but there are still some who cannot get on board with them. “We need this thing because we always need it!” Well, not really. We’ve made some negotiations so that this doesn’t really apply anymore. “We ALWAYS need this on this type of structure.” Yes, because this thing gives us such and such protection, but we’ll forego it because the negotiations we’ve made do not leave us in a weaker position, so we’re done. “But our guidelines say we need it.” Understood, but we really shouldn’t need it in this case because we’ve covered this already in a different way. “Well if we make an exception here, then we will have to for everyone.” Not at all. We just don’t go around waiving requirements because the customer doesn’t like them. We will make exceptions if their reasons are valid, and don’t leave our asses hanging out. We’ve decided that what they’ve proposed is acceptable to both parties, so we’re moving forward. “But the guidelines say…” Oh fuck me sideways!!! Will you throw your goddamn guidelines in the goddamn trash and understand that this is asinine?! We have already addressed this in our negotiations, and you are becoming a royal pain in my ass!
