So something happened this past week that had me wanting to write a post about a certain topic. A conversation the next day with people feeling the exact same way told me I was on the right path. The topic; respect. Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary defines that word as “a relation to or concern with something, or an act of giving particular attention”. The word may have crossed your mind a time or two during this busy holiday season. What better time than now to maybe raise a little awareness to the fact that we are all guilty of disrespect. Most of which is unintentional or because of lack of knowledge in my opinion. But there are those that for some unknown reason do it intentionally. I may never reach them. But, if I can change just a few lives, than maybe I have done my part.
I will not go into full detail about what happened to us, other than to say it was blatantly obvious that this person had the intent to disrespect us. My guess is that they wanted a scene to be made. Trust me, we could have done several things that would have caused that to happen. And I will not say that several did not cross our minds and were very hard for us to resist doing. I am, however, trying to be aware of my place in solutions and not problems. So with that said, we moved on and got what we needed to get done. Before leaving the premises, however, I did politely and nicely speak to the manager, who I knew could do nothing about what the customer did. I also took corporate information. The manager did apologize, we accepted and went on our merry way. At this point, I have still done nothing with the corporate information as I try to find a way to suggest or recommend a positive solution to those up the managerial chain. I could just complain, but I would rather see a beneficial solution to an ongoing problem with the location and bring some respect back to the equation.
The next day, I got into a discussion with a couple of gentlemen that drive trucks (eighteen wheeler) for a living. And boy did I get an earful of how disrespected they felt. Having worked several years in close proximity to them, I so could empathize with what they felt. I have watched people tell them “oh, you are only a truck driver”. I thought to myself, if people only knew. It did not take me very long working in the industry to realize that everything in my life, and I do mean everything, is hauled by a truck driver at some point. Whether it be the materials my home is made of, or the food on my table, or the stove that heats my house, everything is transported by a truck driver and we should keep that in mind.
On top of that, try to imagine that your job has you on the road all day, everyday. Now add in mass population scurrying around in their daily lives. I think our lack of knowledge puts us in dangerous situations we do not mean to put ourselves in. You see this truck driver knows that his or her empty weight maybe somewhere around 40,000 pounds, and if he or she is full 80,000 pounds. Although they could have a permit to be even heavier than that depending on what they are hauling. So when we, not thinking, cut them off, imagine his or her stress to slow, stop, and/or avoid impact with our 5,000 pound vehicle. One of the gentleman even said he was ticketed for swerving out of his lane recently, even though the police officer clearly saw the woman (with two children in the rear seat) cut him off. His choices, a probability of death to more than one had he proceeded on course or swerve to avoid an accident. I am not the only one, I am sure, glad he chose the latter. Sadly, he paid a price.
These are just a few examples to try to raise awareness to what we all do in our hundred mile an hour hectic lives. I know you have your own horror stories to tell. We all probably have several a day. With that said, maybe the next time we run in someplace as they are closing, we will be aware of the disrespect to the establishment. Maybe when our phone rings and we are at the check out, we will think twice about disrespecting the cashier and others in line behind us. I know in my personal life there are things I can put off, if need be, to show appropriate respect. Although I fail miserably some days, I am now trying to make an effort to change that. If we all just took a minute everyday and became aware of what we do, imagine the improvement to the level of respect. I have had my minute, have you taken yours?