Shame on The Universe   Poetry and Thoughts on the Universe

At my work, we have a set of core values: things that as an organization we are supposed to embody as lowly paid employees. Not that it’s wrong to have core ideal for your organization, in fact I think it’s a requirement of any successful one. But my work place, at times, takes it to the level of World War 2 propaganda. They talk in long flowing speeches, making it a point to try to build you up and motive you to be ideal. Well, their ideal. Although group visions and goals are great, I don’t think you need to make your employees march lock-step in order to have a successful company, and individuality should be encouraged. But alas, being skilled at most jobs nowadays is measured by how well you can sit down, shut up, and do as you’re told.

I bring all that up because our core value that they selected for the month was selfless and supportive. Most of the time, we just end up reading lines off a pre-prepared training sheet, all while putting on a smile and pretending to care. It was a pretty boring training, and I wouldn’t even write about it, except for one of the things they talked about during the training bugged me.

They said, “Now, everyone has heard of the golden rule: Treat others as you would want to be treated. But I want everyone here to apply a new rule above that one. The platinum rule: Treat others how they want to be treated.”

Now, I know my co-worker obviously (well not obviously, but hopefully) doesn’t actually believe in that. I’m also pretty sure that the trainer who created it probably felt that they we being creative more than anything else, and just hadn’t given it much thought. Had they done so, they’d have figured out how colossally stupid the very idea of that rule is.
First of all, you’d be completely missing the point of the golden rule. Treat others as you want to be treated is treating people how they want to be treated. You can be nice to the people you help as part of your job because we all hate the crappy people who are jerks to us when we need to be served. It amazes me how many people just don’t get that.
Secondly, the new rule itself is stupid. At worst it’s telling you to be subservient to other people’s desires, and at best it’s telling you to do the same thing as the golden rule, but a little bit nicer. There is a difference between saying, “the customer is always right,” “give them the pickle!” and all that other stuff. But telling people to “go above and beyond the golden rule” just rubs me wrong.

For example, I want to be treated like royalty. I want to be handed money for doing no work, and get beautiful women to jump all over me and attend to my every whim. According to my work, all my attractive co-workers should be making me dinner and giving me money. That would not make me a good person. That would make me a jerk.

But hold on, you say. You your self aren’t following the platinum rule, and therefore you missed the point. You should rethink your premise and your life you say. To you I say firstly, I’m royalty and therefore you shouldn’t question what I say, peasant. Secondly, and more importantly, you shouldn’t let jerks push you around. The rule is not designed around the idea that everyone will use it, but that everyone should use it. Thus, if you follow the platinum rule, you become a door mat. But if you follow the golden rule, you can still decline them, because even though part of you would really want to have people not do it, another part of you knows that being told off is how you would want to be treated.

Either that, or you are just an egotistical ass. 🙂

-Shaman