courtesy

Birthday Wishlists

I’m shamelessly copying and pasting my birthday wishlist I posted on my personal Facebook page on Friday. I’ve altered it so it reads more accurately in regards to my birth date…which is today. I have zero shame about re-posting this because I feel it needs to be said.

My birthday is today. I keep getting asked what I want. Honestly, I have all the material things I could ever need. What I *WANT* is this:

I want, when a police officer encounters a person of color, I want that police officer to not make any assumptions. I want that police officer to not shoot that person of color for reaching for his ID.

I want police officers to stop using their badge as an excuse to shoot people.

I want people to stop assuming all cops are bad cops. I know some pretty amazing police officers and they shouldn’t have to pay (with their lives) for other officers terrible mistakes.

I want people of color to not experience the egregious racism that remains in this country.

I want people of color to not have to mourn the loss of their children, husbands, mothers, wives, family, friends…simply because they are black.

I want white people to pop their privileged bubble (yes, I am one of them so don’t start) and open their eyes to the injustices, the inequalities, to the unacceptable state of our country.

I want others to realize the Civil Rights movement is STILL HAPPENING!!! Until everyone realizes that we are STILL ACTIVELY FIGHTING inequality, racism, bigotry and hatred, NOTHING will ever change! I can NOT stress this one enough!!!

I especially want my friends to stop assuming that being assholes to each other on these posts about what we, collectively, can do to help is in anyway helpful. Don’t jump on someone else for being a FB Activist if you can’t list every damn thing you have done to prove you are not another armchair/desk chair FB Activist just looking to stir the pot. Be a part of the solution, don’t add to the unrest, sadness, anxiety, or any other negative emotion that is floating out there-there is already QUITE enough out there as it is.

Will I get everything that I really *want*? No. I’m a realist with this. What I want is pretty idealistic. But I still want it.

That Is NOT Networking

“If you tell the truth you don’t have to remember anything.” ~ Mark Twain

I am an office manager. I have had a LinkedIn for years. And I use it for “networking”. I keep in contact with past co-workers, keep up with industry news and information, update my skills and basically use it as a live resume in combination with the networking function.

What I don’t use it for is business solicitation. I don’t use it to try and sell my business, to garner new clients. Because in my mind, business solicitation is different than networking. In business solicitation, you are attempting to solicit business from someone with the intentions of making money. In networking, you meet new people, talk shop, send out feelers for possible new employees and collaborations. Networking isn’t cold-calling or cold-emailing. At least, in my mind it isn’t.

Which is why I am still so irritated with an email I received via LinkedIn this past Monday morning at 5:30 am. Yes. He messaged me at 5:30am on Memorial Day…a day when no one is in the office because we are busy honoring those who fought for the many freedoms we enjoy as an American people. This gentleman sent me a message indicating he had sent an advertising request to our dedicated email for advertisers last week and had not received word back and he wanted “someone in the office to reply to the query”. Um…no.

Maybe I am being uptight about this. Maybe I am too staunch in my beliefs on how you conduct yourself professionally, but to me, sending an email at 5:30am on a holiday requesting a reply from someone who has NOTHING to do with what you are asking about is pretty unprofessional. And after doing a bit more digging, I became even more irritated. This man was not requesting to advertise with our company. He was trying to sell us email services.

No…just…just no.

Prior to my research, I refrained from responding to him in the way I wanted to, but after I found he was simply trying to sell my company services under the guise of requesting advertising, all bets were off. Don’t worry-I kept it professional.

“The email that you sent goes to our advertising company, which is not in house, of whom I do not work with, nor do I have access to those emails. And emailing me via LinkedIn at 5:30 in the morning on Memorial Day to request a response is not going to end with successful results. Should you need to contact anyone with (my company), or our advertisers, again, please refrain from contact via LinkedIn. Rather, pursue contact with emails to the appropriate parties.”

I never received a reply, so I am assuming he knows we are neither amused nor interested in his attempts to garner our business. What galls me the most, though, is his lack of honesty. Had he been honest about his intentions, had he simply said “Hey-I have this great email company. We can be bad-asses with your email. Use our service. Let’s set up a meeting.” I would have had so much more respect for him professionally. Granted, the answer still would be no, but at least there would have been an indication of integrity and professionalism in the exchange. As it is, I think he is no better than a crooked car salesman, using all the tricks and being less than honest simply to make a quick buck.

I guess my point in all of this is when soliciting new business, don’t lie. Be honest. Even if it means an automatic no, be honest. Because if I ever meet anyone who mentions this company, I will have zero issue in letting that person know how this “consultant” attempted to use dishonesty to get a foot in our door. Someone who is willing to flat out lie about their business intentions is not someone I would want to associate with professionally.

“To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible; credible we must be truthful.”  ~ Edward R. Murrow

A Lesson In Courtesy

“Courtesy is as much a mark of a gentleman as courage.” Theodore Roosevelt
My husband and I had a last minute date night last night. We were fortunate enough to be gifted some amazing tickets to see the Brave play the Phillies and the seats were amazing. Well…they would have been amazing had the seat stealers actually moved back to where they were supposed to sit. No matter. We sat just a few seats down and the seats were still amazing. We were in left field, in the home run ball zone, and my husband was beyond tickled. It was an amazing night, the weather was perfect, and all we had to pay for was the parking and our food and drink and souvenirs.

And then they sat down. A group of young, beautiful people. Who were, for a lack of better words, shitty drunk. High pitched voices of the women pierced our ears, disturbing the quiet murmuring of the crowds around us. Incessant drunken conversation that stemmed around the procuring of more alcohol. Knees hitting chairs, loud and unnecessary chatter…honestly it reminded me of that scene from Mean Girls. All of the vapid, meaningless name dropping of the camera men to try and get on tv since the game was televised combined with the drunken yammering was enough to kill the mood for us. My husband moved us. Twice. (No worries…unfortunately for the Braves the stands weren’t filled so we weren’t taking anyone’s seats.) We managed to get far enough away from the drunkards to satisfy my husband.

As we sat back in our newly acquired seats, we were able to relax and watch the game. We held hands, kissed, talked about the players and the obvious mistakes in the plays. We marveled at the perfection of the weather and the night, how amazing it would be to do this again as a date night and how much fun the kids would have going to a game. The look on my husbands face as he watched the game was priceless. And to think, all of his happiness at being at Turner Field could have been taken away by a handful of discourteous attendees. I took a picture of the back of their heads and ranted on instagram about them.

obnoxious ballgame people

“Thank you, drunk and obnoxious attendees of tonight’s Braves game. Because of your ridiculous and incessant prattle, we had to actually leave our seats. Just because you are young doesn’t give you the license to drink irresponsibly, talk loudly for the ENTIRE section to hear, and detract from the entire experience around you. Be wary of how you present yourselves in public, for you never know if the people you irritate are the ones looking at your resumes.”

And then I thought of all the times my behavior may have been seen as discourteous or rude. Instead of washing myself in all of the guilty feelings and wallowing in my ignorance, I took a step back and thought about something my dad has always said. ‘Where their rights begin, yours end.’ It has taken a long time for me to know what that means to me and how to apply it in my life. I can’t expect people to do what I want them to do all of the time. I’m not their keeper nor am I their mother and if what they are doing is bothering me, I have a choice on how to handle it. I can either speak up and make my discomfort known, which can lead to arguments when alcohol is involved, OR I can make the choice to remove myself from the situation. Last night, my husband made that choice to remove us both from an uncomfortable situation without causing a scene or making a fuss. And for that I am grateful. I am grateful that his courteous behavior removed from the company of discourteous people.

Life really is what you make of it. You can roll with it, rage against it, or remain stagnant and allow it to over take you. Last night, we rolled with it. Last night we learned more life lessons.  And last night was a good lesson on how to handle rude behavior without even saying a word.

“Courtesy is the one coin you can never have too much of or be stingy with.” John Wanamaker