Survival of the Fattest

Our office recently conducted a course on the subject of harassment and discrimination in the workplace, consisting of definitions thereof along with examples of offending behavior and how to deal with it.

There was an accompanying video that illustrated various situations that any reasonable and decent person would perceive as obvious incidents of harassment and discrimination.

Believe me, I am all for showing respect for one another not only at work but in all areas of our lives. But this course got me to thinking about the odd one out in the workplace, the person that everyone knows is high maintenance, the one that everyone just loves to gossip about because each day they manage to outdo themselves. The person that, simply said, everyone has to 'put up with.'

Now I'm not talking about people who are ostracized because of their race or creed or anything like that, I'm talking about people who are ostracized because of the dysfunctional way they behave and in essence, bring misfortune upon themselves. But yet you have to step lightly around them because of all the labor laws that exist these days along with our society's obsession with tolerance and political correctness. Yes, we should be nice to people as much as we possibly can but when they become a black hole that absorbs all of our tolerance and they take no responsibility for their own actions or make no effort to improve themselves, what are we to do?

With the current emphasis on tolerance, what we are really doing is catering to the lowest common denominator. Rather than aspiring to achieve, we aspire to accomodate and sometimes that just leads us towards mediocrity. Personally I think unions are a grand example of this. I find it outrageous that Arnold's (our governator, in case you don't know to whom I am referring) initiative to make teachers more accountable by instituting merit-based pay increases was so soundly criticized by the teacher's union and they've resorted to running anti-Arnold ads full of lies, trying to make him sound like the next Hitler. Some man or woman shows their face on television and complains about Arnold trying to blame him or her for things - well, if the shoe fits, you wear it. If you are a member of a union that encourages mediocrity then you are indeed to blame because you are part of the problem. What is wrong with using a merit-based system to reward those who do and deny those who don't? Part of the argument against it is that the means of evaluation are flawed. Well, I agree that this may be true in some cases but the correct answer is to fix those flaws, not get rid of merit-based pay. The odd ones out who can't teach are doing a disservice to our children and wasting our tax money. Why cater to the lowest common denominator?

There's an episode of King of the Hill in which the little boy in the show, Bobby, decides to quit football and instead play soccer because on the soccer team, 'everyone wins.' Games are played but no score is kept because the important thing is to make every kid feel good about themselves no matter what. I do agree that people get carried away in sports and I find professional (and collegiate, although sometimes there is a blurring of distinction between the two) sports to be too fanatical. But there are always going to be winners and losers in life and the positive evolution of our society depends on 'winners' who are motivated to achieve the best in whatever field of interest they happen to pursue. If all of us are instead raised on an 'everything is cool, everyone is a winner' philosophy, where we all feel good about ourselves no matter how really dismal we are, then that's entropy. I'm not saying that people shouldn't realize they have self-worth; what I am saying is that each person needs to take responsibility for realizing that self worth and achieving what they are capable of achieving, not being made to feel like they are all part of one big happy hug and they don't need to do anything but be themselves no matter what that self happens to be.

People need to be responsible for their own actions. Yes we must be respectful of one another but we also have to do our duty to be a productive member of society. People should not have to tippy-toe around us if we are part of the problem.

I just got the chart at the top of this blog from the internet somewhere and it is reminiscent of the sort of tests I used to take in elementary school -find the picture that doesn't belong. Do they still administer tests like that, or has the ACLU stepped in to outlaw them because it promotes discrimination?

The title of today's entry is Survival of the Fattest. I have nothing against fat people but all the health studies done so far indicate that it is healthier to be slimmer than fatter. Being fat is not good for you. I know it's a struggle to lose weight, but it's a good thing to try to do. With all the stuff going on in our society in the name of tolerance, however, it's like we can all be like we want to be and there's nothing the matter with that. But sometimes something is the matter. When we aim for the lowest common denominator we take a step backwards. We should always be respectful but that doesn't mean being tolerant of everything. Sometimes we need to circle the one that doesn't belong and do something about it.