Entitlement
One of the guys here at [redacted], a guy I'll call The Beckoner, recently pulled an all-nighter. I call him The Beckoner because he has this habit, this I'm-high-powered way of beckoning you into his office. Try this with me. You'll be The Beckoner. I'll be me. As you're reading this, pretend to type on your keyboard.
MIKE: *knocks*
Now, without looking away from your screen (or your fingers, if you're one of those kinds of typers), raise your hand and beckon me in. Don't make eye contact. Don't look away from the screen at all. I'm clearly not as important as you, and you clearly don't have to treat me as such.
Yeah. I know. Plus? The Beckoner just turned 25.
My second or third day at [redacted], after being beckoned by The Beckoner, I said to him, "Hi, I know I'm new, and we don't know each other very well, but I don't know that you know how condescending and offensive that is."
"What?"
"That beckon thing you do. That I-don't-really-have-time-for-you wave you've patented there. It's demeaning. You look like someone who's young and ambitious; someone who wants to go far in business. I'll let you in on a little secret: you shouldn't treat your support staff like crap. You're not better than we are. You're actually not even more important than we are. In fact? We can break you. We'll misfile important documents. We'll forget to send that important package. We'll hang up on your clients and you'll look like an ass. So don't. When I knock, when someone else knocks, when the UPS guy knocks: look up. Make eye contact. Treat us like we exist."
And yeah. I said all of that. Word for fuckin word.
He took it well. Better than I expected (and I expected to get fired after that, but I couldn't stop). He still beckons sometimes, but not all the time. And sometimes? I forget to give him messages.
Anyway: the all-nighter.
The morning after the all-nighter, I come in and see that The Beckoner is still in the same Disco Stu outfit he had worn the day before: some sort of obnoxious purplish red shiny shirt and pin stripe pants. Again: I know. He's all scruffy, but not in a sexy way, more in a skeevy Chippendale dancer with some sort of wasting disease and a heroin habit kind of way. The other principals at [redacted] are really proud of The Beckoner. It's like he banged a stripper on the conference room table without a condom and not only didn't pick up some nasty social disease, but also didn't have to pay her. They're high-fiving him, slapping his back. He thinks he's done something important and noteworthy. My boss comes by my office and says, "Take extra special care of [The Beckoner] today. He done good."
First off: ew. "Take extra special care"? Are you kidding me? Secondly, I see no earthly reason to reward that kind of behavior. He stayed all night to put the finishing touches on a deal that will make rich, morally questionable men even richer and, yes Virginia, even more morally questionable.
Here's the deal: unless you're curing AIDS, cancer, or world hunger -- there's no need to ever pull an all-nighter in the business world. No job is worth losing sleep and risking your health. No job pays you enough to sacrifice yourself in that way.
Especially this job.
The Beckoner hung around long enough in the morning to make sure people a little higher up on the chain of command saw him in his sweated-through finest. He buzzed me in to his office later, and beckoned me in sans eye contact when I knocked. He wanted me to get him a cab home. He needed to go get some sleep. He wanted me to know that he had pulled an all-nighter.
This is why I don't feel bad booking him in to middle seats on his upcoming cross-country flights. I also requested low-sodium vegetarian meals. And he's got a layover in St. Louis.
I warned him.
MIKE: *knocks*
Now, without looking away from your screen (or your fingers, if you're one of those kinds of typers), raise your hand and beckon me in. Don't make eye contact. Don't look away from the screen at all. I'm clearly not as important as you, and you clearly don't have to treat me as such.
Yeah. I know. Plus? The Beckoner just turned 25.
My second or third day at [redacted], after being beckoned by The Beckoner, I said to him, "Hi, I know I'm new, and we don't know each other very well, but I don't know that you know how condescending and offensive that is."
"What?"
"That beckon thing you do. That I-don't-really-have-time-for-you wave you've patented there. It's demeaning. You look like someone who's young and ambitious; someone who wants to go far in business. I'll let you in on a little secret: you shouldn't treat your support staff like crap. You're not better than we are. You're actually not even more important than we are. In fact? We can break you. We'll misfile important documents. We'll forget to send that important package. We'll hang up on your clients and you'll look like an ass. So don't. When I knock, when someone else knocks, when the UPS guy knocks: look up. Make eye contact. Treat us like we exist."
And yeah. I said all of that. Word for fuckin word.
He took it well. Better than I expected (and I expected to get fired after that, but I couldn't stop). He still beckons sometimes, but not all the time. And sometimes? I forget to give him messages.
Anyway: the all-nighter.
The morning after the all-nighter, I come in and see that The Beckoner is still in the same Disco Stu outfit he had worn the day before: some sort of obnoxious purplish red shiny shirt and pin stripe pants. Again: I know. He's all scruffy, but not in a sexy way, more in a skeevy Chippendale dancer with some sort of wasting disease and a heroin habit kind of way. The other principals at [redacted] are really proud of The Beckoner. It's like he banged a stripper on the conference room table without a condom and not only didn't pick up some nasty social disease, but also didn't have to pay her. They're high-fiving him, slapping his back. He thinks he's done something important and noteworthy. My boss comes by my office and says, "Take extra special care of [The Beckoner] today. He done good."
First off: ew. "Take extra special care"? Are you kidding me? Secondly, I see no earthly reason to reward that kind of behavior. He stayed all night to put the finishing touches on a deal that will make rich, morally questionable men even richer and, yes Virginia, even more morally questionable.
Here's the deal: unless you're curing AIDS, cancer, or world hunger -- there's no need to ever pull an all-nighter in the business world. No job is worth losing sleep and risking your health. No job pays you enough to sacrifice yourself in that way.
Especially this job.
The Beckoner hung around long enough in the morning to make sure people a little higher up on the chain of command saw him in his sweated-through finest. He buzzed me in to his office later, and beckoned me in sans eye contact when I knocked. He wanted me to get him a cab home. He needed to go get some sleep. He wanted me to know that he had pulled an all-nighter.
This is why I don't feel bad booking him in to middle seats on his upcoming cross-country flights. I also requested low-sodium vegetarian meals. And he's got a layover in St. Louis.
I warned him.
posted by Mike at 4:58 PM
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