Be Dignified if You Work with the Public

Who gets the meme?

 

We’ve all felt frustration and have dreamt of letting the object of our ire know exactly what we think. If you deal with the public though, check those thoughts at the back of your teeth.  

 

A sad tale.

 

A recent example involved a Northampton police officer’s interaction with a woman whose first language is Spanish. Video coverage from his own body cam shows he was out of control before he left his cruiser. He approached her with a shower of F-bombs, something one should NEVER–mark it in capital letters–do in a job involving the public. He was breathing too much fire to comprehend that the woman he pulled over for a freaking broken taillight had only rudimentary English skills and that his actions–including having her handcuffed–were racist as well as inappropriate. Leave those F-bombs for the locker room, beers with your buddies, or screams in the closet. Do your job with dignity.

 

That’s basic. I once had a job selling appliances. My district manager was an older gentleman who insisted that the old saw that “the customer is always right” is the biggest crock of nonsense ever uttered. Quite a few customers, he averred, were complete idiots, but he added that you can’t say that to their faces.

 

I tried to remember that when I worked with juvenile offenders. Young people often act out and, sad to say, some never grow out of it. I know what the officer felt. It happened rarely, but I been cursed at and called every name I know, plus a few I had to look up. Once a kid threw a punch I deflected. But my job was to defuse, not elevate, bad situations with kids already in legal trouble.

 

As a high school teacher, I sometimes joined colleagues in gripe sessions about those who told us we had easy jobs: six-and-half hours a day with weekends and summers off. (As if!). We all had stories of classroom outbursts and parent-teacher conferences in which we were accused of being personally responsible for their child’s failures and all the ills of society. I remember one involving a math teacher sitting at a table across from me. He was asked by a father, “How’s he doing?” The teacher was flabbergasted, as there had been numerous conferences to address fighting, throwing things, truancy, threats, and non-existent academic achievement. The math teacher calmly reiterated those things. A blank face stared back and asked, “Yeah, but how’s he doing?” WTF! We all thought, “There’s an elevator that never left the basement,” but we said it privately.

 

There’s much that can go wrong in classrooms when you multiply 15-30 students by six periods by 180 days. Once I had a kid try to leap from a second-story window before another student grabbed him. I could tell from his eyes he was higher than a kite, but I made the mistake of saying so to his parents. They threatened to sue me. (The sad ending was that 16-year-old later fatally ODed.) Mostly, I was fortunate, loved my students, and most treated me with respect. But I’d be lying if I said I loved them every day, never threw a kid out of class, or imagined hurling swears at several of them. But no F-bombs. I could have been suspended for that. I could have done so with less fear as a professor instructing students considered adults, but why would I pour oil on a fire? I did have a condescending over-privileged student who deflected all efforts to mollify her. I called her out in clear-but-careful language and kept my real feelings in my head.

 

How about customer service and public relations professionals who get communications from individuals who might be mutant space aliens? Comic Don Novello of Father Guido Sarducci fame once assumed the persona of Lazlo Toth, a crank-letter writer. He published a hysterical book that’s also a textbook on how to write respectful responses to crazy people.   

 

It's hard to keep it together in all circumstances, but there are two hard-and-fast rules. One: Never drop F-bombs like a junior high school boy when approaching a member of the public. Two: Never lay hands on them unless you are physically endangered. The police officer flunked on both accounts. Get thee to anger management training or find another job.