ON THE DEATH OF ETHICS AND CONSIDERATION

 or Why Do I Play By the Rules?

I see it, or hear about it every day, all day long: students cheat; people steal; adults cheat on their taxes; friends stab other friends in the back; people in cars drive like they’re the only ones on the road; office co-workers take off half the day when they think no one is looking; I hold the door for someone and they walk through without so much as a smile, much less a thank you. What is happening, or what has happened to our so-called civilization that people think these kinds of behaviors are acceptable?  

I used to blame it on generational differences, since I observed in so many cases that it was younger people who seemed to be the frequent offenders. I do believe that, generally, discipline and what we call consequences for bad behaviors has been so diluted by parents these days. There are lots of reasons for it: messed up adult relationships vying for a child’s love and attention; neglect, when adults are too self-absorbed to pay the kind of attention that a child really needs; missing parents; societal threats of things like kidnapping, abuse, etc. And I’ll just throw in electronic absence, since it’s become so epidemic in so many children’s lives. I guess what I’m saying here is that I think there IS a generalized feeling of entitlement, of being the center of the universe, as it were, and of not having to be held accountable in any way for any actions that someone may unfortunately deem inappropriate, and there are probably lots of reasons and/or excuses for that generation.

But nowadays, there are so many more people my  age and older, who I happen to KNOW were brought up differently, whose parents would cringe if they saw the values and beliefs they’d worked so hard to instill in their children completely ignored. This lack of ethics and respect and consideration for others seems to run rampant in our experiences these days! I don’t know understand, either, how it is so hard just to treat others as you would have them treat you! Putting aside religion here, it’s still a simple formula for living together in harmony. There is great value in living in harmony!

Here are some personal examples: (Rant alert!)

I have neighbors who are very nice, for the most part. We speak when we’re out. We yell across the street to say hello, or inquire how things are going. Both our families have dogs. Granted, mine is a very large dog, but sweet as he can be, and of course, mine goes outside on a line because we have no fence, and I don’t want him running into other people’s yards or intimidating anyone with his size. Theirs is a small, yappy dog, who delights in coming over into our yard, NEVER tethered, and barking incessantly at us, while peeing and pooping on our lawn. Many times, the neighbors have stood there and WATCHED their dog do this while talking to us! No, I don’t yell, “Get your dog outta my yard!” because I have some couth and decorum. But why do I play by the rules?

I have some friends who needed me for help. It was a special situation, one that I felt very deeply compelled to help with. We talked about it several times. We communicated through text messages, emails, and face-to-face for some time.  I set aside time for this, over 24 straight hours, actually,  even though I don’t have a lot of time myself these days. It wasn’t clear, to be honest, if they were going to need me, but I agreed, being the nice guy that I am, that I would hold that time open. Well, as the time approached, I didn’t hear anything, and no mention of it from anyone, so I sent out a message to one of the folks to just inquire as to the status. I got a message back that no, they didn’t need me, and they would have notified me if they did. Really? So I would just sit home and wait until someone decided whether I needed to know? So, why do I play by the rules?

I have a friend who I often ask to do some activity with me…the kind of stuff friends might do, you know, hang out, hike, go into the country. I don’t have a lot of close friends, and I don’t have a lot of free time these days, as I mentioned earlier. The friend’s often very busy too, I realize, and I get lots of excuses most of the time. When I finally DO get the friend to agree to set aside time, and that time rolls around, I often just get completely blown off. No explanation most of the time, or I find out later that the friend has done something with some other friend who maybe had a better offer.  That really hurts. If I missed something where someone expected me, I would have called, apologized all over myself, offered some remuneration, compensation or a different date and time. So, why do I play by the rules?

A co-worker regularly slips out of the office early, even half a day, when the boss is gone. Early on, she said one day she’d like to leave a little early, and she was fairly new then, and I’m the old-timer here, so I said, “Sure, go ahead! Everybody needs a little break once in a while!” And I guess she’s figured I meant just any time she feels like it, she can take off. No, I’m not in charge of her, and no, I’m also not a tattle-tale! I sit there at work until 5 pm shows up on my computer every day, despite the fact that 3 or 4 days a week, I also eat and work at my desk for the entire hour that is supposed to be my lunch time. So, why do I play by the rules?

Every day when I pull onto the campus where I work, I drive to the BLUE parking lots, where people with BLUE stickers (like mine) on their cars are supposed to park. As I drive through the already-full parking lot, I count anywhere from 1 to 6 red parking stickers on any given day. Why do they park there? Because there are no consequences. Oh sure, once in a great while one of the security folks will go around an issue a ticket or two, but the red stickers belong to students, and our student population, as a rule, is a privileged bunch, many of whom would rather pay the occasional $25 than walk from a farther parking area. I guess I mean there are no consequences for them. The consequences are, most days, that the staff and faculty, many of whom are older and even handicappedd, are the ones who have to drive across campus to park, then walk back to the buildings in which they work every day. So, I ask you, why do I follow the rules?

Weekly, I’m asked for ways to prevent students from cheating. Instructors at the university where I work are often beside themselves trying to outwit what they tell me is a fairly large percentage of their classes to keep them from plagiarizing papers, looking off others’ papers or computers while testing, etc. One instructor who is teaching his students to use MS Word even told me today that his students are so dishonest, and yet clueless, that they just copy and paste from a classmate’s paper, complete with the same mistakes that the original contained. The university has already spent and continues to spend countless thousands of dollars on special testing platforms, anti-plagiarism programs, and so forth to try to stay ahead of the cheaters.  So, again….why do I follow the rules?

My mom is in a local nursing home. She's nearly 91, and she's declining, both physically and mentally.  But recently, my family and I began to notice some fairly dramatic changes in her mental status particularly, and it was intermittent. This was something that was, sadly, familiar to me, since a few years back, she'd had the same sort of reaction to opiates in the hospital. I began to investigate at the home, and lo and behold, the visiting doctor had my mom on so many meds, including these opiates, and some other things that, by the way, shouldn't even be GIVEN with opiates, and it was, in my opinion, like putting my mother in a speeding train toward her demise. We began to question everything and everyone. We managed to get them to take her off about 5 different meds, and began to notice an immediate change in her. But they kept asking us if they could put her back on the opiates, and when we refused to let them, they became rather threatening. Anyway, this culminated in not one, but two meetings with two different INTERIM directors of nursing, since the last one was let go. The second meeting we had was so full of errors and blunders on their part, I could write a book on that meeting alone! But during that meeting, the D.O.N. said to me, "You don't understand! If your mother is having pain, and is crying, and someone walks in here and hears her, we could get into trouble!" Yup. She said it just as seriously as she could too! Well, I followed the rules again, because I managed not to reach over and grab her by the neck and drag her ass across the table! Nope. I simply took a deep breath, looked her straight in the eye, and I said, "Well, I CERTAINLY don't want you to get in trouble! That's really high on my priority list right now!" And then I took another breath. "I'd like to remind you that we're talking about patient care: your institution's responsibility is to CARE FOR its patients, and unfortunately, my 90 year-old mother is one of them. I want you, just for a moment, to put yourself in MY seat, looking across the table at the second interim director he's talked to in as many weeks, worried to death that the nurses and doctors in this facility are going to kill his mother way before her time. I want you to tell me, after all the history you've seen and heard here today, where do you think your comfort level would be right now? Where?" I was respectful. I followed the rules!
 

Why do I, for instance:

·      hold the door open and allow another to enter almost anytime I meet someone near a door?

·      look behind me as I enter a door, just to see if perhaps someone is behind me and I might need to hold the door for them also?

·      drive for a mile or two in the left lane behind someone who’s going very slowly, giving them a chance to move back to the right lane?

·      always thank people who have done something for me?

·      always let someone know if for some reason I cannot be where they expect me to be?

·      work 10 minutes over if I happened to have been out an extra 10 minutes at lunch?

·      bust my ass to be somewhere even a few minutes early when someone is expecting me?

·      follow up with my colleagues after I’ve referred them to someone else who I felt could help them more, just to make sure they got what help they needed?

·      get up from my desk to help direct someone to an unfamiliar place in the building, or on campus?

·      get online nearly every morning before work and night before I go to bed to see if anyone at work has sent an email requesting support?

·      allow the dog across the street to bark at me and take a dump in my yard without drop-kicking it into the next neighborhood?

·      do most of the legwork to find a resolution to a multi-departmental issue, just to keep from pushing it off on someone else?

I could go on and on. Why do I follow the rules? Why am I always the guy who takes the high road? Why do I always try to do the right thing? As futile as it seems sometimes, it’s hard for me to do otherwise. Interestingly, my son jokingly answered that question tonight with, “because you’re not a damn hooligan, and your mama raised you right!” Truer words were never spoken. Well, I can be a hooligan, but Gertrude, I should thank you again for raising me right!