Thought of the Day 08.12.09

A friend of mine was recently forced to accept a job change that he really didn’t want after everyone else above him refused. The reason nobody wanted this job was because it requires an exorbitant amount of work, and even though it pays by the hour and overtime, nobody with a life and a family wants to work a 60-hour week. Nevertheless, here he is, doing the job and it turns out to have been everything he had feared and then some.

The reason the job is so awful is because the person leaving it never refused any of the additional impositions his bosses made on him over the years. He just kept accepting things, no matter how unreasonable they were. And now, because he did that for so long, my friend is put in the very awkward position of either looking bad for telling the truth or continuing to suffer.

This is the part about enabling abusive behavior that people rarely consider. It’s never just the wallflower alone who suffers. Anyone else who comes into contact with the bully or the situation thereafter suffers, too.