A BROKEN RULE

I said something I shouldn’t have said yesterday. Nothing dodgy, just something that broke a rule.

I’ve always thought that you shouldn’t ever say a thing about a person that you wouldn’t say to them. And yet this is still a weak thing I noticed myself doing yesterday.

“Oh you remember,” said a colleague on the internal training course I was on, “He was sort of bland and unremarkable, and kind of useless. Worked on thingamy’s team...” The trainer looked blank.

I knew exactly who he was talking about so I joined in, and I tried to describe the ex-colleague being vilified, hoping that someone else might remember. Nobody did.

“Nope,” said the trainer, also a colleague of mine but from a different part of the building. “No idea.” He shook his head. “He can’t have made much of an impact outside of your department.”

“Or in it!” I said, glibly. Everyone chuckled, but I didn’t. Deep inside a still, small voice was immediately whispering, and I was feeling uncomfortable. I shouldn’t have said that.

I wasn’t even sure he had been that bad a colleague! I only worked with him once and he reviewed my stuff quite quickly. There I was, jumping onto a bandwagon for a laugh, and it was a cheap and awful thing to do.

I imagined how I would have felt, being discussed like that. It wouldn’t have been great. So much for doing to others as you would have them to do for you!

Worse still, the moment skipped on and there was nothing more I could do. No-one to apologise to, no backtracking, and nobody bothered at all while I gently chipped away at my own reputation. It was a timely reminder for me though. Don’t say things about people behind their backs.

-

I went to group tonight. It was all about words and how we use them, which got me ticking: that is my thing! I love words! We had loads of great discussions about jargon, about parables, and about communication.

At one point, one of the older gentlemen was telling me about how things used to be in the old days and how we don’t sing the same kind of ‘good old hymns’ any more. I never have a satisfactory answer for that so I just smiled and nodded, silently wondering just what it is about nostalgia that sometimes drives us. He went misty-eyed.

“You must remember some of ‘em, Matt,” he said, nodding in my direction, “After all we must be about the same kind of age eh? What are you, fifties?”

“Um... no,” I gulped, still clinging to a smile, somehow, “Little bit... er, a little bit younger.”

Funny how things go round isn’t it? I need to do better to be kinder, I reckon.