Accidental Ambivalence

Influential

I spent my evenings last week - and probably for the next couple of weeks - working at my parents' restaurant. They work with a small staff, and one of their employees was in an accident, so I've stepped in to cover her shifts for the time being. Friday night, I learned that I have a greater influence on others than I'd realized.

We're basically a burgers-and-fries place, and evening employees are typically girls in high school, and most evenings five people plus the cook take care of everything, and it's pretty simple to follow. It's a job that requires communicating and paying attention, but there's nothing about it that's hard. There's always downtime, which of course leads to chatting. Often banal, sometimes enlightening chatting.

I take issue with one current employee, who I am going to call B. He is twenty-four, like me, and got his job because he was dating a then-sixteen-year-old employee. (She's now 18. Yes, I still think he's too old for her.) I try very hard not to judge people. Okay, I try very hard to keep my judgment of people to myself instead of saying it out loud (or posting it on the internet). But this kid makes me crazy. We are the same age, but couldn't be in more different places in life. I may not be a pinnacle of success and determination, but I'm educated and I take care of myself. I pay attention to the world around me and maintain a certain level of social awareness. B fits right in with the teenage girls at the restaurant because his maturity level is right on par with theirs. He's not terribly intelligent and also lacks common sense, and he's consistently making that very obvious to those around him. He has a tendency to chatter even more than the teenage girls he's working with.

I think that, both on the surface and deep down, I am a kind person. I make an effort to bring people up instead of putting them down, and I think everyone deserves to be treated with respect. That said, I am intensely mean to B. Beyond the fact that I think he's an idiot and a little gross for dating a girl in high school, every time he speaks I have a single thought: "Shut up." I almost never say the phrase "shut up" - I think it's exceptionally rude - and I think it little more often than I say it. But every single time he speaks, I want to tell him to shut up. Instead, I'm just mean to him. I make passive-aggressive comments, mutter horrible things under my breath that only he can hear, and cut him down in front of the room with regularity. All things that I wouldn't feel compelled to do if he would only keep his mouth shut!

I need to pause here and say that I'm not exactly proud of the things I just wrote.

Typically, I work with only one of my parents at a time, usually my dad, but Friday night, they were both there. We were finishing up for the night when my mom paused to get a drink near where I was standing. "B talks a lot less when you're here," she commented. I was surprised - I still think he talks too much - so I confirmed her statement with my dad and one of the other girls. And it made me think.

Unless we're told, we have no idea how our presence effects those around us. We're very aware of how others make us feel: the friend who puts us at ease, the teacher who makes us feel brilliant, that guy who icks you out a bit. But how does your presence make others feel?

If I were a better person, I might feel bad about what I learned about B. I don't. But it does make me think about how I influence others, and I think B is probably an exception. I'd like to believe that I make others feel better, generally, and that is a goal that I work towards. As a teacher, I will work with teenagers, and substituting puts me in contact with even younger kids, and I think it's important to make every effort to be a good influence in every way.

How do I make you feel? What sort of feelings would you like to elicit in those around you?

Labels: everyday musings, work

posted by nicalyse @ 11:48 AM