2468: Empathy

While I’ve worked a number of crap jobs over the years, one positive thing that I do feel I have taken from each and every crap job is a sense of empathy: a feeling that yes, I understand how people who do this every day have it.

Consequently, I find it pretty hard to get mad at people who are just doing their job, sometimes with all manner of obstacles not of their own making in the way.

I try and extend this attitude to everything about life, even those jobs that I haven’t directly done myself; I know what it’s like to have to pay your dues (and indeed am continuing to pay my own dues in the hope that something actually good will happen one day) and, as such, don’t get mad when my order in a restaurant is late, or if a package doesn’t arrive on time, or if someone in customer service isn’t able to help me on this particular occasion.

This doesn’t mean I blindly forgive, obviously; if someone has clearly fucked up somewhere then I’d expect them to be suitably apologetic about it. But the reason for them fucking up in the first place? I might be able to understand that, whether it’s working long hours, working for pay well under what you deserve for challenging, demanding work or having to meet increasingly unreasonable targets from the higher-ups in the company who are completely out of touch with the man on the figurative street.

I like to think this is a generally positive quality in myself, and it’s also one thing that keeps me hanging on when times are tough such as they are at the moment. If nothing else, I am developing “life experience”, coming to understand how all manner of different people experience the world and what they have to put up with from Joe Public.

Joe Public can be an asshole.

Joe Public can, however, also be appreciative of someone who goes out of their way to help them, or someone who does their miserable job with a smile on their face, or someone who simply has a kind and friendly word to share.

I try and fall into the latter category whenever possible, even when it’s tough to do so. To date, my attempts have usually been successful, and even, in a couple of instances, have defused situations of high tension that have arisen for usually stupid reasons.

I derive a small degree of comfort from the fact that every time I do this, I am helping to develop myself as a decent human being. I derive somewhat less comfort from the fact that having empathy for other people is, unfortunately, not a particularly marketable or profitable skill — at least not without expensive training to forge that raw material into something a bit more tangible.

My faith in myself may be at an all-time low thanks to being kicked around repeatedly by all and sundry over the years, but at least I still have this to hold on to, I guess. It’s something. Not much, but it’s something.