Life is full of jerks: jerks at the grocery store, jerks at the bank, jerks at the airport and, of course, Kanye West.
Often it seems like they take joy in causing others pain, and why not? They get to crush your day, and then hide behind the cliché that is item one in the Jerk Manifesto, “I’m just doing my job.”
Are you trying to argue with the lady at the DMV for making you go to the back of the line because you didn’t have all the right boxes filled in on a form? Don’t waste your time, because you’ll only hear “Hey, I’m just doing my job.”
Did a jerk act like he knew you just to serve you a subpoena? “Sorry, I’m just doing my job.”
Are you upset at the jerk making you throw away a bowling ball, because he thinks you’re trying to carry a big cartoon bomb on an airplane? “Sorry, just doing my job.”
It’s as if the understanding that people have historically been mean performing these jobs actually gives others the right to be jerks doing the same job. Hey, when one finds out they can get away with not caring about other people’s problems and treating customers like they don’t matter, it’s hard not to get swept up in the big jerk parade.
This isn’t limited to standing-in-line-style situations either. In fact, at urbandicitonary.com one of the definitions for “jerk” is “the mandatory mindset for self-survival within corporate America.” When you get a petty nasty-gram in your e-mail inbox reminding you that you were back one minute and 12 seconds late from your lunch break, it’s easy to see the definition is not an exaggeration.
I’m getting tired of it. Standing behind a teller window is not a license to treat people badly. At least pretending you care the people you serve are having problems will let them see that you may not relish killing their dreams.
I understand some people have to have jobs that make other people unhappy. Someone has to take back things other people stop paying for; someone else has to make people show up in court. Like the old cliché goes, it’s a dirty job, but, sadly, someone does have to do it.
Just don’t be such jerks about it.