On having a backbone

A piece of gossip slipped out at my work just this week that one of my co-workers will soon be “out of a position.” It happens that this co-worker is one I don’t particularly like. My bestfriend has a co-worker he doesn’t like either and we’re completely fixated on dissecting reasons why we don’t like these people. In part, we’re just trying to rationalize our feelings. But also, I feel a bit a guilty whenever I am consumed by what seems like pretty unreasonable animosity. I mean, my co-worker is really a nice guy. He’s just…spineless.

When I first met him, he just seemed really timid and awkward, which are characteristics I usually try to sympathize with because I get like that too. But pity only went so far. Even after 5 months working with him, every time we attempt at a conversation, he can never look at me directly in the eye. He has to retreat a few steps and look at me out of the corner of his eyes and shaking and stuttering over a simple “Hey how’s it going?” I always have to try to end the conversation quickly because it just seems too damned painful to socialize.

Around other guys, he looks like he’s going to run and cry to mommy (and the man is 36). One guy would pick on him sometimes and all he can do is sort of chuckle and nod his head. It completely disgusts me.

I’ve been in the position of being bullied before and I will admit that there was a time when I was afraid and I didn’t stand up for myself. But that was back in high school. These girls at school thought that I was talking shit about them and they would purposely wait for me around corners to call me names, point out how dumb I look, and laugh at me. Needless to say, I let it get to my head. I got so tired of this so one day I decided to take a different route. They managed to find me and laughed at me even more for “running away” from them. I knew they made a point. I was being a coward. So I decided I’d confront them and to hell with what would happen. I approached them alone and outnumbered 7 to 1. All I did was ask to speak to the specific girls who taunted me alone, but the whole group, I suppose sensing my anger, closed in on them and wouldn’t let me speak to them. I told them, “Fine, pass on the message then. Either talk to me or leave me alone.” They never bothered me again.

Since then, I had been backstabbed by friends and went through other shit that were petty and stupid, but I always chose to stand alone rather than put up with shit or kiss people’s asses in order to be a part of the “group” (a group is not to be confused with friends). Not that I am guiltless of petty crimes myself, but I drew a certain line that I’d never let others cross. That line is pride in who I am.

I have no respect for my co-worker because he lacks that pride, a pride I think many people either have intrinsically or learn to have when they grow up. He’s not a child or a teenager any longer to be excusable from acting like one.

They say, you hate in others what you hate in yourself. I usually reflect on that idea whenever I hate on someone. In that sense, I guess my co-worker embodies and magnifies a characteristic in myself. The difference between us is I don’t condone that characteristic. He’s either naive and doesn’t know why people don’t like him or he knows and he is still too gutless to do anything about it. Whether we share common traits or not, I know in his position, I’d act much differently. And like they say, your actions define who you are.