Slave Mentality
While I was leaving the office yesterday evening, I happened to reach the door to the elevator lobby about 4 steps behind one of the people that clean the office. He was coming from the other direction, and had already opened the door when I rounded to corner to head to the door. I stopped to let him go through the door first since I was obviously behind him, and I motioned to the door with an open palm to indicate to him that he could go ahead of me. He looked down at the floor and mumbled in broken English, “No. You go. You here first.”
I was shocked that someone in this country, and in these times, could so totally defer to another person without one of them obviously holding a higher station in life (such as a military rank, or a CEO of a company, or a Senator/Representative, or the President, or something like that.) I wasn’t even to the door first. He was. I figured that if he opened the door before I came into view that I should at least be polite enough to allow him to go through the door that he opened.
I’m just a software engineer. I’m proud of what I have accomplished, and where I’m at in life, but that does not make be inherently better than the man that empties the trash in my office. There is no reason for them to defer to me in such a way, and I wish that they would look me in the eye, smile, and say (as best they can), “After you.”
Maybe their boss or manager has told them that they are not to fraternize with the people that work in the offices that they clean. I hope that’s not the case as I feel that everyone should treat (and be treated by) everyone as equals. We’re all human, after all.
While thinking about this on the way home from work, I realized that every single person that works for the building is like that. They hardly look at me, let alone make eye contact. They never talk to me even though I greet them first. It really makes me feel sorry for them that they are in a situation where they seem to be afraid of being fired for being nice to the people around them.
There is one exception. I don’t know his name, but I see one of the maintenance workers around all the time, and he’s very friendly and open. He always takes a moment or two to comment on the weather, ask how I’m doing, tell me to have a good weekend, and such like that. Little pleasantries that grease the wheels of human interaction. It’s really nothing special, but I like that kind of interaction with strangers. It’s not probing, in-depth, hard-hitting, or invasive. It’s just being friendly, and we need more of this in the world.
Slavery may be illegal, but the way some employers treat their employees, it is most certainly not dead.
