Disrespecting co-workers

Caroline Covell
Bay Rd. 66 Lombardy ON K0G 1L0 Canada
T. 613.283.1852 ○ Cell: 613.485.1852 ○ Email: carol59@xplornet.com

A master is not greater than the servants are. The blood is red regardless of the color of
the skin of the person because the color is only a skin deep.
We are living in an era of market liberty, social liberty, and competitive world. One
person wants to be superior to the other. However, free market, free society, and competitive
world don’t seem to go together.
The market, which is controlled by the elites, wants to be free and away from government
control and competitive but at the same time, it oppresses the people, especially the poor and the
middle class. They disrespect the lower class because of their lack in materiality.
Society wants to be free yet competitive but at the same time, it oppresses the people in
their surroundings because they do not have the quality, the capacity, or the materiality as they
do.
In the society, we often meet people whom some say, “Very proud people.” They are
proud of their accomplishment, proud of whom and what they are, and proud of the things they
have.
Some may think that only western people are proud but pride is in every class of society,
regardless of whom or what the person is or what nationality the person has. Yet pride comes
before the fall. When we start to feel the pride in ourselves, we start to feel that we are better
than the others do. Then we start to boast. However, boast not because you never know what
might happen tomorrow.
In a workplace today, in either government or private sectors, the word “pay for
performance” indicates that if you promote something good, if you are creative, then your wages
will be increased. Then you will see more and more people find themselves too superior for their
own reality but at the same time, they are cheating and deceiving. They plagiarize the work of
other people and claim it as their own in order to get higher wages. Scholars are taking the work
of the graduate and postgraduate students’ works, claim them as their own, and publish them
because they are facing the pressure to publish a research work or perish as scholars. The
publish-or-perish culture at universities has created research as a commodity, which can be
purchased and sold in the market. Scholars are competing for research fund and produce work of
rivalry, which in the end; Julien Benda calls them “treason.”
Speaking about superiority, a colleague of mine says, “We have to be superior to the
other.”
There is nothing wrong about feeling superior, but at least, we need to treat others
equally. We need to treat other people with respect regardless of the color of their skin or where
they come from.
In the Sabbath School Insight, someone asks a question, “How can you get along with
your co-workers?”
Is it difficult to get along with your co-workers? When people feel superior, they tend to
undermine other people’s ability. Sometimes, it is not only their feeling of superiority but also
because they want to do the job their co-worker is being assigned to do. Consequently, they
create nuisance so that they could take over the job.

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 When I volunteered at the hospital, I was asked to enter data into the computer. I was sent
to a room of an EEG technician. I knew that this person is unfriendly. She never liked talking to
other co-workers. When she had to talk to them, she was acting in a manner as if she is “very
important person” who has the power over the others.
I was asked to sit beside her and start typing data into the computer. Each time I opened
the book to look for database code of a disease, she always asked, “What are you looking for?”
When I told her, she quickly gave me the answer, never gave me the opportunity to open the
book. She argued to the manager that she was expecting someone who had memorized all the
database code to do the work. She was expecting was to do the job herself because she would
receive additional pay for doing that kind of work.
Many people disrespect their co-workers because they are expecting them to think and do
things the way they do. They are expecting them to know how to do the work even it is the first
day the new co-workers started the job.
Have you ever been in a situation where you are just started your first day on the job and
your supervisor or co-workers were standing around and watched your every move? When you
make a wrong move, they quickly interrupt and say, “Do it like this!”
The kind of expectation that you should do things exactly as they do is too artificial and
unfair. Even a set of identical twins never have the same thought.
People behave in such a way because there is a purpose for every thing. The EEG
technician complained I did not know their routine because she wanted to the job for additional
pay. One of the board members of the school where I was the treasurer was against the financial
management rules and regulations because he wanted to have control over the school cash. He
argued that it was all right to spend first and submit the left over cash to the treasurer.
Some people disrespect others to show their superiority, others do to cover their lackness.
The values of the society have changed dramatically. When Canada was hot in the debate
about homosexual marriage, Joe Clark the previous prime minister and Member of Parliament of
the Conservative Party of Canada wrote me and expressed his opinion saying, “this is how the
society has evolved.” The evolvement is due to the fact that policy and decision making are made
based on conscience, feelings, and emotions rather than knowledge and professionalism.
Denhardt, Denhardt, and Aristigueta, in their Organizational Behavior in Public and
Nonprofit Organizations, argue that people with knowledge and skills value ethics and integrity
as their intrinsic reward so is the way they value their co-workers.
Marion Angelica also in her Managing at the Boundaries states that when people are
lower in professionalism and high in emotions and feelings, they have the tendency to undermine
others. They disrespect the work of others even consider their work is better than others even
though the reality is not good.
When it comes to work that requires professionalism, it should be weighted
professionally not according to feelings. Like appearance, Anthony Gavin says, feelings is
deceitful. Above all things, feelings is deceitful. It blinds us from the reality.
When we are too competitive, we tend to undermine other people and elevate ourselves.
We tend to disrespect others and glorify ourselves. Jeanine Grenberg writes Kants and the Ethics
of Humility, says that competitive causes radical evil.
People who lack in knowledge and wisdom often become radical in their words and
action.
Have you ever been around people who call their co-workers and anyone else “stupid?”
In many political talk or political debate, people often call the politicians “stupid” or “idiot.”

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Similarly, politicians are calling each other names when it comes to heated political debate.
In the Business Education Compact: Making the Most of Your Internship, you are
encouraged to expand your network. It suggests that you should join conferences, seminars,
attend ball games, and go to other places where you can meet new people so that you can learn to
respect other people. However, attending all these requires money. You cannot go to one without
paying and by the end of the day, all you value is money than respect.
Though some of these suggestions have some truth in them, the most effective way of
learning to respect other people is by respecting yourself.
Have you ever heard of the phrase, “You are what you eat?”
If you disrespect yourself, you tend to disrespect other people as well. There is nothing
good in yourself and you think the same toward other people.
You can learn to respect your co-workers by obtaining knowledge. Through knowledge
comes wisdom and through wisdom a house is established.