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Being Nice to Someone Who Isn’t

August 25, 2011, 3:37 pm

By Allison M. Vaillancourt

In my last post, I described my annoyance at being asked to provide career advice to a person who had never been particularly nice to me. In fact, this guy had, for years, been dismissive and sarcastic during most of our encounters. I found his out-of-the-blue request that we “do lunch as soon as possible so I can pick your brain” call and series of pushy, “urgent” e-mail messages asking for job leads, reference letters, and CV guidance to be galling given his very bad past behavior. As I noted in last week’s post, I wanted to respond to his e-mails in capital letters with: “YOU HAVE BEEN CRANKY AND MEAN TO ME FOR YEARS, WHAT MAKES YOU THINK I AM GOING TO COME TO YOUR RESCUE NOW?”

Most of those who commented on my post fell into two camps. One group supported my interest in creating protective boundaries and suggested that I provide only enough support so as not to appear rude. The other camp berated me for beating a brother while he was down and said that I needed to get over myself and make time to have lunch with the man.

I’ve thought a lot about the comments since they have been posted and have been, at the risk of sounding overly melodramatic, wrestling with personal identity issues. Am I too busy to be nice? Must people be kind to me before I can be kind to them? Is my practice of trying to shield myself from people who suck the life out of me self-indulgent?

This section of The Chronicle is about careers, not psychotherapy, so it’s probably best that I not obsess about these questions. Instead, let me share with you my decision to take my commenters’ advice and show a little compassion. While I didn’t go all out, I met him for coffee, offered some advice, talked through his outreach plan, pointed out his unique strengths, and explained that I hadn’t worked closely with him enough to serve as a reference. It wasn’t painful, it didn’t take all that long, and OK, OK, it didn’t kill me.

While I don’t agree with many of the comments I receive, I take each one seriously. The advice I got on this issue made me uncomfortable enough to re-evaluate my plan. Thanks for that.

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  • skeptical

    If it were me, I suspect I would do what I could reasonably do to help. However, I would also mention the fact that I was finding it challenging to be charitable given the ways in which he has treated me in the past. Perhaps it is time he learned this lesson explicitly?

  • henare

    I think your response was generous … but I also see a missed opportunity to help your colleague past his earlier asocial behavior.  the opportunity begins with awareness … so many are so oblivious to their own bad behaviors.  i have one of these going on now … and it’s killing me to find a way to take advantage of such an opportunity myself.  

  • http://twitter.com/RalfJRitter Ralf Ritter 李祖良

    Allison, it’s great that you did “the right thing”. A few minutes ago (before reading your post) I got exactly the kind of request you have described.Although not supremely enthusiastic, I decided to extend a helping hand thinking that I never know when I will need a favor and that it must have been difficult for the person to reach out to me (unless this person is unusually thick-skinned). When all is said and done, it’s really no skin off my nose and I suppose it is also an acknowledgement from that person that I may have some value. I suppose that true giving without expecting anything in return means to never get disappointed. Finally, today’s “prick” may be tomorrow’s friend.

  • 11179102

    This is an ethical dilemma more than anything else.  Therefore, while I admire your generosity, I would want to know more information before determining the extent of my final actions:

    (a) does he appear to be aware of his past rudeness, and giving subtle references of regret (i.e. has he grown up any since your previous interactions)?
    (b) do his messages “assume” you will help him or appear designed to induce some kind of guilt if you do not (i.e., does he still display certian immature and self-centered behavior)? and finally,
    (c) does he have family members or others who are suffering from his reduced employment?

    Anybody who’s ever lived a life worth living has gone through difficult times.  The question is what one has learned from those times in order to be more compassionate and mature.  Certainly, when one is in the midst of intense stress, one is seeking immediate relief – and that may lead to actions that appear to be self-centered.  But somewhere in all of this, your former colleague should demonstrate the capacity for growth and perspective.  Your level of generosity should reflect his level of growth.  And ideally, you would have the opportunity to explain that you’re happy to help, but with a “let’s be clear” moment that his behavior earlier in the working relationship was not collegial.  

  • sanjoaquin

    I think the author has taken a good path here.  It’s not always easy to change another person, but we can control how we behave.  Acting with compassion and integrity makes it easier to live happily with oneself no matter the actions of another.

  • 11162680

    Graciousness is always the right thing. At this stage of his life, it is highly unlikely he will change, no matter how you admonish him. One additional point that has not been mentioned: he is looking for job leads and recommendations. Moving him along might be beneficial not just to you but to others on your campus who receive the same charming treatment.

  • profjw

    Wouldn’t helping him also help you?  If he’s been that miserable as a colleague, isn’t it worth at least a little of your time to help make him go away?  

  • http://twitter.com/AndyBrantley Andy Brantley

    Great decision Allison. You provided advice and counsel, BUT you did not compromise your own personal integrity by agreeing to be a reference for someone when you preferred not to do so.

  • jmwh7018

    I think you struck a great balance between being compassionate and going overboard to help someone when previous behavior indicated that it wouldn’t be a great investment of your energy.  Coffee and a quick chat was a great idea, and I hope you left the situation feeling good and with no regrets.

  • aephirah

    This is not ever a cut-and-dry situation. I just received  a similar request and provided the sought-after advice. Part of it had to do with professional generosity. However, I must also admit that the thought that successful suggestions might ensure that the person would “move on” wasn’t lost on me. That being said –yes– a good number of those rude people who tend to suck the life out of you are way too thick skinned to ever be aware of their gross behavior,  Because it’s usually “always about them” it may not require any special courage for them to ask this type of favor from someone they’ve mistreated.

    Honestly, if it truly is no big deal to help out, then it is a wise decision to be generous.  But the cliche that 10% of the people use up 90% of our time with their problems is often very close to the truth.  If the favor the person is asking eats your lunch, so to speak, and the imposition really begins to suck the life out of you, I believe it is in your best interest (and the best interest of your family, friends, and colleagues who really deserve your attention) to reserve your efforts for something more productive. Sometimes it has less to do with paybacks for past behavior than simply wishing to preserve your efforts and energy for more worthwhile endeavors.

  • realtyannie

    This is all well and good, taking the high road and so forth. But on this website we see many observations regarding the general decline in personal accountability. Are there no consequences to behavior? Do we reward others for abusing us?
    Would this jerk, and everyone who has to work with him in the future, benefit from a little criticism delivered along with the kind advice? ”I am surpised you asked for my support; based on our interaction I didn’t realize you respected my opinion.” 

  • megginson

    This section of the Chronicle is indeed not about psychotherapy, so please forgive me for sailing a bit in that direction. As a onetime administrator, I’ve had these situations arise with people who have been, well, challenging. I have always cheerfully provided the advice, and I don’t mention the previous uncharitable behavior. That’s as much for a selfish reason as anything. I tend to dwell more than I should on being treated nastily, and in that regard have a certain book by Robert Sutton displayed prominently on my bookshelf. (You can find it on Amazon.) I’ve found that responding positively to a request for advice or other similar engagement allows me to let go of it once and for all. If I were to accompany it with some statement that could be taken as, “I’m being nice to you despite your having been such an (check Sutton’s title for a word to be inserted here) to me”, it would almost certainly spoil the effect.

  • satris

    You might give this person some guidance regarding the way he sometimes comes off as hosile and anti-social.  It sounds as though he needs help in this area,  You might ask him whether he is even aware of this, or whether he thinks it might make job-hunting (and job-keeping) difficult.  

  • nyceducator

    I think most are missing the point…Let’s learn to be more honest and forget about being a doormat

  • antiutopia

    I think you’re to be commended for considering the issue, wrestling with it, and trying to do what you believe is the right thing.  If this meeting opened lines of communication, maybe in follow up meetings you can non-threateningly describe how he’s been coming across to you.

  • newyorkyankees

    Allison is a much better person than me for having met with this individual. Admittedly, I don’t know that I could have been that magnanimous if I were in her position. In my opinion, a refusal in this situation wouldn’t have been an act of revenge but I would have avoided this person if he consistently treated me like a pin cushion.

  • http://jdeveland.com/ JD Eveland

    Not too long after I left the Claremont Graduate School (part of the Claremont Colleges, located in, of all places, Claremont CA) back in the middle 1990′s, they decided to promote themselves to become the Claremont Graduate University. The major effect, as far as I could tell (comments from other CGS faculty alumni welcomed), was that everyone’s title got jumped up one rank. Thus “departments” in the “school” became “schools” in the “university”. Department chairs became Deans; the Dean became a Provost. “Directors” of things were still mostly “directors”, however, and (being on the lower end of the scale) “students” remained “students”. Perhaps they should have all become “distinguished scholars” or perhaps “epiphanoids” (seekers of epiphanies?). On the other hand, my current institution (being at the time in the grip of an Evil Wizard, since vanquished) made a run at abolishing all faculty ranks, making everyone either a “professor” or an “instructor”. The eventual compromise appears to have been to retain faculty ranks (full, associate, etc.) as properties of the individual faculty member, while retaining the two classes as types of positions, an arrangement best explained by Evil HR Directors.The Moral of this Tale, if there is one, is probably that you might as well promote your title to the degree possible, since the nominal equivalent of grade inflation is gradually eating away at all titles. There’s a certain “tragedy of the commons” element in this process, but it’s hard to fault anyone for accepting an inflated title in a world where this has become the norm. New! Improved! Now with bleach! Etc.

  • http://jdeveland.com/ JD Eveland

    I can think of a number of administrators I’ve known  whose proper title might better have been  “Wrecktor Magnificus”…

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