Have you ever talked to one of those people who, no matter what you say or do, seem to feel the need to 1-Up you? Whether you’re talking about something good or bad, they just have to be better or worse?

One of my wife’s friends had an event this weekend to try to raise money for his son, who’s taking a trip out of the country for a sports competition. He had initially asked his ex-wife to help, but she felt it was something that was just a pipe dream, even though it’s her son as well, and thus didn’t want to be a part of it. However, she said she’d come to the event since it was her son.

The event went pretty well, and there were a lot of people there, good food, and great music. Near the end of the event the wife goes to my wife’s friend and said she’s changed her mind. She wants to put on another event that she’s going to organize and that it’s going to be better than what he just did.

You see the problem here? It’s not about wanting to do something good for the son, which will hopefully be the end result. It’s about her feeling as though he looked good because he put on this successful event for their child, and now she feels as though she must be better to look good in the eyes of others.

Frankly I’ve never understood this mentality for one specific reason. That reason is that no matter what one does, their first thought should always be to try to do the best they can, to be the best they can. If that’s the case, then one will be recognized by their peers and, in business, upper management because everyone likes being around someone who’s proven that they can be successful, and that they give their all in everything they do.

Of course one of the downfalls is that sometimes trying to do something better means doing something that won’t work. Sometimes one just have to look at something else and acknowledge that it couldn’t have gotten any better. One sometimes has to learn to leave well enough alone.

How often do you have people trying to 1-Up you? Or are you the 1-Upper?
 

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Last week there were some spontaneous protests in San Francisco surrounding the BART system. Someone there surmised that protesters were mobilizing themselves by using their cell phones and decided to turn off access to their signal. This generated claims of censorship, with many people saying their freedom of speech rights were being violated.

It seems like it’s time to clarify something for the masses; there is no freedom of speech law. Yeah, I know, some people are going to pull out the 1st Amendment to the Constitution and say that guarantees them the right to say whatever they want to say whenever they want to say it.

Folks, the Constitution doesn’t say that, nor guarantee it. What it says is that Congress can’t pass any laws inhibiting free speech. The goal of those that agreed on that principle was to allow regular people to disagree with what’s going on with the government without worrying about being prosecuted, which is what kept happening in other countries around the world at that time, including England.

That was the only purpose of the “speech” part of the 1st Amendment. Even with that, there are limits on what people can get away with as it pertains to the government. For instance, one can’t advocate violence against the government or any member of Congress without possibly being arrested. That’s why we always hear about people getting arrested and being sentenced for threats against the President and Congress. One can’t advocate violence by a group of people, such as getting a mob together with the purpose of advocating action.

And we all know of a host of other “freedom of speech” laws that have been passed where the concept isn’t true. You can’t yell “fire” in a crowded theater. You can’t talk about bombs at an airport. You can’t openly burn a cross on someone’s lawn. You can’t libel or slander anyone. On and on and on.

Anyone who’s ever worked at any company knows there’s certain behavior that’s not allowed in the workplace either. You can’t disclose to others how much money you make. You can’t openly put down other employees. You can’t always disclose how the company is doing to everyone else, or how much money the company is or isn’t making. You can’t disclose anything related to medical issues or if someone’s getting counseling.

Think about your blog, if you have one, or your community wall, or even certain forums you might participate in. For the most part, all of them have rules that you have to adhere to; no one can get away with saying everything. Every owner has the right to set the rules of discourse because they’re paying for it. That’s just how it goes. I’m no different; people can disagree with me on my blogs but if there’s bad language I’m going to remove it and not worry one bit because I’m paying for it and monitoring it and have a policy about it.

Do I agree with any or all policies regarding freedom of speech? Not even close. I don’t believe a company has a right to tell people what they can say on their own time as long as they’re not giving away company secrets. I don’t believe schools can tell teachers what they can do; same with students unless they’re intentionally harassing another student; there always has to be limits after all. I don’t think that with our society today there can be blanket rules for anything.

So we pay for our rights or we’re ready to suffer whatever consequences there are for what we have to say. Either that or temper what we have to say; it’s our choice.
 

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Many years ago when I was in a position of authority I had an employee that just wasn’t cutting it. Not only was she not able to keep up with the work but she wasn’t even really trying.

She’d been there before I got there and pretty much felt that she was untouchable, no matter what she did. I met with her 3 times about her performance and behavior, and documented each time I had a counseling session with her. Nothing seemed to get through to her. Then one day, a Thursday, I called her down to human resources and fired her. She just stared at me, but didn’t say anything. She knew that we’d had the conversations and that I’d warned her the last time that she only had one more chance, and she’d blown it.

The next day one of my other employees came into the office and said “I always thought you were really nice, but that was kind of a mean thing to do.” I said “I did my job. Don’t mistake my kindness for weakness.” And that was that.

Often people think that because some of us are fairly easy going that we’re weak and don’t know what we’re doing. I don’t know how many times in my life I’ve had to dispel that one. I’m not overly intense. I don’t berate people for making mistakes. In all the years where I was in a leadership position I lost my temper three times with employees, and in none of those cases did I yell.

In other circumstances, where I had to deal with peers that either didn’t perform their jobs, which impacted what I had to do, I would encourage and remind and try to cajole to a certain point. When I knew that nothing I did was going to produce a result, I’d go a much different and direct route. I didn’t just go for that day’s victory; I went for a permanent reminder of how things had to be. I established precedents because I didn’t want those types of things to become the norm. If it impacted my department, which meant cash, which meant it impacted the entire business, I’d have to admit I was kind of ruthless. It was never personal; it was always about the job.

I actually only had to do that sort of thing a few times before word got out that I would “go there”. And it was understood that I had been fair, that I had tried to get what was needed through direct means with them, even offering to help most of the time. At work, one can be nice and still work hard in getting the job done, working to the best of their ability, and if need be work with others in trying to help them get the job done.

In any business or relationship, the biggest mistake anyone can make about someone else is underestimating them based on their daily behavior. I have seen the most mild mannered people fly into rages when they feel they’ve been wronged. I have seen overly talkative and boisterous people clam up when they’re asked to stand in front of a lot of people to make a presentation. And obviously I’ve met a lot of people that have a lot of years in a business yet have no idea how to do their job or what the most important things about their job they need to know better.

Mistaking kindness for weakness is probably what happened in my previous post on respect. No one wants to be taken advantage of over and over, and it’s a sign that someone believes you’re weak. I don’t say this to encourage anyone from being what they are, especially if you’re a nice person. I say this to encourage you not to allow anyone to step all over you on a consistent basis, no matter your position or theirs.

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When I was young, I had a pretty quick temper. It didn’t take much to get me mad to the point where I wanted to fight someone. Lucky for me, I had learned one major lesson from my dad; never hit anyone first. So I’d shake and I’d threaten but it rarely got physical unless someone actually did hit me first, which happened a few times. I wasn’t a big kid, but I was fast, and as mad as I got, as soon as I’d hit someone back a few times I suddenly wasn’t mad anymore. Of course, once I was a big kid no one ever threw the first punch; thank goodness.

As adults, we don’t get to throw punches at others without consequences. We also don’t have the luxury of going around breaking things because eventually someone has to pay for it, and it’ll probably be you. Nope, getting that angry as an adult will cause grief that no one wants to have.

This means that trying to find ways to calm oneself down is imperative to everyone’s good health. However, we also have to acknowledge that not every situation can be eased off all that quickly. I have had events that have angered me that I’ve carried with me for weeks; that’s never good. I’ve also had flashes of anger that I’ve been able to get out of my system almost immediately. This shows that anger isn’t always triggered by the same stimulus, and thus maybe a one stop solution for every situation isn’t available.

I find that there are different ways I can calm down. One thing I can do is go for a walk; sometimes it’s a very long walk. This satisfies the physical part of anger, when maybe your thought is to hit something. Trust me, it’s much better than punching a wall; I haven’t punched a wall since I was 19 but I’ve known people that have broken hands or feet expressing their anger incorrectly.

Another thing one can do is find someone to talk to about the issue. If you have that close friend or confidant that you can talk to and have them just listen for awhile it can help you blow off steam and sometimes figure out what it was that made you mad, although most people already know what made them mad whether they want to acknowledge it or not.

The best thing I’ve found is to express my feelings through either writing about it or recording a video. Sometimes one has to do both, as I did on my other blog when I carried something on my mind a couple of weeks regarding an off-putting comment someone made to me about writing. I probably should have written about it much sooner because as soon as I finished the video and my article it was off my mind and gone almost forever; after all, I did have a blog post about it.

It’s imperative that we all find those things that can help us control our anger in the safest way possible. Locally we’ve seen examples recently of some people who relieved their anger inappropriately, exhibited road rage, and are going to jail because someone they didn’t know ended up being killed. There are also sometimes stories of people taking their rage out at work in some fashion; that’s never good either. We must all work on our self control. And when we have problems with that, we have to learn how to decompress and calm down as soon as possible.

Do you have special techniques you use to calm down?

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“I’m frustrated. I have two master’s degrees and I’m working on my doctorate. I started teaching earning $17,000 a year. I’ve paid my dues.”

Skaneateles NY Superintendent Philip D’Angelo on Governor Andrew Cuomo’s proposal to limit the salaries of superintendents across NY state

The question of paying one’s dues sometimes comes up, and it can be a difficult one to respond to. Does someone pay dues by time? Does someone pay dues by accomplishment? Does someone pay dues with money? And if you’ve paid your dues, what should you expect?

I was asked to comment on the statement above, which of course means it generated this particular post. Whereas one would applaud the accomplishments of Mr. D’Angelo, his stating that he’s paid his dues because of his degrees is illogical and ill-conceived. If the number of degrees is all it takes to say someone has paid their dues then there are a lot of educated people out there who could claim that same thing without ever having to produce anything.

Let’s think about money for a quick moment. For many people, they had to pay their dues to earn the money they have, and many people do good things with that money. However, there are a lot of people that have money that didn’t do anything with it. They sometimes feel a sense of entitlement, and think that if they do one selfless act a year that they’ve earned “dues” and the right to be less than a good human being any other time. Frankly there’s a lot of jerks that have money that will do good things, often for the tax break. If you didn’t earn it yourself you have never paid any dues, and thus we have to throw out money.

Now let’s look at time. This is a tough one to rate because I’ve heard many people utter a phrase like “I’ve been here 30 years and I’ve paid my dues; someone owes me.” It’s an interesting statement, but all that takes is to be able to survive and possibly have no drive to make it in a job 30 years. If you’ve never threatened to reach any of the higher positions within a company then longevity gets you accolades for being able to stick it out, but I’m not sure it means you’ve paid any dues. A lot of bad employees have been able to last 30 years or more at a job; what dues would we say they’ve paid?

So then this brings us to accomplishments. Accomplishments are what gives people the right to expect certain things in my opinion, but within reason. As I told someone today, I’ve been in business for myself almost 10 years now, and I actually helped one hospital increase their revenue by $720 million in one year, more than double what they were bringing in before I got there. To me, I’ve paid my dues and deserve to live the good life, so to speak. And yet, even with such a success, overwhelmingly people have no idea who I am, and thus whenever someone wants to subcontract with me they ask for a resume. Dues means nothing when people don’t know who you are.

Then there are people who really have earned their dues for some of their accomplishments, yet don’t get to carry it across the board into everything. Let’s look at Mel Gibson. Oscar winner multiple times over, big time movie star, donated lots of money to charity and then built a church. Yet, in the last 5 years he’s gone over the deep end with bad behavior, which I don’t have to document here. This was a guy who’d paid his dues and really could have been seen in a much brighter light, and now he’s a late night comedian joke and vilified, especially after admitting that he hit the mother of one of his children, and of course after we’ve all heard some portion of those taped rants. So, dues doesn’t give you absolution from bad behavior.

Finally there are some people who have earned their dues and thus have earned the right to say certain things. Bill Cosby has donated money to black causes. He’s had mainly black casts in his TV shows, as well as people working behind the scene. He marched for civil rights. He has preached education to all. He has earned the right to complain about black people not stepping up to the plate after all he’s done for the black community. Anyone who doesn’t think he’s paid his dues for the cause has lost their minds. The same goes for John Lewis and Rev. Joseph Lowery.

And the same goes for every parent who gave of themselves to raise their children the best they could, kept them from harm, helped them with their education, and guided them into adulthood with a chance to succeed. None of this means anyone gets a free pass from everything; but it means they’ve paid their dues, and thus are granted some laxity in some areas.

Think about how you might have paid some dues, if you have, and what you feel you deserve from it. Is it in proportion with reality? In actuality, the superintendent has probably paid dues based on the job he does; he was inarticulate in what he stated. I think I’ll give him a pass.

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Over the past couple of days, the northeast has been pounded by a blizzard. We’ve been hearing reports of mainly snowfall between 8 and 12 inches, although a few places have had more than that.

As strange as this might seem to the masses, it’s hard for anyone living in my area to have much empathy for places that rarely get the kind of snow we regularly get here in the Syracuse area. We hear 12 inches and say “yeah, what’s that?” At the beginning of this month we had 54 inches and 98 straight hours of snow, and the day after it ended our roads were clear and life seemed as normal as any other day.

We’ve had a lot of fun with this topic locally, and the truth is that other places aren’t quite as equipped as we are for snow removal. I’ve read where some communities didn’t even have their own plows; that will mess up snow removal, for sure. They don’t have salt or sand to put down on the roads, or so little that it barely makes a difference.

Frankly, I’m a little surprised at that. Over the last few years, there has been nothing but talk about coastal snowstorms, ice storms, and many canceled flights. One would think that someone would have gotten the message by now that weather happens, and that these communities should be prepared in some fashion to at least have a fighting chance against inclement weather. I’m sure it was at least considered when they were putting their budgets together, yet for some reason they decided it wasn’t important enough to prepare for something they knew could happen, if not this year then possibly the next.

At the same time, sometimes I wonder about the ability to empathize with others when things like this come up. We can get into the comparison mode and see something that doesn’t bother us much troubling someone else a lot and wonder about their fortitude. Even though I’ve had some fun with this particular storm myself, I remember driving back from a meeting 9 years ago from Virginia through Maryland in an ice storm, and for much of it I was the only person on the road, driving very slowly and knowing I was on my own because there were no rescue vehicles that were going to come save me if something went wrong. Living where I do, I knew how to drive in the conditions I was dealing with, but it was still a very dangerous trek, one that, in retrospect, I shouldn’t have even undertaken.

Our levels of empathy seem to be driven by our own circumstances, good or bad. If someone had a pet that passed away, we either feel for them because we can imagine that happening to us, or have no feeling whatsoever because, after all, it’s “just a pet” and we don’t have one. It might be a parent that’s passed away and we feel the pain, or we don’t because we never knew our parents all that well, or we have other problems to deal with instead of yours. Or it may be the accountability factor, such as someone getting arrested for DWI and we’re smug because we don’t drink and we know everyone knows the rules about drinking and driving.

There are indeed different levels of empathy, but there’s only one level of accountability, and that’s just to be accountable. If you were accountable and something bad happens anyway, and it was worse than could be imagined, you can bet that everyone will be on your side. If you weren’t accountable, or ignored the obvious, you’re probably going to suffer some type of derision. It happens to the best of us.

But if you’re on the end where you have to decide how empathetic to be, one can only hope that you’ll know when to show empathy and when you can have a little bit of fun at someone else’s expense. As far as this blizzard goes… wusses.

I was having an interesting conversation with a friend of mine. She was complaining because the person she works for had one of her other friends send a text message to her while she was out of town about a work issue. It irked her because she said she’d told everyone she was going out of town for something special, and here she was being disturbed.

I asked her why she gave her cell phone number out to these people anyway and she said it was a way they’d determined to communicate with each other during the work week if they couldn’t see each other face to face. She said she normally didn’t have a problem with it except this particular weekend, and she thought the guy was being particularly obstinate because he’s someone she really would rather not deal with.

I’m a bit particular as an independent consultant. I rarely give my cell phone number to anyone. But if I do, I don’t feel compelled to answer it if I see someone calling that I’m not expecting to call. I use it for both business and pleasure, but it doesn’t mean that I want to be that accessible all the time.

I know another consultant who says his unique selling proposition is that no matter where in the world he is, and no matter where in the world his client is, he will get back to that person within 3 hours if he can’t immediately answer the phone. For me, that would mean I might never sleep; that’s just not going to work.

There’s a reason I have two landlines coming to my home. One is my personal line; the other is my business line. Both can take messages, and that works great for me. In the house (my office is in my home), my cell phone gets terrible reception. Sending text messages is easy enough, but it’s hard to hear anyone who calls me on that phone while I’m in the house. Voice mail works well in the house, though, and I can call either phone line to check messages if I’m not home.

Most of the time I do get back to people within a few hours, but that’s not the point. The point is that we all have the right to control our accessibility. If you’re willing to give your 8 or 10 hours a day to someone else’s issues, you deserve the rest of the time to take care of yourself. Sure, there might be some professions that have you on call more often than that. But your first obligation is always to yourself, no matter what.

Last week, I worked with someone who was having some difficulties with a decision she had to make. Actually, she didn’t know she had to make a decision until we started talking. Initially she was just venting, but I’m one of those people who believes that, most of the time, once you start venting you need to start making plans to change something about what it is upsetting you.

Sometimes people have problems with work situations. Other times it has something to do with one’s personal life. To me, it doesn’t matter if it’s internal or external; the signs for determining when it’s time to make a change are easy.

What’s harder is making a determination on when it’s time to move on. This could range from firing an employee to leaving a job to leaving a relationship. These types of things are drastic, and yet people make these moves every day and are able to survive those decisions. Sometimes the moves aren’t warranted, while other times they might come later than they should have. Here are 3 ways to determine when it’s time to move on.

1. If you’ve always taken some steps to change your situation and they haven’t improved, and possibly have gotten worse, it’s probably time to move on. From an employee perspective, if you’re not getting what you need from an employer, or you’re being treated badly in your opinion, it might be time to leave. Sometimes it helps to talk to someone else within the organization to see if your beliefs are valid or not, but that could be difficult to do because you might not know who you can trust. However, in my opinion, if you can’t tell management your issues, even if your problem is with them, it might be time to consider leaving.

2. If you can’t work with the people you need to work with, or interact with the people you need to work with, without fear of reprisal of some kind, it might be time to move on. This one works whether it’s business or personal issues. Sometimes another person will try to bully you. Sometimes they try to manipulate you with their actions in negative ways. When you’ve lost any semblance of control of your own life, and it’s due to someone else, it’s time to think of an exit strategy.

3. If you’re feeling physically sick or ill in some fashion because of a situation you find yourself in, maybe it’s time to get away from it if you can. I’ve left clients that have made me feel as though my advice or recommendations aren’t worth anything because I don’t want to waste my time. In my friend’s case, her stomach was hurting all the time and she was having problems sleeping. At one point she even cried a little bit. No one should ever have that kind of negative impact on your life and have you continue dealing with it. There is always another job and another person you will have a relationship with, so why stay in something that’s causing you harm?

I have one follow up statement here. If, for any of these scenarios, you find that every time you move that it happens again, it’s time for you to evaluate whether it might be you. That’s a tough thing to think about but the reality is that it’s not always someone else’s fault.

I spend a lot of time on this blog telling people that they need to have trust and faith in themselves if they want to succeed in life. I also tell people that if they believe in themselves then it doesn’t matter what anyone else has to say, just go out and give it a shot.

While I still believe that, I feel the need to temper it somewhat, because sometimes things just aren’t that cut and dry. Not everyone has the proper judgment in determining when what they’re doing is legitimate and positive, such that if you’re doing some things that are detrimental to your betterment, no matter what it is, then it’s time to listen to what others are saying. How can you make that determination? Here are 5 things to think about if you hear it from the mouths of others.

1. What you’re trying to do is impossible. Of course, if you go into business for yourself you might have a lot of doubters, but in life there are some things that just aren’t going to happen. If you tell someone that you’re going to start working out at age 45 to get into shape so you can be the starting center for the New York Knicks, but you’re never worked out before, never played basketball, and you’re only 5’7″ tall, and everyone you know is telling you it’s impossible, that might be a case for evaluating what you’re thinking about doing. The reality is that everyone can’t do everything because there are some limitations that are impossible to overcome. Real judgment comes in knowing what you can realistically do with the talent you have.

2. You have a negative attitude. Sometimes supervisors will say this to their employees, and if it’s based on limited exposure it’s a terrible thing to say to anyone. However, if your friends and family have jumped on the bandwagon, it might be time to do some self analysis to figure out what may be going on in your life that’s making you negative, or how you’re coming across to people that you might have to change. Folks who aren’t used to people from New York City sometimes see them as aggressive, but if where they live sees it as the norm, then they’re fine and might just need to alter themselves for their new environment. But if even at home people said they were aggressive, then a major attitude shift is in order.

3. You’re too direct with people. There are a lot of people who feel they have the right to tell someone about themselves, even if it’s not their business. They call it being honest. However, you can usually count on two things. One, if you do it back to them they won’t like it; two, it’s usually how they say something to someone rather than the fact that they said it. There are a lot of people who eschew politically correct speech; notice those same people are always apologizing for what they’ve said? There’s a difference between telling the truth and being brutally honest and insensitive. It’s a skill many managers never learn, and then wonder why they can’t get anyone to work well for them.

4. Doing what everyone else has already done in the same exact way and failing just like they did. People tend to let history repeat itself because they don’t learn from the lessons of others. There are times when I’ve gone into an office and said I wanted to do something, and I’ll hear “we already tried that.” When I ask further questions, eventually someone will say “well, no, we didn’t do it quite like that.” That’s a different response than “yes, we did it exactly the same way, and we have documentation to prove it.” Doing something similar but in a different way is smart; failing because you didn’t believe everyone else who told you that was the wrong way to go because they already failed at it is moronic.

5. Thinking it’s always supposed to be about you. Everyone should think about themselves and love themselves and all of that. At the same time, you don’t only do things because they benefit you. If you make an appointment with someone then cancel at the last minute when you knew about this other thing all along, and people call you on it, that’s bad. If you’re someone who’s always late because it’s apparent you could care less about anyone else’s feeling and only care about how it impacts you, that’s bad. If you’re always cutting people off, or never finish listening to what someone is telling you because you just have to jump in and say something that’s suddenly on your mind, that’s bad.

If you hear from people who tell you any of these things on a consistent basis, take stock of yourself because if you’re putting off the people who’ll tell you, then you’re probably putting off the people who won’t tell you, and you’ll be left wondering why some people won’t talk to you anymore or won’t do business with you.

Think about those five things and see if any of them relate to you, or someone you know. Then tell me if you agree or not.

A couple of days ago I was reading a blog post by Rose DesRochers called The Online Reputation of Rose DesRochers. In the post, she talks about being asked to write a guest post for another blog, yet when she submitted the post she was told by the person that he had seen something negative about her and had decided he didn’t want her post.

One thing about the internet is that anyone can say anything about you, and often you won’t know anything about it. Sometimes you do, and you can engage in one of those things where you want to debate against someone or turn around and do the same thing to them. This type of thing isn’t new, especially to online issues. On my other blog last year I wrote about another woman who won the right through the federal courts to find out who was slandering and libeling her online by hiding behind a blog using a fake name. Of course the woman who was outed didn’t like it, tried to sue Google, then dropped it when she realized she didn’t have a chance, and was stupid to begin with for saying the things she did about the other woman.

There are times when one has to work hard in protecting their reputations. There are other times when it’s not worth the trouble, for one reason or another. Not all of these things are online; I’m going to tell my story.

About 2 1/2 years ago, I was doing a consulting assignment at a hospital in New York City. The top finance guy in charge was one of those guys who was all about one thing; getting money for the hospital. I understand how that works; it’s something I work on doing myself in my health care consulting business. The thing is that there were some things the hospital wasn’t doing that, according to the rules of the state, they needed to be doing. I had the person in charge of that area to start fulfilling the requirements of the state. What that did, unfortunately, was reduce the amount of money the hospital was getting every week.

That irked this guy to no end. The thing is, he was the one who actually brought the issue to my attention in a way, and I told him I was going to do it once I discovered what the rule was. We even had a meeting with a lot of other people where I explained what was going on, that he had asked about it, and that it was a short term issue that would soon be resolved.

Eventually I knew I couldn’t work with this guy and said I was leaving. He said something that was very unkind to me, in front of a witness, proving just what kind of man he was. Over the course of my last two weeks, he never said a word to me. Even my last week there, when I turned out to be correct, and the hospital had its best cash week of the year, he refused to say anything nice or wonder what I might have done to help them get that great week.

In the time I’ve been gone, he’s refused to pay the company that he had contracted with. That wasn’t surprising because I told the company that I knew he was never going to pay them. This guy has also continued to try to trash me, saying I was the worst guy they ever had there. Yes, miles away, but I still hear this stuff.

Now, I could have said something earlier and more direct. I certainly could have turned him and his hospital in to the state authorities, which I thought about many times, for fraudulent practices. This guy did a lot of illegal things that I and others knew about. I brought a couple of things to his attention, and his response to me was “did we get paid?” Folks, that’s illegal; you don’t do illegal things just to get paid. But there was no one to go to about any of this at the time except the state; lucky for me, I found the issues, but none of them happened on my watch.

The thing is that this man is unscrupulous and many people know about him. I’ve mentioned his name in other circles and no one has ever had a good word to say about him. Even one of his supposed friends said she had lost all respect for him because he wasn’t paying her either, and he owed her millions. So, my thinking overall was, and still is, that it’s really not worth going after this man with everything I could muster (I do happen to know a lot about how the internet works; I could easily crush this man’s reputation online and get away with it, as it would all be true, and he’d never know who did it) because his word means nothing to anyone. He has no sense of honor, and almost everyone who knows him knows that. I have suffered not one bit because of anything he’s tried to tell others. If he knew what I knew about him, he’d be kneeling in my presence hoping I’d stay quiet. Actually he wouldn’t, because he’s not smart enough to know just how much he’s disliked.

As I said earlier, there are times when one has to protect their reputation in some form. Then there are other times when you have to look at where that kind of thing is coming from and not get into the fray. Knee-jerk reactions often end with two casualties. Measured responses can work wonders if needed; if not, don’t waste your time doing or thinking about it. Go on about your business, and know that your reputation is just fine.

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