On Refusing to Comply With Expectations!
One of the reasons I have often struggled with business related social situations is that I tend to refuse to comply with convention, choosing instead what is an authentic expression of how I view a situation. If "convention" happens to overlap with my own convictions, great... and if it does not, I feel free to criticize and explain why I think what I think.
I'm always surprised by just how many people are not comfortable with that. You're supposed to react in the way ”you're supposed to,” in a given situation. Any deviation is immediately suspect. People are supposed to be predictable. When did we become so formulaic, in our thinking?
It is as if there is an ”official” unspoken narrative and if you break from that narrative you immediately become persona non grata.
One of the ways in which I do this (that evidently irritates people a great deal) is that I don't think in terms of hierarchies. I don't look at people and "rank" them in terms of better than or worse than, on account of how high their position is in an organization of how large or small their salary is.
I just don't care!
I care about who they are as human beings and what their character is like and how they treat others.
Each time I get told off for doing so — perhaps in not so many words — my mind always drifts back to my University days in Business School where I learned (also “in not so many words”) that in order to get ahead in business you basically had to be prepared to be a ruthless asshole who doesn't care about anybody else.
It is not an approach that I care to pursue!
It all reminds me of a saying I came across, a long time ago: Just because the majority of the world is doing something and calling it "the accepted way" does NOT make it the right thing!
I suppose this is why I ended up spending most of my life as a self-employed individual!
That, and the fact that I wasn't willing to "just ignore" people who were making it patently obvious that they really didn't know how to do their jobs.
It is interesting how often we a taught that it is a good thing to "challenge authority," and yet we are often ostracized for doing that exact thing!
But then again, nobody ever said that life was supposed to be easy or make sense!
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Doing things different from the expectation in business can make it unique, but you need to do it in a way that not 100% opposite of the client/demand expectation, balance between the two.
True enough. And sometimes you also have to meake peace with the reality that your idea may be "very niche" rather than something that's going to serve every person on the planet.
=^..^=
About niche... The ones that said about niche usually are the ones that creates content or product for the biggest audience in that sector and is not ultra niche...
Yes, that is absolutely true. In some areas—especially in rural parts of my country—if you engage in actions, behaviors, or ideas that differ from the majority, you will be ostracized.
Certainly. There are definitely situations in which it feels like "compliance is essential."
A friend of mine (from the country) had a lot of opposition to wanting to go to University because none of his family had ever had a higher education. They all protested that he thought he was "better than them."
=^..^=
Wow, your comment reminds me of the story of a young village woman who faced opposition from her fellow villagers when she wanted to go to college, simply because no girl from their village had ever pursued higher education after finishing high school. Most girls would either work in a factory or get married right after graduating.
Update: @curatorcat.pal, I paid out 1.572 HIVE and 0.000 HBD to reward 2 comments in this discussion thread.