Quote of the Day

The best index to a person's character is (a) how he treats people who can't do him any good, and (b) how he treats people who can't fight back.

Abigail Van Buren

I always used to think that the best index to a person's character was how they responded after being nudged out of their "comfort zone." I amassed lots of evidence to support my conclusions while working in the casinos. In that business, we were constantly being nudged out of our zones, either by large-money bets, obnoxious and drunken losers, or untrustworthy employees.

I learned in the very early stages of my career that the best way to handle these types of situations was to "never let them see you sweat." And that bit of advice worked wonders for me. As a dealer, it paid off hundreds of times. Dice could, and often would be flying through the air when the big money hit the layout. One cannot buckle in those situations because it could mean everybody's job. Stay calm, stay cool, stay collected.... stay employed.

Later, as a manager, customers and staff would come running to me with their umpteenth dilemma of the day, one for which they had no solution, nor clue as to what to do. Stressed, befuddled, confused, often on the verge of panic, desperate for guidance, these humans came to me for solutions. Often I would think, "Yeah, I've seen/heard this one before", and I would provide the fix they craved. And off they would go, happy as kittens with their recovered sense of security.

But sometimes, some new and oddball dilemma would arise, one with which I was not familiar, and I would find myself in new territory, and slightly out of my own comfort zone. When it did happen that way, I was often found chuckling to myself! A nervous reaction? Flippancy? Anarchy? Nah. I just had to laugh because the epinephrine and adrenaline rush. The chuckling was a healthy stress response. I would think to myself, "Nope, never seen that one before! Wait'll I tell the others! I can't wait to see their faces when I tell them." After that thought-process, I would formulate a viable solution and present it to whomever was requesting it. And off they went again, happy as kittens, with me chuckling to myself.

My solutions, often as oddball as the problems themselves, were what made me successfull in the business. I had a skill that not too many others possessed, specifically being able to be creative. I noticed that most people don't have very strong creative skills and I always thought I knew why. I thought that people weren't creative because they couldn't react very well to stress.

I have since found this to be false. People don't lack creativity because they're stressed out. People are not creative because they've never been taught to be creative. It doesn't matter as much their emotional state as does their actual ability and experience being creative.

That revelation got me thinking about my original premise; that the best index of a person's character is how well they respond to stressful situations. I figured out that I wasn't getting enough information to make a decent evaluation. So I kept looking.

After reading Ms. Van Buren's quote, a lot of it fell into place. I have seen people act perfectly calm, cool, and collected while visciously berating a waiter for an overdone steak. I have experienced Napoleanic policemen abusing their powers with tourists regarding simple parking infractions. I have seen and heard many insults slung from open car windows aimed at harmless, poor people begging for change in the street. And every time I have seen these vulgar displays of contempt, I have wondered how people could commit them so calmly.

Comfort zone has a bit to do with how to index a person's character. But not as much as how a person treats those who can't help and those who can't fight back. People that treat the helpless with contempt don't do so because they're stressed. They do so because they lack character. They are bullies and they are mean people.

That a damn good index of character.