Every day we come into contact with real live human beings—
at work, commuting, in shops, out and about—people we
might have met before or often complete strangers. The world
is full of people with whom we interact. Those interactions,
small or large, can be life-affirming or deeply unpleasant. So,
what follows are a few social Rules. These aren’t set in stone.
They aren’t a revelation. They are a reminder.
We will look at some Rules for dealing with people at work.
After all, that’s where we spend an awful lot of our time, and
anything we can do to make our career more successful and
our working life happier, more satisfying and productive, and
most of all enjoyable, surely can’t be a bad thing?
Social Rules are the fourth circle we draw around ourselves.
(The first is self, the second is partner, the third is family and
friends, and the fourth is social relationships.) It’s terribly easy
to see our own group, social class, or any level of community
as the right one, the important one, the better-than-yours one.
But each community sees itself as that. How much better to
draw that fourth circle around ourselves so that it includes
people from other backgrounds, other ethnicities, other com-
munities, so that we feel part of the big community, the
human one. It is better to include more than to exclude even
one. And it is very easy to exclude for whatever reason, to
assume that it is a “them” and “us” situation, when actually
we are all “them,” we are all “us.”
We have to treat everyone with respect, or what’s it all about?
We have to care about everyone, or the whole thing falls apart.
We have to help each other no matter who they are, because if
we don’t there won’t be anyone to help us when we need it.
We have to be the first to put our hand out. Why? Because we
are Rules Players.