Respecting Others Regardless of Profession
Have you ever encountered anyone who showed you less or perhaps more respect once they discovered what you did for a living? Treating people with respect regardless of their profession should be a given. However, many people dictate the level of respect that they are willing to give you based on what you do for a living, which is absolutely absurd. Sometimes people will ask you, whether or not they themselves are “successful,” what you do, and use that to gauge the level of respect that they should give you.
I believe that whether you are addressing the janitor, cashier, doctor, CEO, and so on, a person is to be treated with respect regardless of their profession until they demonstrate otherwise that they do not deserve respect. Personally, I could care less what you do professionally. I am more concerned about your personality and you being a decent human being.
Ultimately, as a human being, I will treat you with the utmost respect until you show me otherwise, that you do not deserve my respect such as you being a racist, a bigot, and/or a downright mean, evil, and rude person. I will not respect anyone who exhibits these traits, which have nothing to do with what they do for a living, but rather their personality traits. You not deserving my respect has nothing to do with your profession, skin color, gender, sexual orientation, the amount of money you have or do not have, where you live, what you drive, and so on. None of that should come into play when determining the level of respect that we give to someone else.
I have found that sometimes, when some people have asked what I do for a living and I told them I am a lawyer, some would do a complete 180 change in their demeanor and attitude. It would be followed by smiles and usually “oh that’s really interesting,” after which they would want to have a deeper conversation. However, before they found out what I did for a living, they may have been giving me an attitude, not wanting to talk and so on. It was almost as if they somehow perked up and their respect for me changed upon hearing my profession. One person even said, “oh wow, so that means that you are really intelligent.”
Ummm. Ok. I guess. So, I asked them, does that mean that if I did something else that I would not be intelligent, because I know plenty of highly intelligent people who never went to college, let alone law school. There are plenty of highly intelligent people who never even graduated from high school, my grandmother being one of them when she was alive. My great-grandparents never made it past middle school, and they too were extremely intelligent and wise. So please do not take someone’s education and equate it to a level of intelligence, because let’s be real, that is not always true. And to then parlay their education level into what they do professionally, to determine the level of respect that you give them is not only ridiculous, but extremely immature and shows the kind of person that they are.
It is often best to simply give the same respect to someone that you would want them to give you. You cannot expect gold when you are giving out particles of dust. It does not work that way. What someone does for a living should have no bearing on the level of respect that you give them. Everyone in my book, starts out on an even, level playing field with me giving them respect until they show me that they do not deserve my respect. I respect you as a person until I shouldn’t.
