One of the things I pride myself on is my ability to get along with people and treat people equally. In fact, I’d hazard a guess that if a range of friends, acquaintances and colleagues were quizzed about my defining characteristic, they’d say “friendly”.
My ability to get along with a wide range of people goes for (almost) all personality types; all socioeconomic levels; all levels of our hierarchy when I’m at work; all levels of notoriety whether it’s a world-famous author at a reading or the janitor who’s cleaning up after the event is over.
I pride myself on this but I also know I’m not always successful. As with most people, there are at least one or two personality types that will always be oil & water when I’m involved. There are times when I allow myself to be starstruck by a celebrity, whether they deserve that awe or not. There are times when I treat people filling different roles at my workplace differently.
And there’s also the self-awareness factor. One of the realities of the notion of self-awareness is that you can never be fully self-aware as it’s impossible to fully know how others perceive you. As much as I like to think I get along with everyone and treat everyone equally, I’m sure there are people who think I’m an asshole or that I’ve mis-treated them in some way or whatever.
Anyhow, the reason I’m thinking about this topic is I had occasion to talk to a couple different colleagues today which, if the library were a Twilight novel, would have one member on “Team Edward” and one on “Team Jacob”. Yet personally, I like both equally and enjoy my interactions with each of them equally as well.
And as I said off-the-top, I take great pride in that.
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