Since I regularly read
newspapers, I am rarely without controversial material. And, I have noticed recently that everything
old is new.
Milk delivery is something
millennials just discovered; returning empty bottles to stores for a deposit
seems novel; living in small, austere houses is frugal; and brewing your own
coffee at home appears original.
But today I was stunned to read a
lengthy article about something called EQ.
Emotional intelligence, just like life’s intelligence, has morphed into
“emotional quotient’ rather than intelligence quotient is designated as IQ.
EQ appears to be another
touchy-feely bi-product of some ersatz science dished out in institutions
called colleges and universities.
This article was fascinating
since it delved into deeply harnessing EQ to use to your advantage in your
workplace.
If you’re like me, you are
retired and could care less about anything or anyone not connected to the place
I buy my lottery tickets and liquor.
So it was with great interest
that I followed this serpentine path to nowhere when it posed questions
entitled “learning about yourself from others,” “learning from your criticism,”
and “not being afraid to apologize.”
I worked for over four decades of
my life, and most of those jobs were relatable to my one temporary job as a
garbage man. Yes, I was a garbage man to
help pay for my college education; it did.
 |
| Not me |
My garbage man job serves as a
barometer by which my other jobs are based.
I held a variety of jobs which held very few slots called
positions. As a garbage man I had a
choice of three slots – pulling full cans from the backyards to the curb,
putting empty cans back into the yards from the curb, and tossing those full
cans into the back of the truck.
And during those three glorious
years, I rarely thought I didn’t want to go to work. I also never once thought about learning from
my criticism, being afraid to apologize, or learning about myself from others.
My other jobs included varying
blue collar trade work, teaching, and white collar office employment.
And, in not one other of those
arduous career steppingstones did I ever lie awake at night thinking about my
feelings, and the feelings of others.
My fellow employees were adults
and, as a result, I treated them as such.
And when one of them stepped on one of those EQ no-nos, they were
treated as adults and told not to do stupid workplace disrupting stuff
again. Period.
So to say this EQ stuff is
nonsense would be a gross understatement.
All these easily-offended clowns need to get their professional lives in
order, is a week tossing cans into the back of the truck. I’m just saying.
