Morality and Morons

Here's one about working and dealing with colleagues.  A thing I tend to mess up.  As my brother has told me recently, "Look you've tried being yourself in interviews, it doesn't work!  Try being someone else!"  Well, from this story and perhaps from others it has become clear I never really learned the art of acquiring a social veneer.  In order to get along with colleagues at work you have to learn that knack.

Morality and Morons

My father used to claim that there wasn’t anything more amoral than a saved Christian. I often wondered what he meant by it. Recently I’ve begun to understand. There is something totally assured about most saved Christians that precludes any mortal error. Hence when they announce that you are bound for hell and that their seat is ready for them in heaven, they are certain of their facts. That kind of certainty is I’ve begun to believe, the source of their lack of morality. If you are certain someone is hell bound and that you have been chosen by God, it stands to reason, what you do, in a sense is beyond reproach. Ultimately you want to save their soul and if that involves creating fear, so be it. The end is seen as justifying the means.

We had a saved Christian in our Research team in the Microelectronics lab. He was tall and thin with nervous gestures, which involved wrinkling his nose tightly and then rolling his upper lip down over the front of his teeth. Anyway he was fairly typical of the breed and my father’s words echoed in my mind when I met him. It wasn’t just the smug air that he assumed during coffee breaks, but the moral high ground he felt he occupied on most issues. His religious fervour did not translate down to how he treated the rest of us. No, he was not concerned with politeness or courtesy. These were mundane affairs. His eyes were on higher planes - our souls. That illusive prey was his main concern and worry. In the face of eternal damnation the fact of whether he was polite to anyone seemed to him irrelevant. Having come across this breed before, I waited for my moment. They usually have a weak flank; all that spiritual pride takes a lot of energy to maintain. This energy has to come from somewhere and that source lets you know what really motivates that particular person. In Roger’s case it was repressed sexuality. That became clear inside a week. Not that he said or did anything vaguely sexual, no not at all. That you see was the point. This was where he was getting his energy and motivation. Not some higher source but by re channelling rather lower driving forces. Once you’ve worked out where the chink in the armour is, it is important to test one’s theory. I was discussing stainless steel gas line fittings with Roger in his office, in the course of our work. As we studied the catalogue deciding which parts to order I pointed out to him the sexual connotations of many of the actual device’s names. E.g. male couplings, female couplings etc. There was a long shocked pause and I took careful note. A deep painful crimson blush was extending tide like up his neck and ended in two bright red ears. The intensity of the colour and the regions gave the game away entirely. Once the test had proved the accuracy of my initial theory, the way forward was clear. Now when his behaviour reached ‘chalk on blackboard screeching’ dimensions, I knew what buttons to push. 

My colleague, a young Chinese researcher called Li Coon, was plagued by his demands for equipment to be handed out of the fabrication laboratory. I should explain, that in order to work in the clean environment of the Fabrication laboratory, you have to enter an interlock area, where you dress in nylon overalls, plastic booties, gloves and a shower cap. Since this took quite a degree of time, if you had inadvertently left a piece of equipment behind you on leaving the lab, rather than dress entirely and re-enter, you would open the interlock door and shout to someone in the lab to bring what you needed to the interlock. This saved time-consuming dressing and undressing. Usually the person in the lab, hearing the request, would accede. After all, sometime they too would need a similar favour. The problem with Roger, was that (a) his requests were always demands, (b) he almost never responded to such requests from others when he was in the lab, and (c) he directed all his demands at the youngest female researcher, Li Coon. She was much too nice to ever hint it was troubling her, to be at his beck and call. His behaviour annoyed me. It was inconsiderate and unfair, in that it was directed at the point of least resistance. Li Coon and I were working at an evaporator together when the familiar call came from the interlock. ‘Li Coon, bring me the big adjustable spanner’. No ‘please’, no ‘could you’, no, ‘if you are not too busy’, just ‘bring me the thing’. It was Roger, and Li Coon’s face fell. I had remonstrated with her many times, but however much she resented him, she found that cultural restraints and her respect for a senior researcher prevented her from objecting. This time, I murmured to her that I would get the spanner for him. She was so grateful and I immediately rose and retrieved the heavy spanner from the tool drawer. Walking over to the interlock, I opened the inner door, and saw Roger hanging half-in the outer door, waiting. He held out his hand for the spanner and I drew it back behind me. Seeing his quizzical expression, I murmured, ‘give me a kiss and I’ll give you the spanner’. He fled, but not before his face crimsoned painfully. That was all it took. Roger never again yelled in his commands; he couldn’t be sure that one of those white suited figures wasn’t me. Li Coon could not understand the dramatic change in him. I was not surprised. Once you’ve established the weak point, it’s like a button response. Press and wait for the predictable response. Being amoral has its definite disadvantages.