14 May 2013
That's What She Said
Dear Angry villagers,
Please put down your pitchforks and step away from the noose.
This is not an article of blind political vilification or attack on
redheaded clowns. (I love McDonalds!) It is simply a study in
broken promises and how profoundly this behaviour can damage a
trust based relationship.
I've been confronted over the past week with an alarming number
of people left confused, angry, horrified, murderous… let's just
say there were a lot of strong emotions floating around. They had
all experienced a breach in trust due to a broken promise and
displaying reactions just normal enough to save them from a 72 hour
psychiatric hold.
Such passionate responses have driven me to think pretty long
and hard about just how important it is to be a person of your word
and here's what I've come up with.
Who do you accept promises
from?
Being a fairly independent sort of
person I find that my list isn't extraordinarily long. While I do
accept promises from my inner circle, I don't concern myself with
the promises of my mailman or butcher to be able to meet my needs.
But I understand that some people do. Who makes promises to you and
more importantly, who amongst this group do you rely to follow
through?
What do you
risk?
If you're accepting a promise from
your butcher to have your favourite cut of meat available you may
be risking a lousy dinner. If you're accepting a promise from your
recruiter to put your CV forward to a career opportunity, you're
likely risking your reputation in the work force as well as a
missed opportunity if the representation is not up to scratch. If
you're accepting the promises of your political leader then you may
very likely be risking spending the next decade in a deficit that
sends you scrounging for money like Uni students on the
4th day of a pub crawl.
Is repeated behaviour a
disposition?
Now here's where we start to get a
little political so if you're sensitive, close your eyes and scroll
back up to the top.
Go to google and type in Julia
Gillard. I guarantee you at least one of the pages you come up with
will be not one broken promise, but a website dedicated to promises
that she has made, hand on heart with all of the feigned sincerity
she could muster. If a politician breaks a promise once, it's a
mistake or a necessary change. If they continually break promises
does it reflect on their disposition or character? Does their name
or indeed their profession become synonymous with broken
promises?
When does a broken promise lead to
the end of trust?
If the person representing
you, be it your nation's leader, your family member or the person
assisting you in your hunt for work continues to break promises to
you, when does the trust in the relationship die?
The last question is probably the one I have lost the most sleep
over. When does trust in a relationship die and when do you
acknowledge that a relationship no longer serves you? Guarantee
that if you were to trace back over my phone records like an
episode of CSI and interview the victims of these broken promises,
each and every one of them would say that they continued the
relationship, professional, personal or column C, and that the
person broke a subsequent promise.
Do these people believe that they deserve to have their trust
abused or do they believe that they have no options to choose from?
In my life I've always been proactive. I vote with my voice and
with my feet. I do not allow people to continually break their
promises to me, be it my political leader, my butcher, my postman
or my recruitment professional (Yes, I have used the services of
recruiters myself in the past). You have a voice, a choice and the
right to be treated with honesty and respect.
Do you exercise your rights? Or do you continue to
blindly believe 'what she said' and hope rather than expect the
best?