Your Boss Spits In Your Face Everyday

[David Sklansky]

Or subjects you to some similar type of humiliation. You are fifty years old and it has just started recently. Only you and he know about it and we can assume it will stay that way. And the reason you are considering enduring this abuse is because he has also given you a three hundred dollar a week raise. And there is no way you could get that extra money elsewhere. But it is hard to look at yourself in the mirror. So you think the right and admirable thing to do is quit.

Except that with that extra money you can afford to keep you aging parents out of a dismal nursing home that will make their last years intolerable. You can instead afford home care. What is the admirable choice now?

[FNG]

Presuming also that you can't do something like videotape the abuse and sue the company, you take the abuse (unless you hate your parents, or you're a selfish [censored]).
It's been a long time since you had a proper job, hasn't it? Employment is humiliating by its very nature. If that's your best option and taking care of your parents is a higher priority than not being abused, who cares about admirable, you're just doing what you gotta do given your means, opportunities, and priorities.

[MidGe]

I quit... no dilemma... LOL

[chezlaw]

I'd endure much humiliation in this type of scenario. The general idea is all too realistic

I'd also remember that revenge is a dish best served cold.

chez

[doucy]

in the extremely specific conditions outlined in the OP, i take the abuse

[SamIAm]

I guess I don't see how this is an interesting question. Obviously everybody has a price wrt humiliation. (I wouldn't do it for $30 a week. I would do it for $30k a week.)

I guess everybody has a different value for money and avoiding humiliation. Shocking. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[carlo]

[ QUOTE ]
Or subjects you to some similar type of humiliation. You are fifty years old and it has just started recently. Only you and he know about it and we can assume it will stay that way. And the reason you are considering enduring this abuse is because he has also given you a three hundred dollar a week raise. And there is no way you could get that extra money elsewhere. But it is hard to look at yourself in the mirror. So you think the right and admirable thing to do is quit.

Except that with that extra money you can afford to keep you aging parents out of a dismal nursing home that will make their last years intolerable. You can instead afford home care. What is the admirable choice now?


[/ QUOTE ]

"Mother Courage" by Bertolt Brecht. Woman lives in a small hut when an "official" shows up and promptly moves in and she becomes his servant. She provides for him, does his laundry,sweeps and cleans, listens to his chatter and never a word spoken otherwise. This goes on for many years.

Then one day the "official" dies. The body is taken, tossed outside, and the old lady continues with her sweping.

[Leaky Eye]

Obviously kill him. Then you keep the job, and raise, and he stops spitting on you.

[Arp220]

Find out what particular psychosis your boss has that he would ostensibly give you a 300 dollar a week raise in order to be able to humiliate you in private... and then decide on the optimal course of action.

[chillrob]

Keep the job if you need the money. You might not need the money though, if you stop paying for the dismal nursing home and leave them to die on the streets like they deserve.

[chillrob]

Btw, I am available for face-spitting appointments. Negotiable prices, all reasonable offers considered.

[David Sklansky]

It's amazing how people continually to insist on answering only the precise question, rather than addressing the underlying issue which these silly specific questions are meant to introduce.

[Humble Pie]

okay, how does this relate to Brandi? I have alot of guesses..

[vhawk01]

[ QUOTE ]
It's amazing how people continually to insist on answering only the precise question, rather than addressing the underlying issue which these silly specific questions are meant to introduce.

[/ QUOTE ]

Such as, is pride the single most important thing in your life? Well, thats just an amazingly interesting question! The answer is, of course it isn't. Pride and ego are designed to serve a purpose, and in this case, they would be grossly inappropriate. The reason? Only your boss and you will ever find out. Pride and ego are to encourage other people not to take advantage of you. By making a big show of indignation and making it well known you will not stand for any slight, you force others to deal with you more honestly and respectfully. In this case, shutting up is win-win, because who cares if he spits on you. Lots of people have far worse, more humiliating jobs than this, and the only reason they suffer because of it is because they think other people will find out.

[luckyme]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
It's amazing how people continually to insist on answering only the precise question, rather than addressing the underlying issue which these silly specific questions are meant to introduce.

[/ QUOTE ]

Such as, is pride the single most important thing in your life? Well, thats just an amazingly interesting question! The answer is, of course it isn't. Pride and ego are designed to serve a purpose, and in this case, they would be grossly inappropriate. The reason? Only your boss and you will ever find out. Pride and ego are to encourage other people not to take advantage of you. By making a big show of indignation and making it well known you will not stand for any slight, you force others to deal with you more honestly and respectfully. In this case, shutting up is win-win, because who cares if he spits on you. Lots of people have far worse, more humiliating jobs than this, and the only reason they suffer because of it is because they think other people will find out.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yep. Some times you have to clean toilets.
Thinking of this as "nobody should spit in my face" is reducing complex issues to black-white one facet situations. That's the error the absolute morality types make. Every situation has a bizzillion things to weigh and to pick just one and say ' X can't be allowed' or 'Y must occur' is infantile.

luckyme

[David Sklansky]

So would you switch your answer if other people did know about it?

[vhawk01]

[ QUOTE ]
So would you switch your answer if other people did know about it?

[/ QUOTE ]

It would make it a much more difficult call. I'm not willing to sacrifice everything in my life for the well-being of my parents, most likely, although my parents aren't that old and are well-off so I don't know for sure. That means I am not willing to subject myself to a lifetime of victimization and abuse simply so they could live comfortably. If it gets around that I'm the type of guy who you can just spit in his face and he won't do anything about it, my future prospects take a big hit. Is it a big enough hit to tip the scales? Hard to say....probably not. But maybe. The best I can do is lay out the factors that would influence my decision, both objective and subjective, and then assure you I'll let you know when the situation actually arises.

[vhawk01]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
It's amazing how people continually to insist on answering only the precise question, rather than addressing the underlying issue which these silly specific questions are meant to introduce.

[/ QUOTE ]

Such as, is pride the single most important thing in your life? Well, thats just an amazingly interesting question! The answer is, of course it isn't. Pride and ego are designed to serve a purpose, and in this case, they would be grossly inappropriate. The reason? Only your boss and you will ever find out. Pride and ego are to encourage other people not to take advantage of you. By making a big show of indignation and making it well known you will not stand for any slight, you force others to deal with you more honestly and respectfully. In this case, shutting up is win-win, because who cares if he spits on you. Lots of people have far worse, more humiliating jobs than this, and the only reason they suffer because of it is because they think other people will find out.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yep. Some times you have to clean toilets.
Thinking of this as "nobody should spit in my face" is reducing complex issues to black-white one facet situations. That's the error the absolute morality types make. Every situation has a bizzillion things to weigh and to pick just one and say ' X can't be allowed' or 'Y must occur' is infantile.

luckyme

[/ QUOTE ]

Its not infantile. Its typical. Think of it from an evolutionary perspective: evolution cannot really program our brains to say "letting someone spit in your face is bad unless X" or something like that. Its impractical. Instead, it installs the program "Don't allow people to slight you" or some other, more general program, because its an effective, selected-for strategy. Then, we just sit back and wait for it to be misapplied, which is entirely inevitable.

I think that a great many of our deep-seated motivations and emotional responses are of the black/white, all-or-nothing variety for this reason, and it leads to a great deal of the suffering and misery in human interaction. Lots of people are able to sort of rise above this by thinking seriously about the implications of these motivations, what they are designed to do, and thus modifying their programming to invoke more accurate, appropriate responses. Absolutely fascinating, if you ask me.

[Leaky Eye]

[ QUOTE ]
It's amazing how people continually to insist on answering only the precise question, rather than addressing the underlying issue which these silly specific questions are meant to introduce.

[/ QUOTE ]

This particular issue isn't that interesting to me. Everyone who has made compromise in their life has already been through it.

[Siegmund]

By an interesting coincidence, this past spring I walked away from a $300 a week consulting arrangement, a few hours of easy but mindless work but a lot of annoying nonsense accompanying it, because I decided I needed the money less than I needed to avoid the high blood pressure.

It DOES seem to be a metaphor for the more general question of doing any sort of non-ideal work for any fixed amount of money. My standards there have risen sharply over the past few years. I bet the answers to this question will correlate rather strongly with age of respondents.

[PLOlover]

if you change it something more socially acceptable like having your boss call you a [censored] idiot instead of using your name, even in front of others, I'm sure many many people put up with this abuse and not even for extra money, just to keep their job.

[vhawk01]

[ QUOTE ]
if you change it something more socially acceptable like having your boss call you a [censored] idiot instead of using your name, even in front of others, I'm sure many many people put up with this abuse and not even for extra money, just to keep their job.

[/ QUOTE ]
Exactly, and why? Because "something more socially acceptable" is pretty much the exact same thing as "nobody will find out about it."

[hicherbie]

you cant get the money elsewhere and your parents need to be taken care of.

my parents comfort is worth more to me than mine. id get spit on and i dont think it matters if it is public knowledge or not.

[vhawk01]

[ QUOTE ]
you cant get the money elsewhere and your parents need to be taken care of.

my parents comfort is worth more to me than mine. id get spit on and i dont think it matters if it is public knowledge or not.

[/ QUOTE ]

I dunno, my parents would prefer marble baths, and yet they don't have them and I still went to a movie today.

[PLOlover]

[ QUOTE ]
Quote:
if you change it something more socially acceptable like having your boss call you a [censored] idiot instead of using your name, even in front of others, I'm sure many many people put up with this abuse and not even for extra money, just to keep their job.


Exactly, and why? Because "something more socially acceptable" is pretty much the exact same thing as "nobody will find out about it."

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't think that's it. plenty of people are belittled by their bosses in front of coworkers.

[vhawk01]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Quote:
if you change it something more socially acceptable like having your boss call you a [censored] idiot instead of using your name, even in front of others, I'm sure many many people put up with this abuse and not even for extra money, just to keep their job.


Exactly, and why? Because "something more socially acceptable" is pretty much the exact same thing as "nobody will find out about it."

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't think that's it. plenty of people are belittled by their bosses in front of coworkers.

[/ QUOTE ]

My point was that 'socially acceptable' means the same thing as 'nobody will find out about it' because the only reason we care if people find out is if they don't think its acceptable, and then will use this information to victimize you in the future. If its more socially acceptable, its the same as no one finding out.

[PairTheBoard]

The general issue here is the tension between two interests. You have an interest in taking care of yourself. You also have an interest in taking care of your parents. The Tension is in the fact that improving one interest can be a detriment to the other. So you seek the best balance between the two that you can find.

I don't think it's a big revelation that we often have to do that kind of thing. It's also often not easy for us to determine what that right balance is. We may second guess ourselves. How to find that balance is sometimes a dilemma for us. I don't see this example showing us any solutions to that problem. People feel out the balance in these situations all the time whether they intellectually identify what they are doing or not. They still do it.

PairTheBoard

[AWoodside]

[ QUOTE ]
It's amazing how people continually to insist on answering only the precise question, rather than addressing the underlying issue which these silly specific questions are meant to introduce.

[/ QUOTE ]

Given that you don't approve of all the twisting of hypotheticals that goes on around here (and rightly so) I'm not sure if this is a completely fair criticism. How often do you get annoyed because people change, misinterpret, or too broadly interpret a scenario you give and thereby side-step the issue in question? I'm not saying it's wrong to be upset by things like that, I'm with you 100%, but to then criticize people for sticking to the hypothetical faithfully seems a bit innapropriate. Pooridge too hot, pooridge too cold, that kind of thiing. Perhaps it would help everyone if you specified the underlying issue you're getting at along with providing specific examples. You might say you don't have the time or the inclination to do this, which would be perfectly fine in my eyes, but then, you do seem to have time to micromanage people's responses to your questions. I feel like you could save yourself a lot of consternation if you were more specific in your OP.

[carlo]

[ QUOTE ]
It's amazing how people continually to insist on answering only the precise question, rather than addressing the underlying issue which these silly specific questions are meant to introduce.


[/ QUOTE ]

If the question is silly, it shouldn't be asked. Spitting in one's face is a SPECIFIC ASSAULT and should be treated as such. Words like "belittle", "denigrate", "make less of", "humiliate" do not begin to bring to clarity the actual act. These are no more than vague abstractions/generalizations which have no relation to the matter. In fact they make the act seem almost acceptable.

I'm afraid the family and myself are going to endure with dignity, The only question is; do I drop him thus incurring the wrath of the law or seek retribution via this same law? Of course the burden of proof is upon me but I can't go any farther along this line of thought for the thinking goes along many alley ways.

A clear example of "spitting in one's face" may help. My son who is in his early 20's while playing in a soccer game had the misfortune of meeting up with an asynchronous opponent who spit in his face unprovoked. The opponent was dropped in a nanosecond and in fact crawling on the ground in a fetal position attempting to ward off furthur blows.

Order was restored but of course penalties were applied. Each player received a red card(out for that game and the next). The ref came to my son and said that he hated to give him the card but was obliged to do so. The following day he received a call in which his red card for the next game was rescinded. His opponent was disqualified permanently from any furthur play. JUSTICE!!



Your question can lead to many different roads not the least of which is earthly justice. Also the loss of earnings and care of family would obviously lead to more earthly justice of the court system. Gotta keep the lawyers in business.

One can look at this only personally without recourse to the world around but this only makes the query trivial. Will not there be aid for the family among the social services? If there is no justice, social services,etc. in the environment then the man will be dropped and I'll take over the business. No problems, all is OK.

[Munche]

There is nothing admirable in quitting the job. Choosing to quit over being spit on or humiliated is simply a personal value judgement. It's actually an unadmirable decision since quitting will most likely not make your boss change their ways, they will start abusing someone else, and you will help create a new victim.

Honouring your mother and father with support is admirable, so if your sole criteria in this rigid scenario is making the admirable decision, then keeping your job to provide support is the only option.

Of course, I am saying that morale judgement is what leads to admiration, or should lead to admiration. This is debatable.

[SomethingClever]

This is pretty standard.

Slap boss with wad of hundos, say "that's how I roll beeyatch."

Then light hundos on fire, quit, buy the company, fire boss.

Oh, wait, this isn't BBV4LIFE is it? Oh dear.

[carlo]

[ QUOTE ]
There is nothing admirable in quitting the job. Choosing to quit over being spit on or humiliated is simply a personal value judgement. It's actually an unadmirable decision since quitting will most likely not make your boss change their ways, they will start abusing someone else, and you will help create a new victim.

Honouring your mother and father with support is admirable, so if your sole criteria in this rigid scenario is making the admirable decision, then keeping your job to provide support is the only option.

Of course, I am saying that morale judgement is what leads to admiration, or should lead to admiration. This is debatable.


[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, sacrifice is the greatest of qualities but is it germane ? In the situation as stated by OP either the hero is ever miserable or his mother is ever miserable. There appears to be no opening for movement into a light filled judgment.

One can only present this type of query in abstract wording and in the world of the intellectual abstraction anything can be true. Even the lawyers base their judgments(in part anyway) on case studies which present some semblance of reality. This binary thought of left or right doesn't work in the human arena of law and justice. It belongs in the marketplace.

The words "admirable", "misery", "feeling", "justice" are not the words of the marketplace no matter how many judges one can buy.

[durrrr]

Someone brought up a dumb question as i was sitting around in boston, and i thought of this thread... so I asked 4 (that i can remember) of my friends in boston: "how much would someone need to pay you to spit in your face everyday right before you jumped in the shower- assume no-one else knows or will find out about this."

A: 20$/day
B: 10$/day
C: "wtf wouldn't do it" (reconsiders) "ok 100$/day"
D: "probably 100$/day" (she wasnt sure if she'd do it for this amount... then i mentioned that its 36.5k/yr)

C and D both have probably <2k liquid to their name. A is a poker player (has plenty of $$), and B plays some poker (1$/2$ plo and stuff) so has an ok amount of $$ (but isn't set for life or anything).

Even w/o asking i could've guessed that quite a few of my friends whom the money would mean the most to, would also set the highest price. Just thought this would be interesting to share

[southerndog]

This whole question is about Brandi's stripping days, and how she prolly told DS she did it to support someone.

[mindflayer]

The underlying question is how far would you go to get what you need?!?
This is a classic movie plot.
Boy meets girl, boy fihds out girl was prostitute, (before, but not now) boy later finds out girls reasons, boy has to decide stay/go based on the strength of his love and the reasons for the girl to have done it.

mother needed surgery/father dead; sister was going to be sold as property, father drug addict; family was starving, father crippled. I never saw the one where the girl said hey, it was good money and I was good at it.

[vhawk01]

[ QUOTE ]
Someone brought up a dumb question as i was sitting around in boston, and i thought of this thread... so I asked 4 (that i can remember) of my friends in boston: "how much would someone need to pay you to spit in your face everyday right before you jumped in the shower- assume no-one else knows or will find out about this."

A: 20$/day
B: 10$/day
C: "wtf wouldn't do it" (reconsiders) "ok 100$/day"
D: "probably 100$/day" (she wasnt sure if she'd do it for this amount... then i mentioned that its 36.5k/yr)

C and D both have probably <2k liquid to their name. A is a poker player (has plenty of $$), and B plays some poker (1$/2$ plo and stuff) so has an ok amount of $$ (but isn't set for life or anything).

Even w/o asking i could've guessed that quite a few of my friends whom the money would mean the most to, would also set the highest price. Just thought this would be interesting to share

[/ QUOTE ]

Interesting. Its like the causation goes backwards from what you'd initially suspect. The people who need the money the most are least likely to accept, but its the fact that they won't accept that leads to the bustoness?

[chezlaw]

[ QUOTE ]
The people who need the money the most are least likely to accept, but its the fact that they won't accept that leads to the bustoness?


[/ QUOTE ]
Interesting. It could be that money is addictive or its a rationalisation of not having much.

chez

[Nielsio]

When you're on a journey, and the end keeps getting further and further away, then you've realized that the real end is the journey.
-Karlfried Graf Dürkheim

[PattdownManiac]

What if you had to endure torture every day instead of spitting? Where do you draw the line?

[vhawk01]

[ QUOTE ]
What if you had to endure torture every day instead of spitting? Where do you draw the line?

[/ QUOTE ]

After spitting and before torture.

[PattdownManiac]

Would you give him a [censored] everyday to help your parents?

[borisp]

David, I'm surprised at this problem given that you started that other thread about people examining consistency through the example of abortion.

How can we theorize about the "admirable" thing to do, when your hypothesis excludes the obvious "admirable" courses of action: find a different source of $, or make your boss' actions public knowledge?

Anyone who has put themselves in precisely this situation must have made some less than admirable choices along the way, and also is currently completely excluding obviously possible courses of action, which is also far from admirable. So our theoretical hero is operating with a very twisted definition of admirable. I say the question is meaningless in light of this inconsistency.

[RERAISE5823]

It depends. In my situation, my dad walked out on my family early on (and died recently), so I'd probably not endure much for his benefit.

As far as my mom goes, you could piss on me everyday if it meant keeping her comfortable and happy in her golden years.

[RERAISE5823]

Also I don't care who knows about it. There's nothing anyone can do to degrade me, as I will choose whether or not I feel ashamed and I'd never be ashamed at taking care of my family.