The Practice of “Fairness”
I want to tackle the mess we’ve made of our society in regards to the newest word on my “Most Hated Words of All Time” list. Fairness. Face it, folks. Life is NOT fair. Why is it so hard for most people to accept the following “truism”:
In this giant world of ours, there will always be someone better, worse, faster, slower, stronger, weaker, smarter, dumber, prettier, uglier, lighter, darker, shorter, taller, thinner, fatter, nicer, meaner, etc., than you.
Let me explain what the word fairness means to me. It means that everyone, regardless of race, sex, religion, persuasion or creed, should be treated with the amount of respect and dignity that they DESERVE. Whew, there, I said it. You should get what you DESERVE. What you EARN. Wait, is that a firing squad?!
Now before anyone rushes to the keyboard to call me a racist, let me demonstrate with a little story. I am talking about fairness here, not equality. Let’s say we have one man and one woman from every race, every religion, any sexual orientation, etc., and they all applied for the same job. Now let’s go really wild and say they all had the same personality, the same values, the same work ethic, the same education, and the same intelligence level, and so on. I would recommend having a lottery or drawing, as they all DESERVE the EQUAL CHANCE at winning that job. I don’t believe in giving the white man the job just because he’s white, but neither do I believe in giving the black guy the job just because he’s black. And the same goes for any other reason pertaining to race, choice, or what-have-you. I believe in equality. I just don’t believe in treating everyone EXACTLY the same.
A couple of cases in point (and yes, I’m still on my soapbox about public schools!):
Twenty four kids in a class. Law of averages suggests one of them may have genius level intelligence. Three of them are probably way above average intelligence. Six of them are probably way below average. One or two may be borderline moronic. And the rest are average. We lump them all together in the same class, and teach them all the same thing, the same way, assign them all the same work. Here’s the argument I’ve read for this: They’re all roughly the same age, therefore they must all be educated in the same fashion at the same time to be fair to them all. Really? How is that fair to any of them? The smartest ones are bored out of their minds because they grasped and mastered the concepts and principles in the first ten minutes and spend the remainder of their forty-five minute class trying to keep their brains and bodies occupied with everything and anything else while the teacher spends that time trying to drum those same concepts and principles into the minds of those who can’t seem to get it. Those same below average children are frustrated too, but for different reasons. They may feel like a failure or have low self esteem. They may feel embarrassed and guilty that they’re holding everyone else up, but they just can’t help it. But, according to the school system, this is FAIR for everyone by not “singling” anyone out and therefore exiling people into groups of “like mind”, shall we say.
Next let’s talk about the workplace. It’s all about Team This and Team that these days. I don’t mind being part of a team, but the irritating part of it all is this concept of “fairness”. Let’s say you’re a star performer, excel at everything that is given to you, take on every project that comes up for grabs, volunteer whenever it’s needed, help your teammates without being told to, and are actively seeking opportunities to better yourself and your career. You feel you’ve proven your worth to your boss, your team, your company. You’ve EARNED certain privileges, tasks and responsibilities. This morning your team has a meeting and your boss says they’ve hired on five new people. Great. Right? Not necessarily. Fast forward to two months later. Now you are told that those perks, privileges, tasks and responsibilities you worked so hard to EARN are no longer available to you because, well, some people have complained that it’s not “fair”. Yet, as Paul Harvey says, here’s the rest of the story. The people complaining are the ones who come in and barely do their jobs. They are underperformers, underachievers, and generally don’t take the work seriously. But they COMPLAINED, you see. And the company can’t risk them going to HR and saying they were discriminated against for any of a thousand reasons. So you have to just suck it up and deal with the fact that you are now being treated like some kind of pariah, while they sit behind you and smirk at your back, and gloat about how it’s FAIR now. Oh, but don’t let me forget. You’ve set the bar for yourself, and you’re expected to still live up to it.
Do you see it now? We’ve taken this fairness bit WAY too far. Personally, I don’t WANT to be treated like everyone else. I want to get what I DESERVE. What I’ve EARNED. And I’m sick and tired of all the whiney assed little wimps trying to take that away from me. I guess that about sums it up.
