The worst thing about being nice

Gotta vent for a sec because I keep on running into this.

The worst thing about being nice is that you get no credit for it. But you get exploited for it at every turn.

When I fuck up, even mildly, I am on the hook. Customers can choose which bits and pieces of the services was so critical to them that they can avoid paying the entire bill or cancel and go elsewhere. Every little minor detail is picked on and perfection is the expected norm. Don’t even think about living it down either – you get reminded about it till the day you die. If you’re particularly lucky to also be surrounded by assholes, your failures will turn into a running joke.

When someone fucks me over, I have to sit back and seriously weigh just how much of a dick I want to be about it. Is the damage significant enough that I want to pick a fight over it, or is it easier just to chalk it up to a lesson learned and move on? Is the point of dwelling and dragging on negativity, with attorneys fees and distractions piling on, really worth just for the egoistical need to be right? Or does it make more sense to just move quickly onto the next opportunity and win bigger?

Maybe I’m just nice or naïve, but being a dick is hardly a profitable position to take in life. The way I look at it, if someone just screwed me out of $1,000 I’m not willing to sink another $1,000 to prove my point at the chance of recovering $1,000 with another lawsuit and then, after wasting tons of time and energy, break even. And then hope they pay the damages. I guess the bigger the amount gets the more you have to take a stand.

…

Reality of business is that there are processes in place to make things “fair” but really they just end up damaging both sides. Nobody, except lawyers, wins. And ultimately, nobody is happy – because the sustained business isn’t about one side screwing the other disproportionally. So that’s your lesson for the day – if you’re going to be a nice person and don’t want to allow people to take advantage of you, be friendly with a lawyer first. The rest of the universe will fall into place. Like a twisted take on Buddhism.