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Rules to Live By

If you've been reading this blog for any extended period of time, you probably know that I have a few rules for myself.  Each week, I try to work out three times, do at least one good deed, and eat two vegetarian meals.  Each of these rules has a back story (read the links if you're curious), but the point is that I try to live a certain way.  I'm not hardcore about it, either; it's not like I'm about to commit harakiri if I mess up one week.

Over time, however, I've also developed rules for other people around me.  Those, on the other hand, are far stricter (and far funnier, truth be told).  It all started when I was on a business trip with a coworker/friend of mine.  She ended up getting pretty sick, and I had to pick up medicine for her while she rested up in a hotel room (as an aside, customs officials get very, very curious if said friends ask for "drugs" instead of "medicine" via text message).  Well, it actually got bad enough that at one point I told her that she wasn't allowed to die.  And, thus, the first rule of working with Sam was born.

The official justification for this rule is that it makes me look bad.  Seriously, can you imagine what that conversation sounds like?

Manager: "Wow, did you hear?  So-and-so died.  Yeah, it was on that trip with that Sam kid"

From then on, I'd be known as "the guy who let his coworker die."  And I can only imagine what the paperwork for that looks like.  Human Resources would have a field day and then some. So, seriously, people, no dying on my watch, it makes me look bad.

Surprisingly, I've had to enforce this rule far more often than I would've expected.  I've had friends & coworkers who have gotten ridiculously busy & stressed, to the point where it started affecting their health.  A few times, they've just gotten really, really sick.  Still, rules are rules, and every time they start turning for the worse, I have to remind them of the rule.  Like I said, this one's pretty strict, and so far everyone's been good about following it.  I'd like to think they understand and respect the sanctity of the rule, and will themselves to get healthier out of respect for said rule (though for some reason, that respect always seems to express itself as laughter).

Well, okay, that covers that.  However, remember how I said sometimes people get ridiculously busy?  There have been times when friends of mine have been so busy with work that I'd have to do "crazy checks" to make sure that they were still relatively sane.  Noticing how often I had to do that led me to conclude that the first rule wasn't enough.  The same justification applies here: "that Sam kid hangs out with all the crazies.  Let's not promote him, he's bound to cause trouble."

What's more, going crazy circumvents the first rule because the person is still alive.  Well, I'm not about to let someone cheat like that, so I implemented a second rule: no going crazy on Sam's watch.  Arguably, this is a corollary for the first rule, but there's enough difference that I felt it needed to be its own rule.  And like I said, it's just as bad if you go crazy as if you die.  Both are going to cause me headaches, so I'd rather avoid the problems altogether.  Having to remember a second rule in exchange for less grunt work seems like a pretty fair trade to me.

I'm happy to report that so far, no one has violated either of the rules.  I am pretty strict about keeping to those two, if for no other reason than I don't want to deal with the paperwork.  Given the creativity of some of my coworkers, though, don't be surprised if there's a third rule sometime in the near future.

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