Money cannot buy decency

My friends and I, straight from yoga practice, went for breakfast at the country club one morning. We were happily chatting away when there was suddenly a commotion and one of us saw the club’s manager, a heavy set, tall and white Caucasian man, being bullied by three local club members.

“Go, open the door!” a short, pudgy-looking Chinese-Filipino guy haughtily commanded while shoving the manager’s back.  Bits of food sprayed out of his mouth disgustingly. They were apparently having breakfast when the manager walked by and they all stood up to confront him, but the manager kept walking.

The other two members were also trailing behind and one screamed angrily, “Do you know who we are?  We have been long-standing members here!  Open that door or I’ll have you removed from this job!”

The manager retreated into his office, mumbling inaudibly.

The issue, we found out later on from the service staff, was that the manager decided to close the club’s back door entrance, which adjoined the parking lot, and so the members had to walk ten meters to use the main entrance as opposed to the five meters they were used to. Ironically, these golfers found this difference in walking distance a huge inconvenience and it ticked them off big time.

cc Image Courtesy CarbonNYC ❘ Flickr

There is something quite disturbing about watching three educated and wealthy, successful businessmen in their sixties behaving this way.  Never mind if the manager is not entirely faultless, but to see men acting arrogantly in a public space over such a fickle matter makes me wonder what it must be like for their household staff and employees.

If the older members of any community behave in such a manner, there is no doubt about it, the younger ones, their children will follow suit.  This sense of entitlement has become part of a long legacy of a misplaced sense of identity on the basis of one’s social and economic status.

Wielding power by pushing your weight around and expecting people to bend the rules for you doesn’t make you any mightier than you think. You may think you are a big fish in a small town, but in reality, we are all nothing but tiny dots in the entire universe.  The behaviour you choose to define yourself shows how well bred you are or if you are totally lacking in decency.

Tyler Durden, Brad Pitt’s character in the movie Fight Club, said it all:

“You’re not your job. You’re not how much money you have in the bank. You’re not the car you drive. You’re not the contents of your wallet. You’re not your [f…ng] khakis.”

But you might become the best person you were meant to be if you learn a little bit of compassion or spend some of your wealth in learning some etiquette at Miss Manners’ school, perhaps?