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A True Story
Many years ago, I heard this story. It was told to me as a humorous anecdote, but actually struck me as the quintessential example of human nature in its purest form.
Way back in the tough times of the 1930s and 40s, my former wife's grandmother (Miss Jessie) was the local Postmaster, and also owned a farm on the outskirts of town. There was an old tenant farmer known to all as Baby Boy, (hang with me here, this IS the South and I honestly don't know his real name), who kept the place up for her because she lived in town and only went out to check on the farm periodically.
Miss Jessie had to be resourceful because her husband had died relatively young, leaving her to raise their fourteen year old son on her own. So one year Miss Jessie struck up a bargain with Baby Boy. She offered to buy two pigs for Baby Boy to raise. One would be hers and one would be his. She would supply all the feed and his job would be to take care of them. After growing them out, when cold weather came along, they would then butcher the hogs and each have a good store of meat for the winter.
Things were going quite well with their plan until one fine fall day, Miss Jessie went to check on their project. She was met by a despondent business partner who looked as if he'd just lost his best friend.
"What's wrong?" she asked, not having any idea what could make him look so sad. Baby Boy reluctantly responded, "I'm just as sorry as I can be Miss Jessie, but YOUR hog died."
I have always loved this story because I know it to be true and it reminds me that we all have this innate tendency to do exactly what Baby Boy did that day: take care of ourselves even at the expense of others. I call it the Your Hog Died Syndrome, or YHD Syndrome for short.
Business owners must choose whether to give in to YHD Syndrome or not every day. I firmly believe that we are all born selfish, as we come into this world screaming for food,
 | | image courtesy The Pug Father via Flickr |
shelter, comfort and attention.
As we mature and become products of the environments in which we are raised, we either become more civilized, socialized, and ethical, in which case we still wrestle with the YHD Syndrome to some degree; or we gravitate towards the baser end of the human condition, in which case, there is little or no internal dilemma on this issue at all. I am blessed to be doing business in the green industry among some of the hardest working and most honest people on the planet. But since we are all humans dealing with humans, inevitably we will all have to face choices of this nature from time to time. I actually had a minor dilemma with a customer this week (which I made a point to KEEP minor), and that is what reminded me of this story.
When was the last time YOU had to wrestle with this situation? Or how recently have you been on the wrong end of this deal? We'd love to hear about and to share your experiences with our readers if you'd like. |
