The Seagull: An Uninvited Guest
When and when not to get involved.
"It is not advisable to venture unsolicited opinions. You should spare yourself the embarrassing discovery of their exact value to your listener."
-quotes from Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
I have often wondered at the motivations of people who choose to unnecessarily involve themselves in the personal and occupational machinations of others as if their opinions were invited. Whether it’s the rubberneck, the meddler, or the savior, the motivations behind these characters are not always the same. From the egalitarian to the narcissist, there are times when many feel the compulsion to act in the affairs of others unbidden. Responsibility and leadership sometimes demand it (as most parents would admit). But it’s the strangely nuanced moments of failed communication or an unforeseen gulf in a relationship that may cause the ship to suddenly zig-zag in opposing directions because somebody else has decided to fight for control of the helm.
When To Mind Your Business
When this intrusion happens to me, I first try to assume the immediate unfolding of some catastrophic event. This would easily excuse the uncomfortable new seat suddenly shoved into the table for John Doe who felt compelled to jump into the latest project meeting and "save the day". If he has forestalled the apocalypse, then I welcome it. I have no problem admitting ignorance to an unforeseen fact provided only that someone can educate me about it. Furthermore, if someone sees me about to waste a tremendous amount of time on something they can do for me in two seconds, then by all means politely offer me your assistance, and I'd be glad to buy you a coffee or lunch in gratitude.
However, in the autobiography of my adult life, the sum total of this type of occurrence would hardly fill up a page. This situation is usually one where John Doe discovers the existence of an event or meeting and then begins to ‘get into things’ by chiming in through some combination of the following.
by face-to-face interrogation
by phone
by email
by water-cooler-scuttlebutt
by contacting some other division of the company (if work-related) or a friend of the family (if the event is personal) to ask questions on behalf of the participants (without their consent).
On one unique occasion, I watched a group of people seated at an outdoor table at a restaurant. They exuded the unmistakable aura of a team pushing through lunch, with two members typing fervently on their laptops while simultaneously devouring sandwiches every other minute. A large seagull suddenly dropped into the middle of the table and began attacking a plate of cheesy fries. The commotion happened so suddenly that one person screamed, another overturned their drink, and three laptops were held high in the air to avoid the iced tea contamination. Several curses were heard and the spooked seagull expelled its bowels all over the table while grabbing as many of the cheesy fries as it could. It finished dropping its deuce and then flew away as if nothing unusual had happened.
(It’s always the cheesy fries: the sure-fire way to invite the uninvited, be it fowl or human.)
I watched the group grumbling at the mess and felt complete and perfect empathy for their situation. That is exactly my experience when someone abruptly involves themselves in a problem or situation I’m currently engaged in when their opinions or expertise was not invited: they're a seagull that lands into the middle of someone’s business, makes a lot of noise, poops all over everything, and then just flies away for your to deal with the mess.
(In truth, this seagull metaphor comes from the humorous phrase called the seagull manager, but I like my story better.)
The double punch of this tale stings not only from the aggravation of being on the receiving end of the seagull's unwanted benevolence but from recognizing too late that on occasion I have played the role of the seagull myself. One such guilty moment thirteen years ago remains a lighthouse beacon in the fog of my almost forgotten memories. I cringe, even now, remembering it (the horror is too near to me to write about here).
When To Make It Your Business
I distinctly remember being in attendance at a meeting once when the presenter (a fellow employee of my company at the time), continued his presentation while suddenly mumbling all of his words. He continued standing and looking at us as if he were going through the motions of discussing his slides, but the sounds coming out of his mouth were a string of incoherent jargon. My eyes widened. I stared perplexed, trying to figure out if he was “doing a bit” in some comedic part of his presentation. This presenter then stared at us as if we were all crazy for not answering his question. The entire room sat there for some twenty seconds in dead silence.
The presenter was having a severe diabetic emergency, and we were uncertain what we were seeing. I remember the overwhelming urge to shout, “Call 911” and the simultaneous urge to shut up because I was a nobody at my company and I was surrounded by dozens of managers and other veterans of the company who held the responsibility of action instead of me. All of that panic and back-and-forth conflict went on in my mind until finally, someone else did shout it. He was treated at the hospital immediately thereafter and recovered. I’ve never forgotten that sting of shame for not shouting sooner when I first realized what was happening.
Another incident I recently encountered occurred during the attendance of a martial arts training session at a local gym. Several pairs of students were engaged in practicing the grappling maneuver of the day. I learned that one of the students was trapped in a compromising position and failed to ‘tap out’, otherwise letting his partner know to release him for safety. The guy was unconscious in a rear neck choke, and his partner couldn’t see his face to realize he had stopped struggling. Luckily the unconscious man soon made enough of a gurgling noise for his partner to realize the situation, and immediately released him. He regained consciousness a few seconds later.
I’m uncertain if anyone even saw what happened.
More importantly, if anyone did they didn’t yell, “STOP!”
This is the conundrum of not knowing when to get involved in the heat of the moment. I could further comment about the instances of police brutality, bullying, or drug addiction, all of which compel an overwhelming desire to intervene for the common decency of justice and compassion for those victims (especially those personally close to us). I don’t think it’s necessary to drive that point home.
Walking The Fine Line
There is a definitive problem on the whiteboard here to solve. The problem, more clearly stated is,
“When, if ever, should I let those compulsory feelings permit me to act or intervene in the affairs of others? The flip side of that coin would read,
“How should I prevent, or deal with those that have already taken a swan dive into my affairs?
I’ve tried to dig into this problem over the years, and different scenarios often leave me with less confidence in my answers each time. If I tried to provide a definitive, “catch-all” answer here, I believe I would offer nothing more than a subjective opinion. I would recommend that anyone who thinks they are confident in their answer to this problem spend half an hour playing variations on the “Trolley Problem Test.” Through each change in the trolley problem scenario, you are likely to find yourself flip-flopping your righteous decision every other minute.
“The Trolley Problem is a series of thought experiments in ethics and psychology, involving stylized ethical dilemmas of whether to sacrifice one person to save a larger number. The series usually begins with a scenario in which a runaway tram or trolley is on course to collide with and kill a number of people (traditionally five) down the track, but a driver or bystander can intervene and divert the vehicle to kill just one person on a different track. Then other variations of the runaway vehicle, and analogous life-and-death dilemmas (medical, judicial etc.) are posed, each containing the option to either do nothing, in which case several people will be killed, or intervene and sacrifice one initially "safe" person to save the others.”
— Wikipedia
The Columbo Approach
Thomas Sowell once said that there are no perfect solutions to some problems, there are only tradeoffs. You can try to make some things better but only at the cost of making something else worse.
Maybe before I add another exhibit to the whiteboard on this particular problem, reflecting on Thomas Sowell’s statement here is worth considering. But before I duck the problem altogether, the process of working it out has at least given me a working strategy to use each time I see the seagulls circling overhead, or a trolley about to run off its tracks.
I’m going to couple together one of my favorite aphorisms with my working theory about trying to achieve the best tradeoffs when taking action to get involved. These are not facts, just valuable opinions (for now).
“It’s better to ask for forgiveness than for permission.”
“Seagulls rarely solve problems without creating others.”
Imagine I’ve written those two statements on a post-it note and stuck it onto a photograph of Columbo (Peter Falk), the famous fictional detective. Now Imagine I’ve stuck this collage onto the top of the whiteboard next to our problem statements. My working strategy is to hold these visions in mind when I find myself in a situation where either the trolley in front of me is about to flatten someone or the seagulls are flocking too close.
The Columbo method is a strategical approach for effective communication, coined after the famous television detective played by Peter Falk. Columbo lets his uncouth appearance and pretense of ignorance give him the advantage in his engagement with suspects. The suspects always underestimate him, and he doesn’t care what they think of him. While not trying to sound arrogant, my point here is that his vanity or pride are not obstacles that impede him from successful interrogation or discussion, nor do they stop him from acting when his sense of urgency or responsibility compels him. At the same time, his overly friendly demeanor is disarming to those who try to outsmart him. By his pretense of ignorance and incessant curiosity to ask advice from his suspects, they eventually hang themselves by simply trying to educate him.
If I find I've received the misfortune of the seagull's attendance in my affairs, I hope to feign ignorance (like Columbo) and cover the seagull with kindness while politely asking lots of questions. I hope that either the truth emerging from that conversation will hang the seagull by recognition of his ignorance on the matter, or it will greatly illuminate me to mine.
On the other hand, if by taking the temperature of the room I discover myself accidentally entangled in gumming up the gears of another team's well-oiled machine, and I seem to look like the Seagull at the table, then a little humility still goes a long way.
Perhaps I can cause less of a mess if I can choose to withdraw arrogance from my attitude and maintain a presumption of ignorance (and genuine kindness) if compelled to intervene in the business of others. Should the obligation for action compel me in that direction, it might be easier for them to discover and correct an error resulting from my intervention if my gentle barrage of seemingly ignorant questions sheds light on what they've overlooked. If I'm wrong, and I discover what I didn't know already, then I'm made better by that knowledge and hopefully haven't knocked over anyone's drinks in the process.
However, it’s hard not to go for the cheesy fries. If somebody puts them on the table, there’s just too much temptation to engage in the first place.
Enjoyable and entertaining!