I'm sure people have seen the news, but if not, today United violently removed a paid passenger from one of their flights, busting his lip open as they hauled him out of his seat.
Obviously there are a lot of reactions to this. I'm disappointed (but not surprised) in United's response, which was tone-deaf and blissfully unaware from the start and didn't get any better. I'm also disappointed that the Chicago Police Department and any other affiliated agencies who might've been involved have yet to release statements of apology.
To think that anyone involved in removing this passenger today behaved responsibly or ethically is simply baffling to me. I've seen a few comments to the tune of "well if he'd just behaved on the plane... you always behave on planes... always do what they tell you..."
How much pretzel logic is needed just to exist, at this point? How many statements like this are we going to accept before we realize that our basic dignity as human beings is gone, and we didn't notice it was taken from us, because it was taken in a thousand little quiet (or maybe not so quiet) aggressions like today?
- If you don't have anything to hide, you shouldn't be afraid.
- As long as you do what you're told, you won't be harmed.
- Protest is only okay as long as it doesn't inconvenience anyone.
By the way - all of those statements are easily proven false with even a cursory knowledge of the past few years.
I think the best take I've read so far comes from Deadspin, of all places, in a piece titled "The Corporation Does Not Always Have To Win."
"But the point is: You are not the corporation. You are the human. It is okay for the corporation to lose a small portion of what it has in terrifying overabundance (money, time, efficiency) in order to preserve what a human has that cannot ever be replaced (dignity, humanity, conscience, life). It is okay for you to prioritize your affinity with your fellow humans over your subservience to the corporation, and to imagine and broker outcomes based on this ordering of things. It is okay for the corporation to lose. It will return to its work of churning the living world into dead sand presently."
Corporate dystopia stylings aside, I try to bring a similar philosophy into the way I manage. It's my job to get the best from my people, and that requires treating them like human beings. That requires acknowledging their complexity, their physical and mental health, their happiness, and their personality. When people feel acknowledged and respected as human beings; and when that respect is not contingent upon their performance on any given day or any given task; I think people are more healthy, happy, and productive.
I think if United practiced that, both among its employees and management, and among relations between the company and its customers, they wouldn't be in the business of busting people's heads open while dragging them off of a flight.
- JP