This blog has been a long time coming--since summer 2000, in fact. The original impetus was given then, and I've sat on the issue for a while. Recent things I've observed have let me to get more and more puzzled, frustrated, and downright surly, in turns, to the point that I'm now ready to call people on their behaviour and ask, "What the heck is wrong with you, and how can you not be absolutely ashamed of your hypocrisy?!"
You know, since I was a kid, one of the cornerstones of my (Catholic) Christian upbringing has been helping people. I was raised in a family that would go out of their way to help people. It didn't have to be family that needed help. I remember vividly a tale my dad told me about giving his last $5 to a wino (back when it was PC to call them that...nowadays, they're probably termed housing-displaced alcoholics or something). Oh, was my mum ticked at him for a bit. My dad was a history teacher at the time (soon to give that up, as you couldn't support a family of three on that salary), my family was living on spare change and credit cards half the time, getting food at the deli at J.C. Penny's, and generally having a rough go of it. So my dad giving away their last $5 was a bit of a cause for my mum to go a smidge thermal. Of course, the story doesn't end there. Either later that day, or the next day, my dad walked from a store to his car, and there's a $20 bill laying on the ground, right next to his car. Some call that being rewarded, some call it karma, some would just call it fortuitous.
Thing is, my family has always been willing to give. To this very day, my parents are actively helping people. They've worked for I don't know how many charities that help people in need. They help their neighbours. They help family. They help friends. They help co-workers. Often, they help people to the point that they shortchange themselves, either financially, or just plain in the energy and "time for themselves" department. I was raised in this atmosphere of giving and caring for others, and the values were instilled in me by example. Short version: When someone is in need, you help them if you are at all able to do so, even if it's inconvenient, or causes you temporary hardship. It's just plain the right thing to do. Nevermind any lofty religious or spiritual overtones--it's the kind and humane thing to do, period.
Fast forward to 1998. I'd started my consulting business three years prior. My first client referred me to a client of his. The end party was a Southern Baptist who missed no opportunity to speak on how great a Christian he was, how involved with the church he was, etc. He wanted to start an ISP in Myrtle Beach, on the premise of undercutting the big telecom collective down there, offering dialup (it was 56kbps maximum back then, ISDN if you were rich, DSL and Cable broadband didn't exist) at $13/mo or so--something far more affordable than what the collective was charging for sub-standard service at the time. The basis of this whole thing was that he wanted to do the Christian thing and serve the community--while making a profit, of course, but that's business, and just a reality of life which I must also serve...everyone must pay the bills. Thing is, the plan was to offer that rate under the promise of, "No increases--ever!" And that was the marketing plan used, originally.
I did everything for the owner. I planned infrastructure, researched the best gear to get, negotiated all contracts with the local telco, network uplink provider, and all hardware vendors to the point that all he ever had to do was sign a contract and pay the bills. I was not only the lead engineer, but also the only back-end tech support that company had for the first year and a half, until they were bought out by a bigger company that wanted the infrastructure and presence. The thing I remember was the owner saying, "If I make it big, I'll take you with me, don't worry."
First sign of trouble was when Mr. Christian Businessman broke his promise to his customers. He raised rates--something his adverts said he'd never do. To be fair, his planning was poor, and he had no choice but to do so if the business was to survive in that form. I say that, because he was depending on dialup service alone. Anyone could have told him (and I did, repeatedly) that you make almost nothing on dialup; you have to leverage other services like web hosting, web design, tech support outcalls, etc. The dialup side...you just can't make money on it. Every time you come close to the black, you need a new PRI circuit for the dialup, plus a new card to plug into the remote access concentrators. It's just untennable if you don't leverage other parts of the business. Point being, he didn't, and instead...he chose to break his word to his customers. Chalk one up for being Christian and upstanding.
A year and a half in, the company was sold. The owner made out nicely. I'm told, by his friend and colleague, he profited to the tune of over a million dollars. Did he take me with him? Nope. In fact, I was on a retainer via a contract I'd written myself, stipulating a mandatory 2-month notice before termination of retainer (written that way because my rent depended on that retainer every month). I was given my two months' notice, and let go. No bonus, no taking me with him. Just shafted. Okay, cool. Life goes on, but chalk one up against Mr. Christian Businessman...again.
The new company ditched half the infrastructure I had in place. They replaced all my beloved 3Com HiPer RAC modules with another vendor's (can't remember whose). They couldn't get ISDN working. Helped with that. They had issues passing email from one subnet to the other. Helped with that, at the behest of my original client--because I was fed up with the owner and the situation by that point. Finally, they put me on retainer, because they were paying me "a mint" (not really...they had me cheap back then, at $50/hr) on extra outsourced service. So I had the new company sign the same contract. My direct contact was none other than Mr. Christian Businessman. Well, a bit of time goes by, and their in-house guys refused to deal with me for whatever reason. They were clueless, IMHO, but that's their prerogative to not deal with me more than the owners make them. Eventually, my contact decided to sever our retainer again. One twist: this time, he interpreted my severance clause versus when I was last paid to his advantage, to dodge paying me a second month's fees. Okay, fine, screw me again, not a problem, right? So my retainer expired a month earlier than it should have, at his insistence (and we did argue about this at length). The day after the retainer's service period lapsed, seriously within 24hrs of the lapse of that coverage, Mr. Christian Businessman comes to me with something that would have taken me 5min to handle. You know what happened? I gave him the remarkable "f*** you" quote of $300/hr, 1hr minimum to solve his problem. He wasn't clueful enough to fix it himself, his admins weren't either, and frankly, I figured he could make it worth my while or punt, since he'd broken his word to his customers, and to me several times. He punted, and I never heard from him again, blissfully. Because I need another hypocrite in my life like a hole in the head.
My point in relating this story is that some people love to talk about how Christian and giving they are. They love to make promises about how they'll be there for you, only to vanish the second you need help. They love to help people--until it's inconvenient to them in some way. A good number of the people that display this kind of hypocrisy happen to be some of the most loudly self-proclaimed "Christians" I've ever met.
What I'd like to know is, where's that giving spirit? Where is that spirit when it's really needed? Where is that spirit when someone is down on their luck, needs help, asks for help, and the people that proclaim themselves as such generous, benevolent creatures shun them, turn away, and let them to rot?
It's nowhere to be found.
And it's not just strangers. I have seen friends turn some of their best friends away, leaving them to suffer horribly, all because helping would have been inconvenient, cut into their profit margin, or otherwise put a minor crimp in their plans--while the person needing help was basically entirely screwed without help. I've seen it happen, repeatedly.
I ask you, seriously: How can you hear that anyone, much less a friend needs help, have the resources with which to help them, and turn away? Yes, re-read that question again. You have the resources--or can obtain them. Someone, whether it's a stranger--or worse, a close friend--comes to you, begging for assistance to ease their suffering, get them out of a jam, see them through a tough time...something legitimate. And you turn them away, cold. Sorry, tough luck.
Or worse, I've seen people string others along, promising to help, but playing the waiting game, hoping that the "inconvenient" request will take care of itself miraculously, and they won't have to deal with it, and be inconvenienced even minorly. Meanwhile, they've given someone false hope, possibly enough to incite the needy person from looking further, if they believe they'll be taken care of by the promising party. And if that happens, then the person promising help (and never intending to deliver) has done more than simply a null operation. They haven't just "done nothing". They've actually hurt someone, because they've eaten into the suffering person's timeframe for seeking and obtaining help elsewhere, under the flag of false hope that was shown them with a false promise.
I want to know how anyone--how any human being worth the designation--can actually turn away someone in need, when they have the resources available to help, or can readily obtain them with a phone call, a conversation, whatever. Call in a marker/favour. Work an extra hour or ten. Whatever. You have a chance to make a profound difference for someone, and ease someone's suffering, and you take a pass on that opportunity to effect positive change in someone's life? Seriously?
And I further want to know how you can display not only the hypocrisy of thinking you're still a decent human being whilst displaying such a lack of compassion, but how you can take that extra step and brag about how you're such a great (usually Christian, in my experiences) person of whatever faith? How? Please tell me. Being loving and charitable is supposedly a cornerstone of being a Christian. It's supposed to be, anyway. It seems to be a fairly common tenet of many faiths, and sects thereof. And yet, some of the people proclaiming their association of faith the loudest are those who fail, completely and utterly, to live up to their own faith's tenets when something out of the ordinary and slightly inconvenient is really needed of them. Perhaps they believe in the forgiving nature of God? Not sure, but I was taught that doing something wrong while pre-planning asking for forgiveness, or asking for forgiveness with every intent on making the same mistake again willingly, was an abuse of faith, full stop.
This kind of behaviour would be bad enough coming from the rank and file "believer". Heck, it's bad enough coming from a human being, nevermind what faith or lack thereof they claim. Know what's worse? The utter hypocrisy of a person in a leadership position in a religious organisation making this kind of grievous error. You see this all the time. You see evangelists building mega-churches with branches, and yet they do next to nothing if someone comes to them for help. There may be programmes set up under the church structure for helping people, but it's often not enough, and can't meet some extraordinary needs that people face in real life. You see "Christian" churches with community psychiatric counseling centres attached to them, and they gouge their patients on rates, and refuse care if the rates can't be met, no matter the hardship faced, or how desperate the sufferer. I literally know of churches that do this. They "can't" afford to help someone with depression severe enough to cause suicidal ideations...but they can afford to build a f***ing church campus, complete with a huge 3-storey arena-style church with glass windows up the entire side (or all sides!) of the building (the weekly glass cleaning bill alone could probably pay for therapy for 10 patients or more!), a gym, a recreational centre, a Bible school, etc. So, you can build all of that, but you can't afford to help someone with a need that falls outside your actuarial tables? Really? Bloody seriously???
Are you in service to God, or are you in business for yourself?
To my mind, there is no excuse on this planet for not doing what one can feasibly do to help someone in need, when directly asked and pleaded to for assitance. None. I'm not saying every person needs to give to every charity, house every homeless person, give to every starving nation, etc. I'm saying that, if someone asks you directly for help, there should be one question you have to ask yourself: "Do I have the means, or can I procure the means reasonably?" If the answer to that question is, "Yes," then as a religious/spiritual person (indeed, as a human being!), you have, in my mind, an obligation to help that person, as long as you're not putting yourself at risk. And by risk, I mean actual risk of not being able to meet your own obligations, losing your home/job, etc. I don't mean not being able to buy your usual $25 lunch one day, a $500-1000 suit, buying your dream car, or other similar extravagances. I mean actual risk. If you're not going to put yourself at risk by helping, you have no excuse for not helping, in my opinion. On the other hand, if there is a significant risk incurred by helping, then say so promptly, and give the party in need a clear, concise, and unambiguous signal that you cannot help. Give them every opportunity to seek help elsewhere--don't screw them over by playing innocent, and hoping that you can bide your time with inaction backing up hollow promises, hoping the problem will go away on its own. Be a stand-up person of faith, citizen, human being, whatever...just be stand-up about it, and be honest in your reaction. Help, or don't help. If you can, do. If you can't, say so as soon as humanly possible.
People that claim some moral high ground--especially as "leaders"--and yet somehow manage to fail to help their fellow man when they have the means garner nothing but contempt from me. I cannot stomach not only the hypocrisy, but the thought of someone so damned heartless that they'll let someone else suffer in order to appease their own short-term, non-essential interests. It's inhumane, and sub-human--and coming from someone that puts very little stock in the "inherently good" nature of humanity, that's pretty much a damning condemnation coming from me.
Be anything, but don't be a hypocrite.
And if you're going to be a hypocrite, especially when it comes to being a heartless person who refuses to help when they can do so with no real risk to themselves...well, chances are it'll come back to you eventually. Some would call that just desserts, some would call that karma, and others would call it bad luck. God or no God, it's been my observation that what goes around does come back around to bite people in the posterior. Be a heartless bastard at your own peril.
But for my money, it'd be better to be an honest heartless bastard, than a lying, hypocritical one, flying falsely under the banner of a faith that supposedly prides itself on the principles you willingly refuse to uphold yourself. Hiding like that makes one not only a liar and a hypocrite, but a cowardly liar and hypocrite. And that doubles the amount of derision you likely deserve, if you're "one of those".
I'd love for everyone reading this to take a good, long and hard look at how they handle people's requests for help. Do you see yourself and your actions in the negative examples above? If so, it's quite possibly time to effect some positive change in your own back yard. And if you're in a leadership position, as we all supposedly should be as miinisters, it's quite possibly time to recuse yourself from your official duties while you sort out what's really important in this life. And that, for my money, is helping our family, friends, and even perfect strangers, to the best of our ability, as long as we aren't putting ourselves at risk. it may not be convenient. It may not be something we necessarily want to do at the time (God knows, it should be, though!). But it is the right thing to do, as a human being, as a person of faith, and especially as a supposed leader in faith.
