Responsible Adults

Imagine a room full of adult men and women, all wearing business drag – suits with ties. Does anyone actually wear a tie anymore, other than for funerals? Possibly their own? Oh...

At any rate, there they sit, all playing grown up, hoping to not be called on to speak...hoping they can stay awake and understand the conversation...hoping they can get home in time to watch White Lotus. 

Now, imagine that same group of adult men and women sharing a group chat, where ties are no longer required, ChexMix or Doritos are within easy reach, a cocktail is possibly being devoured (or, in some cases, three cocktails...guessing) and computer screens are bifurcated by the group chat messaging and whatever’s playing on HGTV...or Pornhub.

What could possibly go wrong?

See, that’s the funny thing about high level jobs, jobs with power, jobs with responsibilities. They require responsible people to enact them. At some point, everyone who has ever held a job has worked with or for someone who lied on their resumé and that person was discovered to be “not up to their job” and usually, as a result, was dealt with in some fashion – demoted, retrained, fired, whatever. But how does it work when there never was an appropriate resumé presented; when the incompetent person in question never had any experience in the powerful, important job they’ve been tasked with; when their failure to act responsibly and play the grown up doesn’t come as a surprise but more of a self-fulfilling prophecy?

Responsibility is characteristic representing moral, legal, and mental accountability. It can’t be bought. It can’t be imitated. Either you have it or you don’t. And in this theoretical group chat I’m referencing, responsibility was totally lacking...as were basic intelligence, humility, common decency........

“You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.”

—Abraham Lincoln