BE CAREFUL WHO YOU IGNORE

Oh good grief! Sounds like a 'bunny huggers' paradise! You know what, we all get lonely, we all get frustrated, we all go through stages of feeling like 'no-one' loves us yada, yada, yada! Get over it and move on. Instead of focusing on how we 'need' to massage the egos and hurts of everyone on the planet, perhaps we should be focusing of what needs to get done and do it!

If the chairman of the company walks past you in the corridor and he does not greet you, it does not mean that he hates you, or he does not appreciate what you have done for him and his company or he has a personal vandetta against you or even that he feels that he is above you - what it means is that he has something on his mind that he is busy dealing with and it would probably do you the world of good to get something on your mind to deal with other than how he has hurt your feelings!

Good heavens man! Get a life!

Be careful who you ignore...
Timothy Webster01 May 2007 at 11h00

Has the workplace become a haven for cliques with elitist personal brands looking down on the no-names? Recently I was interviewed on a local radio station and a caller phoned to ask me how to deal with the folks in his office who feel that they are too important to greet him. Before his emotions caused his voice to flutter, I asked him to tell me how he felt about being ignored by the pseudo office celebrities; after pausing to wipe away a tear, he replied: "I feel lonely and it hurts." By now everyone has either read or watched the horrific nightmare that the students and family members of the American university, Virginia Tech, have been forced to endure. Many revelations have surfaced about the mass murderer infamously known today as "Cho". But the one thing that I find most startling - as it relates to the caller who was hurt so deeply by his aloof colleagues - were the comments by Cho's writing teacher, Lucinda Roy.

Roy told ABC News that "Cho seemed extraordinarily lonely - the loneliest person I have ever met in my life." As a passionate promoter of personal branding, I want to make it very clear that your pursuit of individual success should not come at the expense of the least popular and especially those who find it difficult to assert themselves.

To save you from having to endure my rhetoric on the self-interested lot of the land, I'll simply say that the correlation between status, power and egocentricity is highly uncomfortable for me. While I don't expect you to walk through the shopping centre and identify every lonely lad that passes you by, buy them a drink and then discuss their issues, I do, however, at the very least, expect you to greet people when they pass you in the office. And moreover, those of you who have admittedly worked hard and built your personal empire, I need you to recognise that the significant brand power you've been awarded is largely due to the fact that other people perceive you positively. It's impossible to build a brand without the favour of other people. If you look around closely, each and every one of us has a circle of influence in which to leverage our personal power. Whether it's a little sister or a junior staff member, take the time to empathise with the no-name brands. Before you know it, the no-name brand that you overlook could be the one you are looking up to.