The Balance of Good and Evil
So I had to take a half a day off from work to take care of some business today. In case you didn't know I am not only a Pirate Captain but I have worked in the IT industry for 18years and I am also the President of a small LLC which was founded for the betterment and restoration of my community. In other words I run a Homeowners Association. If being a Pirate was not bad enough imagine the looks I get when people find out I am on the board for a Homeowners Association, I fully expect pitchforks and torches at my door at any particular moment. So back to business.
So the situation I am in is the collection of money from the estates of people who have passed on and dealing with the abandonment of their units. I know that task is not necessarily evil and I have the backing of the board and all legal rights to process liens against property. But I do get a lot of bad looks and comments when I take these types of actions. Some people on the board are more "Hugs and Flowers" types and would rather give hugs than legal paperwork. That's not bad because we do need to be nice but in situations like we are currently in we cant afford to sit on our hands. On the other hand I really don't want to be seen as the "Bad Guy" in every situation and that is how I am now seen. Now my brain is trying to balance out what is good and what is evil.
Does anyone else here seem to go through trying to balance out good and evil when certain situations arise? Is anyone stuck in the "I'm the bad guy" role all the time? I have to do what I have to do because there is no neutral ground on this. So help me out if you can. I already accept my role but sometimes it helps to just discuss it.
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There is no way to please all of the people all of the time, especially when your responsibilities put you in a position where you have to play the part of the bad guy. I've been in that situation before where I was helping to run a MUD and every player wanted a favor from me or an exception to the enforcement of the game's rules. I ultimately decided that in order to be a good administrator I had to give up hope of being seen as a good guy so instead I was going to become the best bad guy I could possibly be. If you think it's easy playing lawful evil, think again.
This may not be an option for you. It may not be palatable to you. So it ultimately comes down to these choices:
1. Keep trying to educate people about how doing what's necessary doesn't make you a bad guy no matter how many times you have to repeat yourself to the same people.
2. Embrace being the bad guy.
3. Step down from that particular role and let someone else shoulder the responsibility.
The choice is yours.
Being the bad guy all the time is kinda draining. Plus I don't really think of myself as a bad guy because the actions I take are all legally correct and it is for the betterment of the community. It is also not my intention to hurt anyone but some things have to be done so the community does not get hurt. I can justify it at least :)
So did I. I enforced the rules and I did so in a way that wasn't malicious but simply accepted this was the way things were and I wasn't going to take it personally that people didn't like me for it. Indeed, I expected people to abuse me for it. I was relaxed about that fact and in the process a lot of people liked me because I wasn't intense about the whole thing. It enabled me to establish my quirky sense of humor and play with people (it was a game after all) without interfering with my responsibilities.
And when my responsibilities called for me to play the role, I didn't stress about it. I just did it.
If that's not something you think you can do, you might want to consider handing that job over to someone else.
I know I can seem "Malicious" in what I do, but numbers and data don't lie. The whole reason we have a homeowners association is to keep up with maintenance on the units and grounds. The association is actually responsible for repairs on all of the outside (Siding, roofs, etc) of the units except glass and doors. So when people don't pay the whole community does not get the repairs needed. So I play my part and hope that in the end those who do pay at least understand what I am trying to accomplish. Now if nobody understands and I am the bad guy all the time then I will just keep on doing what I am doing until I can get a good price on my unit!!!
There you go. There's a perfectly valid reason for what you do that benefits everyone as a whole, and anyone who can't or won't understand that really doesn't deserve your pity. Go be the bad guy when being the bad guy is what's needed.