Never Thought About it Before

I got a holiday card today from a guy who used to work for me. Good employee, good guy. While we were working together his marriage broke up and he ultimately came out of the closet. At the time I was completely focused on holding the office (which was pretty small and close) together while all this was going on. They guy was a mess and made things very difficult for everyone who had to work with him, which was pretty much the whole office since he was in a key position. I spent hours with him in his office trying to talk him through and into a functional state because he really could have pulled the whole operation down.

After a lot of time and effort (of which mine was only a small part) he came out of it, happier and more productive than ever. And he's still doing great. It's something I look back on with some satisfaction as a manager and as a person.

I suddenly flashed on a time in college when I was president of my fraternity and one of the house members suddenly decided to come out. That almost tore the place apart. People had real trepidation about sharing a room, or even a house, with a homosexual. I was very much in favor of keeping him in the frat. He'd been living there for a year and a half and was well-liked (if a bit weird). It took several weeks, and for some reason we never consulted with any of the powers that be at the school, but we ultimately reached an uneasy consensus that the guy could stay, which he did without incident. I was not re-elected president.

Not sure if there's any point to this. Just an odd confluence of events separated by over 20 years. But you've got to accept people as they are, you know? Because it's not your place to change them, and having been a square peg in a round hole for much of my life, I can tell you without a doubt that trying to force your own structure on somebody else just doesn't work very well.