Watching the news today was disappointing. There was Serena Williams' expletive-laced tirade at a ref during the U.S. Open and Kanye West's interruption of Taylor Swift's acceptance speech at the VMA awards (he actually managed to humiliate two women in the space of 10 seconds). Even the U.S. President wasn't immune to someone's misplaced opinions as Joe Wilson shouted "You lie!" during Obama's health care speech.
Don' t get me wrong. I agree that democracy means expressing and hearing dissenting opinions. But there's a time and a place and as these cases illustrate, it seems that many people have lost their ability to exercise their freedom of expression without being just plain rude.
What bugs me the most about today's news though, is that all these people expressed some level of (sincere or insincere - you decide) remorse afterwards for their behavior and attributed it, at least in part, to their "passion" for their game/music/politics. O....kay.
Hey, I'm in the business of career happiness and I'm always thrilled to hear that there are people out there who are so excited about their work. But is career passion really the reason these people behaved as bullies?
I don't think so. Happy people don't feel the need to take others down in humiliating and embarrassing ways. So all you celebs, athletes and politicians out there: please stop using career "passion" as an excuse for inappropriate and rude behaviour.
You give yourself and--more importantly, from my perspective--career happiness, a bad name.
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