Reverse Entitlement

Entitlement as defined in the dictionary as belief that one is deserving of or entitled to certain privileges. When you think entitlement, you think of government programs. But more specifically, you think of the mentality of the lazy who’ve come to expect and depend upon the fruits of government programs passed down to them. Recently Uncle Bubba has experienced kind of a reverse entitlement that, if we admit it, is all too common. This is where lazy people have a job and are bad at it. He described his experience as the perceived entitlement of nosey busybodies that think that it is OK to get into his personal business. You know the type, the self righteous lady that has the Nazi-istic approach to customer service. They try to make their problem your problem. He or she crosses expected boundaries, not to assist you but to assist themselves in getting you to do their work for them. They are unconscionable in their annoyed attitude and lacky-ism to the company cutting their paycheck. If these people worked for us we'd fire them immediately, without question. Uncle Bubba shared an example of how insidious this reverse entitlement has penetrated our culture. Certain employees in the Human Resources Department, the department focused on the personnel regarding them as a significant asset, are far less focused on support of the person as they are in arbitrarily interpreting company policy to avoid actually working. This always results in erroneously, yet irreversibly taking money out of Bubbie's pocket simply because they can without redress. It would take effort to do more, to assist Bubbie, improving his attitude and thus retaining a good, productive employee. I offered to Bubbie that these folks had a job to do like anybody else.

He said that he didn't begrudge anyone that, it is beyond that. It is the arrogant designation of authority that these idiots (his words) think that they have over anyone in their field of view. They have tunnel vision. It's as though they've trained themselves to not recognize that we are people behind the issue that they are trying to resolve. Most of us, the victims of reverse entitlement are good people with incredibly complex and complicated lives. We have our own jobs to perform and our daily struggles. In Bubbie's view, this laziness can only be remedied through personal accountability and the recognition of our humanity.