"My Way or the Highway" is a Bad Philosophy.

I'm sure at some point in your life you've encountered someone that used the phrase It's my way or the highway.

It may very well have been your parents. It's a very parent type thing to say.

It may have also been your boss. That makes good sense because your boss is the one that makes the rules in the workplace.

However, you could say that we are living in an elastic world these days. Things are changing in such a way that the walls are no longer opaque and concrete, but instead are rubbery and porous.

Yet another paradigm shift.

Source: Pixabay.com

When you are a kid and still living with your parents then certainly you have to do what they say. Otherwise you might just spend your childhood in your room being grounded.

There are also certain rules to be followed in the workplace. Certainly you have to show up somewhere near on time, and you have to wear pants.... unless you are a stripper in which case you probably have to not wear pants.

This has been the way of the world for about as long as I can remember. However, the world is certainly changing.

We have a new rule at my restaurant. You can no longer bring in any outside drinks, and you can no longer get a drink while you are on duty. This is likely going to be an HR Fiasco that won't last for very long. In fact, at the end of everything I'm certain we will probably be provided with all kinds of drinks.

The people have more power than they used to and when upper management tries to take that power away they often find themselves falling down on their faces.

It's a good thing.

I once briefly worked in an office where all we did was flip through pieces of paper looking for certain information. It was the most boring job that I ever had. The funny thing about it was that we were on like the 50th floor of this skyscraper and I always joked about jumping.

It wasn't a very funny joke until until one particular day.

One day someone from upper management came in and told us that they no longer wanted us to communicate with each other. We were no longer allowed to talk to the person standing next to us flipping papers. We were supposed to stand there flipping papers completely silently. No music, no communication, nothing.

This was the day that I quit.

I'm not sure how long that lasted but I can tell you that it would never fly today.

I remember being told that we would have to start cleaning the baseboards even though we are servers in my restaurant. Servers cleaning the baseboards? That doesn't make sense to me.

They wanted us use degreaser and instructed us to use a bucket full of degreaser with a little bit of water in it. We were supposed to put our bare hand in there with a rag and use the rag to clean the baseboards. We were supposed to get degreaser all over our bare hand.

That stuff literally removes the grease from whatever object it encounters. It burns your hands like crazy and it is very, very bad for you.

My way or the highway usually follows some kind of inhumane or ridiculous statement, in my opinion. It's almost never the right philosophy to use.

I hope you found this post educational.