Here's something you might be interested in.
When there's a story in the news about a high school kid killing themself, you often hear they were tormented by bullies.
And all the school authorities and parents, talk about the various ways to curb bullying.
But I realized something. Most adults are cowards, that don't even stand up for themselves.
I have a few examples of this.
One is on the Jimmy Kimmel show. He'll sometimes have his cousin work in a ice cream shop or dry cleaner. And when he's helping a customer, the guy will ruin whatever it is he's working on for the customer. The customer is often times furious, but they end up just walking out of the store without a confrontation. Even though an item they brought in, or ordered, was ruined.
And I've been with adults that don't want to stand up to someone.
A person will make the most insane move in a car, and we end up next to them in the Target parking lot. I'll ask the driver why he cut us off or didn't signal. The person I'm with usually cringes. And I ask them later, why they didn't want to say anything, when they were screaming in their car a few minutes earlier.
I used to play basketball at a place in Kearny Mesa that had a bully that called himself Spud. He looked like Tony Gwynn, if you packed another 100 pounds on him. And every game, he wanted to fight someone on the other team. Often times, he wanted to fight people on his team.
Before he'd show up, we'd all stand around complaining about what he did the previous week. I once said, "Let's tell him we don't want him to play with us, if all he's going to do is start fights." Everyone looked nervous about this, and so I said "Come on! If we all say it, what can he do? He'll either change his behavior, or he'll leave."
Sure enough, he showed up and started trouble within five minutes of the first game. And everyone kept quiet. I had to be the one to tell him what we had all discussed an hour earlier. And he got into my face and started pushing me. Nobody else told him to chill out. Nobody else tried to hold him back.
A month later, I heard a group of Vietnamese guys jumped him and messed his face up pretty bad.
But he was back a few months later, with his same crappy attitude.
I was playing racquetball in Vista the other day, and the guy I was playing went nuts when he saw someone in the other court. He said, "That's the guy that messed up the door in court 1."
He explained that after losing a game, the guy (a short, pudgy white kid that looked to be about 19) opened the door, held onto the top of it and yanked, breaking it off the hinges. My friend said, "It took them months and months to replace the door. And because there was one less court, we all had to stand around longer waiting for games."
I asked if the LA Fitness ever knew who did it. He said, "We all saw him do it, but nobody said anything."
I asked why he doesn't say anything to them now. He just shrugged his shoulders. I said, "They have signs in the basketball court, on the emergency exit...that if you open those doors, you lose your gym membership. At the very least, he should lose his privileges here. But they should make him pay for what it cost to fix it."
I was then told a story about a weird guy that used to show up at the gym. He got kicked out because he'd watch the women play volleyball. He sat there with a towel on his lap and...well, you get the picture. I was told, "He was warned the first time. The second time, they took away his membership."
And my first thought was...the second time?
When there's a story in the news about a high school kid killing themself, you often hear they were tormented by bullies.
And all the school authorities and parents, talk about the various ways to curb bullying.
But I realized something. Most adults are cowards, that don't even stand up for themselves.
I have a few examples of this.
One is on the Jimmy Kimmel show. He'll sometimes have his cousin work in a ice cream shop or dry cleaner. And when he's helping a customer, the guy will ruin whatever it is he's working on for the customer. The customer is often times furious, but they end up just walking out of the store without a confrontation. Even though an item they brought in, or ordered, was ruined.
And I've been with adults that don't want to stand up to someone.
A person will make the most insane move in a car, and we end up next to them in the Target parking lot. I'll ask the driver why he cut us off or didn't signal. The person I'm with usually cringes. And I ask them later, why they didn't want to say anything, when they were screaming in their car a few minutes earlier.
I used to play basketball at a place in Kearny Mesa that had a bully that called himself Spud. He looked like Tony Gwynn, if you packed another 100 pounds on him. And every game, he wanted to fight someone on the other team. Often times, he wanted to fight people on his team.
Before he'd show up, we'd all stand around complaining about what he did the previous week. I once said, "Let's tell him we don't want him to play with us, if all he's going to do is start fights." Everyone looked nervous about this, and so I said "Come on! If we all say it, what can he do? He'll either change his behavior, or he'll leave."
Sure enough, he showed up and started trouble within five minutes of the first game. And everyone kept quiet. I had to be the one to tell him what we had all discussed an hour earlier. And he got into my face and started pushing me. Nobody else told him to chill out. Nobody else tried to hold him back.
A month later, I heard a group of Vietnamese guys jumped him and messed his face up pretty bad.
But he was back a few months later, with his same crappy attitude.
I was playing racquetball in Vista the other day, and the guy I was playing went nuts when he saw someone in the other court. He said, "That's the guy that messed up the door in court 1."
He explained that after losing a game, the guy (a short, pudgy white kid that looked to be about 19) opened the door, held onto the top of it and yanked, breaking it off the hinges. My friend said, "It took them months and months to replace the door. And because there was one less court, we all had to stand around longer waiting for games."
I asked if the LA Fitness ever knew who did it. He said, "We all saw him do it, but nobody said anything."
I asked why he doesn't say anything to them now. He just shrugged his shoulders. I said, "They have signs in the basketball court, on the emergency exit...that if you open those doors, you lose your gym membership. At the very least, he should lose his privileges here. But they should make him pay for what it cost to fix it."
I was then told a story about a weird guy that used to show up at the gym. He got kicked out because he'd watch the women play volleyball. He sat there with a towel on his lap and...well, you get the picture. I was told, "He was warned the first time. The second time, they took away his membership."
And my first thought was...the second time?