When I was young, I thought that being a man of my word meant that, as I'd given my employer my word that I would follow their security policy, I should follow it to the letter - for example, never holding the door open, even for a colleague I'd worked alongside for a long time.
And I thought that petty rulebreaking was a corrosive force, something that would snowball into bigger problems down the road. As a man of honour I would work precisely my contracted hours, never a minute less, I would consider it shameful if someone so much as stole a pen from the office. The rest of the team is heading to the pub at 4pm after a lengthy day of planning meetings? Sorry guys, I don't finish until 5:30pm.
Later in my career I chilled out a lot, and learned that the actual rules are often different (and a lot more nuanced) than the written rules. And that if you've worked with a guy for a decade you can, in fact, hold the door open for him and the sky won't fall down.
> I thought that being a man of my word meant that, as I'd given my employer my word that I would follow their security policy, I should follow it to the letter
This basically sums up my "cover story" nicely so I didn't have to admit to myself that it was more about scoring points for my own position.
Dressing up vanity as integrity is a dangerous thing.
And I thought that petty rulebreaking was a corrosive force, something that would snowball into bigger problems down the road. As a man of honour I would work precisely my contracted hours, never a minute less, I would consider it shameful if someone so much as stole a pen from the office. The rest of the team is heading to the pub at 4pm after a lengthy day of planning meetings? Sorry guys, I don't finish until 5:30pm.
Later in my career I chilled out a lot, and learned that the actual rules are often different (and a lot more nuanced) than the written rules. And that if you've worked with a guy for a decade you can, in fact, hold the door open for him and the sky won't fall down.