There is nothing that I dislike more than a business person who believes they are smart and savvy because they have a successful business that they inherited.  I think we have one of those running for President today.  Oops. Sorry he didn’t inherit it. He got a $100,000 loan for his dad.  I suppose one cannot begrudge him that. Most of us would all take such a loan if we had it readily available. Here is the deal. What bothers me most is that individual who inherited a successful business and then never did anything else and thinks they can lecture you on the business world.  I came across such a cretin recently in my business dealings.

I was in talks with a business owner who held almost all the cards in the business dealing.  As a non-profit we were trying to expand our services and make our business more efficient.  By expanding our services we would increase revenue that would be cycled back in to the business to address other dire community needs.  The building owner proceeded to block us at every turn. She didn’t want to help us grow or see us grow. She thought we brought in undesirables in an area that was greatly gentrifying.  I pushed back at every turn as well. It was a great tug of war.  Then she pulled out the “B” word.

She accused me of being a bully and that she as a wise business owner would not be bullied and intimidated into making a business decision that was not a good one for her. She then proceeded to note that she was an upstanding citizen and that she contributed to the community in other ways. Of course those other ways are in no way apparent. The fact that she felt that she had to add that caveat showed that she knew what she was doing was bad for the community. I wish that she would just be honest about that instead of pretending to care.

What made me laugh about this all is that she-the one with the power in this situation-thought that she was being bullied and she was offended that I would fight back. I noted that as the leasee I could not really bully her.  I could most certainly be a thorn in her side -and I was-but I could not bully her. I was reminded of that Stephen Fry quote of:

“It’s now very common to hear people say, ‘I’m rather offended by that.’ As if that gives them certain rights. It’s actually nothing more… than a whine. ‘I find that offensive.’ It has no meaning; it has no purpose; it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. ‘I am offended by that.’ Well, so ducking (my substitution) what.”

He stated this back in 2005 before the advent of Twitter and righteousness going viral. It holds even more true now.  Every day and maybe even every hour someone is outraged at something or the other.  Outrage runs amok and holds our news cycle hostage in our current day. Of course, that is one thing that those of us that dislike the words outrage or offended, can thank Mr Trump for. He has made us perhaps a bit inured to offensive statements. I truly thank him for that. We were overusing the word outrage. We were overusing the word offensive.  So, I tell that silly woman who tried to bully me into not bullying her to go elsewhere with her ludicrous comments and faux sense of being offended. You should not be offended when you do something bad and others stand up to you for it. I am starting off the year by noting I will not be bullied by the bullies.