Dear Alma, Am I too young to get an apology?
OrchestrasFrom our agony aunt’s mailbag:
Dear Alma,
I am a public school orchestra director. I am pretty young, I graduated a couple of years ago, and then got a job (really nice one) in the city where I graduated. The person who had the job before me had been here for a long while and is very respected, for good reason. When I was up for the job, a couple of local music people thought I wasn’t good enough or experienced enough to take over and they had petitions and threw a big fuss, but I got the job anyway. I am doing great and the program is flourishing. These people never apologized and I see them around town. What should I do? Mention how well it’s going or just ignore them or ask for an apology? It really annoys me.
Doin’ Great
Dear Doin’ Great,
Congratulations! Sounds like you got a dream job, and right out of school, in a place you like. Just like being in school, in the real world there will always be uncomfortable situations, bitter people, and unkind words spoken. I am glad that you are finding success and fulfillment in your job. That’s the most important thing.
My advice? Let your good work speak for itself. Asking for an apology would show that you care about those people and their opinions. And you don’t, or you shouldn’t, in any case. For them to apologize it would have to mean that they admit that they were wrong. Unlikely. They are probably very embarrassed, actually.
Doin’ Great, just keep doing what you are doin’, and hold your head up high. Your work speaks for itself.
Questions for Alma? Please put them in the comments section or send to DearAlmaQuery@gmail.com
Hello ‘Doin’ Great’,
Why should they apologize?
Remember: doing great is not the same as being great.
Pff
Very sound advice.
Speaks volumes about the mindset of a rising generation. Apparently you can be owed an apology for an opinion.
It wasn’t just an opinion. They actively tried to stop him getting the job.
It’s quite common for people to protest that they are not allowed to express their opinion when what is really going on is that they are trying to get the law or some other authority to force people to abide by that opinion.
Lobbying against a senior and public-facing appointment in a public forum is not necessarily wrong, unless such lobbying involves recourse to improper influence, slander, libel, breach of trust, or illegal actions.
The OP has to accept that, in applying for and accepting a senior and public-facing appointment, he/she will encounter people who consider him/her either unsuitable or not the best available candidate. As others have said, the OP’s best remedy is to prove his/her detractors wrong through his/her achievements in post.
Having said that, if these detractors work for the OP’s organisation and act unprofessionally in the course of their work for said organisation in such a way as to undermine or sabotage the OP, he/she may wish to consider raising a grievance (in the first instance, through the organisation’s internal procedures).
One is never too young to get an apology. The real problem, however, is that you obviously feel you are owed one, and that I’m afraid could indeed be a sign of youth and immaturity. People have a right to their opinions, and being liked or recognized is not a birthright. The sooner you can learn to detach yourself from what other people think, the better off you will be. Apologies, for the most part, are utterly worthless anyway, unless they are sincerely meant and come from the heart, and that is a once-in-a-lifetime rarity, because it takes a very big person as well as a great heart to issue a genuine apology, and most people simply aren’t capable of that. Most apologies are really empty social gestures merely meant to diffuse tension. There is a very important quote by Maya Angelou: “when someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” In other words, we often believe what we want to believe, and often refuse to believe what doesn’t soothe our egos, which nowadays tend to get way too expansive. Your disappointment is really more of a reflection of where you are within your personal journey. An apology would not change a thing as to other’s people true opinion — it would merely be gratifying to you on a narcissistic level, which is exactly what you might need to work on. The world has been filled with remarkably accomplished people who often were ignored and sometimes even ridiculed — and yet, they still pursued their important work, some of them among our greatest artists in history. Instead of expecting apologies, try placing your particular situation in a wider, more universal perspective, and realize the very relative, and somewhat minimal, importance of your particular situation.
As I said in reply above, it wasn’t just a matter of the critics having a right to their opinion: they took *action* against his getting the job.
They wrote a petition against him, but apparently he still got the job, fortunately.
I don’t condone trying to undermine others in this way — frankly, I find it morally reprehensible — but the reality is that people do have the right to write up petitions, and this adverse action had no effect on his ability to be offered the position.
Now he wants an apology. But that would be pointless. Would that erase the way these people feel, or the fact that they attempted to rob him of his position? It wouldn’t.
He’s annoyed, as he himself says, because his ego is bruised. That, to me, is the gist of the matter.
The truly powerful position here, as in many other conflicts in life, is to remain as stoic as possible, and not humiliate oneself by showing an expectation that probably won’t be fulfilled, and which if it were, would be utterly meaningless and disingenuous.
One can’t be liked by everybody. People can be petty to the point of attempting to undermine others. It is truly vile on a moral level, but such is the reality of being part of a competitive world where positions can be scarce and where some might go out of their way to prevent others from being successful.
“the reality is that people do have the right to write up petitions”
I did not deny that. My point was that this is not the same as having a rght to one’s opinion. Taking action to have one’s opinion enforced is not the same as having or expressing an opinion.
Consider: expressing an opinion critical of a poster on here is not the same as trying to get Mr Lebrecht to ban that poster from the site.
Surely the ‘apology’ was actually in getting the job!!
Poor little snowflake; will you survive the bitchy world of CM?
“These people never apologized and I see them around town.”
One day in the produce section…
“Griselda? Phineas? Fancy meeting you two here! OMG, did the Weather Channel stop? That’s great that you can still get around… and at your age! I heard you had a petition going around for something? Any progress on that? Getting lots of signatures? I’d love to stay and hear all about it but I have AN ORCHESTRA REHEARSAL to prepare for. Well, keep your chins up… and yours, too, Phineas! Toodles!”
All-in-all I’m going to guess that those civic leaders (parents?) had vastly over-estimated what that public school orchestra had accomplished under the previous regime and imagined some miracle associated with the former teacher was responsible.
Doin’ great needs to appreciate that the sort of person who is so self-important that they think they can override a fair appointment process is also so self-important that they feel they never need to apologise.
One of the most important lessons in life is to ignore (but not be rude to) idiots and instead engage with those whose judgement and values you respect.