Should they change or are you a jerk for asking?

Here’s something I’ve been pondering o’er the past few weeks: when someone behaves in a way you don’t like, whether it’s interrupting or spacing out or forgetting or not contributing to the conversation, whatever. Should that person see that trait as a flaw that they ought to improve on or should we (and they) just accept it as a part of who they are?

The first time I really had to confront this question was about a year and a half ago, in which my old self-righteous boss nagged at a coworker yet again and made them feel very bad about themselves. Obviously not necessary or appropriate, right? So when a coworker decided to defend themselves, here’s how the conversation went:

“I feel like you’re way too harsh about little things that don’t deserve yelling. If you want me to improve I really don’t take kindly to that.”
“Now I’m sorry if my attitude offends you but it’s just the way I am, okay? I tend to lash out easily and if I’m raising my voice it’s just that I’m venting. Don’t take it personally.”

Well of course she’s going to take it personally: it’s directed at herself and it hurts her as a result. So now she’s expected to just take it because that’s how her boss handles stress?

The answer to this occasionally tricky question is obvious with mental disorders: yes, of course we’d be asking for too much for them to change what they were obviously born with. Remember Rain Man?

“You know what I think, Ray? I think this autism is a bunch of shit! Because you can’t tell me that you’re not in there somewhere!” 
” Boxer shorts. K-Mart!”
“ When I say stop it, why don’t you stop it? Why do you always have to act like an idiot?”

Granted, mental disorders are out and it would look bad on us to ask anything otherwise. But how about things that we feel define us? Take being shy. There’s nothing particularly wrong with it, but that’s another thing that people feel they can’t help. It depends on whether or not we see it as something negative and defective, but no matter how annoyed one might be at a shy person, most would concede that there’s nothing wrong with them. And that is precisely why any parent would intervene and say they are “special just the way you are.” It will be harder to interact with people, sure. But again, asking them to change would make you a jerk–not them.

I suppose it all falls back to evil versus good. If someone does something blatantly mean according to our standards of which, they ought to improve on that. Bottom line. Any other personality trait is up to the person in question, but is not principally necessary to their or our own good.

Hear that, ex boss? You’re kinda mean, so get better please? ;)