Ooopss here it comes

Seen HOUSE lately? Remember the episode where Cameron got miffed at Foreman for stealing her article, with House doing nothing about it?

Story struck a nerve. Not because someone stole an idea I had or something. Several things happened in the not-so-distant past that reminded me that bad things happen to good people.

Case of the cold cut

Someone I considered a friend "stole" from me, literally. How else do you call someone taking a cut off your pay to fatten their wallet? I would have felt better if said "friend" pimped for me, at least the commission (is that what they call it?) is something I agreed to give. And at least I would have enjoyed doing it ;-)

This is one for the books. Imagine your agent negotiating more for you, and telling you he managed to get less? That's lying. And when he actually gave you less that what you supposedly got, well, that's stealing.

Now imagine it is someone you thought to be a friend?


Case of the tainted fang

I am naive. I am gullible. Agnostic I am, but I do believe in the goodness of people. Between assuming the worst and hoping for the best, I would do the later when it comes to people. No matter what our history was. I believe that people can change.

So this person I had a bad history with, for being dishonest and for back-biting (I don't know what else to call it, though) became my colleague once more. Guess what? A few smiles and friendly banter and I was willing to forgive and forget (I had done both I guess).

It took a few days and it's back to her old ways - smiling that treacherous smile and hiding her poison-ladden fangs. A few days and I've been bitten once more.

The House episode struck a chord with what House and Cuddy advised Cameron on how to handle the situation:

House

Basically House wants Cameron to be meaner, become more human - which means to fight back, be agressive and even do the same thing Foreman did.

Cuddy

On the other hand, Cuddy tells Cameron to write more and better articles. In a way she's saying the best revenge is to be better than Foreman.

While I agree with House in the sense that you can't always be nice to everybody, I also agree with Cuddy - that the only way to beat your opponents is to best them at every turn. They steal your idea? Come up with something better, something that would make their idea seem stupid.

Maybe the best way is to adapt both? I will be more cynical of people's motives. I will be more agressive in protecting my turf, not letting down my guard a bit. I may forgive but I will never forget.  Then I will make excellence my habit, making sure I am the best person there is to do this job.

What I refuse to do is to steal, or lie, or rat on someone just to get ahead. I refuse to stoop down their level of pathetic existence, because I am better as I chose to be better. There's nothing more satisfying than seeing incompetent people trapped into their musty little kingdoms called cubicles, incapable of seeing their own inadequacies, living in the shadows of the lies they convinced themselves to be the truth - their twisted self-importance masking their incompetence.

Indeed, living well is the best revenge.