Soft or Good?

The world today is so bad that we're programmed to be tough or act tough almost at all times in other to survive in it. Sadly, even I believe that. I've written posts on it mainly due to personal experiences, but should that be the way things are done, is it right to always think that way?

_{Photo by Timon Studler}

I had once written about how I had volunteered sometime last year to be the guy in charge of making sure my hostels gate was locked every night. I had volunteered for that position for two reasons, even though I knew there wasn't going to be any benefits whatsoever coming from that position. The first being that the previous guy in charge of the duty had given up on the post and refused to carry on and the second reason had been because of how rude and tough he was on everyone else whenever it was time for him to lock up.

The hostel has a 10pm rule where the gates has to be locked and anyone who comes after 10pm either has to go sleep somewhere else or pay a fine before they're allowed into the hostel. All of these rules were in place when I took up the position but just because I decided that I didn't want to be like the last guy and actually be more considerate, I had bent the rule a little (or maybe more than a little).

On the day I took up the position, I had announced that I'm cool with anyone coming an hour later after the official closing time, as long as you can call someone else to come get the keys from my room and help you open the gate. Basically what that meant was that I could hand the keys over to your friends to help unlock the gate for you to come inside and I also totally demolished the payment part. I told them that I had no need for their money and that all I wanted was their cooperation.

To me, that was me trying to do some good and make a difference because I knew there were people at the hostel who work and sometimes get stuck in traffic and I didn't want them paying no fine for something that was totally out of their control. Well, it turned out that being considerate was a mistake on my part because I soon found myself having to go open the gate multiple times at late hours for people and this was because they "had no friends to call".

But you see, I decided not to complain to anyone because I was doing all of this from the kindness of my heart and everytime I remember how strict the previous guy was, it gave me more reason to be understanding and just help out the way I can.

I went on to hold that post for about a year before handing it over to someone else some few days ago, my reason being that I might be moving out of here soon and I just feel like it's only right to handover during the first month of the year but just before I handed over the keys to the new guy, I had overheard the hostel president telling some group of girls that I no longer wanted to be in charge of the gate anymore and that someone else would be taking over.

As expected, the girls had refused, telling him that they wanted me at the position because I'm always willing to help them get inside no matter the time at night and the lodge president had laughed and told them that I was too soft and that he needed someone tough to be in charge of the position.

He didn't say I was too kind or too good, he said I was too soft and for some reason that made me mad. Of course I kept my feelings to myself but deep down, I was furious because I knew that the reason I wasn't strict wasn't because I didn't know how to, but because I just didn't want to.

And to think that I thought I was here doing some good?? I guess at the end of the day, I got to understand that there are certain situations that requires certain behaviours and maybe the previous guy wasn't rude or strict because he wanted to, he was like that because the position demanded someone like that and because he knew that if he had mixed it up like I did, he would have been seen as soft, if not worse, weak.