Today’s good deed

I haven’t done a good deed today, so perhaps yesterday’s was a one off after all. Then again, I’ve barely left the house – too much work, not enough time, today.

The closest I came was being polite and respectful to a call-centre droid, when what was really called for was an unrestrained tirade of abuse. I don’t really buy the “just doing their job” excuse though – there comes a point where you have to take responsibility for your own actions, and if you work for an immoral organisation, you’re immoral too. Otherwise, where do you draw the line? If I’m the guy who comes round and says “nice shop you’ve got here, it would be a shame if anything happened to it”, can I shrug that off if I’m just a salaried employee of the real gangster. No. And of course, the Gestapo were just doing their jobs. There, I’ve come up against Godwin’s Law in a conversation with myself.

So why the uncalled for manners? I suppose deep down I realise that the call centre droid doesn’t know any better – a successful product of the school system if ever there was one. Also, if I’m honest, then in a twice-removed (via a couple of contracts) sort of way, I’m guilty of exactly the same thing. Isn’t hypocrisy great.

I’ll leave it as an excercise for the reader to work out what particular kind of call-centre droid I called. Wait a minute – I am “the reader”, and I know already. That was easy.