Have you noticed everyone's on their worst behaviour?

Photo by Aleksandar Pasaric.

We were supposed to go out on Saturday night. But it poured. Not quite as much as predicted but the forecast alone meant we rebooked for Sunday.

The first date night in 500 days.

People assume when you work with your spouse that you get sick of each other. But that's not quite right. When you work with your spouse, you need to make extra sure you've got time for the other identities, lest you become great coworkers trapped in a crappy marriage.

So we find ourselves out, sans kids, for the first time in forever. Worried that we've forgotten how to govern ourselves at a restaurant without nuggets, we tell our server about the 500 days thing.

She says, "Man, that's a lot of pressure. I hope I don't mess it up."

We laugh. Someone else making dinner. Completing a thought. No one asking for ketchup. These are our measures of success for the evening.

She looks around the patio and explains, "There's basically two kinds of people coming in right now. People like you who are just happy to be out. And people who don't understand why things aren't exactly like they were before."

There are two kinds of people

This is something we're seeing everywhere. That sharpness as we come back into contact with the rest of humanity.

For many of us, home is the place where we let it all hang out. We fart, we burp, we take our dirty socks off and leave them on the floor in a giant pile. We wear soft pants. And we don't have to worry too much about what other people think. Not always. Some of us have super judgey families or roommates. But for the vast majority of us, the last stretch has been an exercise in extended, anti-social behaviour. Definitionally.

So what does it mean for us to have to come back to hard pants and politeness and niceties? What does it mean to step back into spaces that expect prosocial norms? Particularly when we're already feeling depleted.

It looks like annoyance that the grocery store, a place you can finally, finally go in person, doesn't have any of the right brands on the shelf. Frustration that camps, finally, finally reopened, need more forms than the DMV. And then irritation you have to show ID to get your own kid. Which is a great policy. But also, ugh.

And if, like our server, your job has you in contact with the public, you've seen the worst of it.

This will show up at your work, too

It already has, hasn't it? People who are frustrated. Sharp. Daring someone to call them on it and spoiling for a fight. If you're managing a group of people, you see it in slack messages. The passive aggressive ones. But also the aggressive aggressive ones.

On the one hand, it's always good practice to avoid over-interpreting written text. You can fall into the trap of projecting emotions onto people, or pretending to read their minds. And still, with all that caution in place, some people are being assholes, aren't they? Even the people who didn't used to be assholes.

It's not like we don't understand. It's not like we don't have those feelings, too. The desire to have a fight, just so there will be something clear to fight against. Someone to fight against.

The great talent reshuffling makes it harder to reason about all this, too. Because yes, Alex is being more of a jerk than usual. But if we've had six resignations this month in a team of 20 people, can we afford to push back and risk losing a seventh? Isn't it more compassionate to remind ourselves how hard it's been, and cut everyone some slack?

You can see how bosses would get there. Like restaurants, scared of losing customers even if they're being awful. Even if they're making the other customers, or the staff, feel unsafe. Just put them at table 6 in the corner. Just give him some work to do that doesn't involve talking to other teams very much.

You can also see what happens next. People looking for a fight will escalate until they find one.

Boundaries > Appeasement

If you're a boss, part of what we're paying you for is expectation setting. We've talked about this. Even after the year we've had. Even with a heart full of compassion and understanding. Even with the long term in mind, and giving grace for the short term missteps we'll all make as we come back together. It's still your job to ensure that work is a safe place for your people.

And it's still fair to expect adults to show up as adults.

Compassion might mean that you have the first conversation privately. The conversation that starts with "My expectation is..." and ends with a clear understanding about what is and isn't acceptable. But compassion doesn't mean letting abuse slide. The recipient of that abuse deserves leaders who have their back. That compassion matters, too.

One of our favourite restauranteurs is a woman named Jen Agg. She runs several restaurants throughout Toronto. In each of them you can feel the care and attention that she and her staff put into every element. They are places you want to spend time. She's being inundated right now with anti-vaxxers, looking for a fight. And rather than appeasing them and parking them over at table 6, she's... well, she's doing the other thing.

There aren't two kinds of people

You might not be the person fighting with wait staff. We really hope that you aren't. And if you are, you gotta stop. But our hunch is that you are a person who's felt that impatient frustration lately. That "why can't this just be what I want it to be, I've waited so long" person. Maybe we've all been that person, at least in our inside voices. But if you spend too long there, it will leak to your outside voice.

We don't have a magic solution for that. But our server points to a thing that might help. You are finally, finally on a patio. One option is to jump to all the ways it falls short. The masking. The waiting. The entrees that still haven't made their way back to the menu. Another option is to savour the finally. To marvel at a tap list full of names you don't know. A menu full of food you don't have to cook yourself. And a patio of strangers, stepping back into shared spaces.

Gratitude doesn't get rid of the frustration on its own. Like we said, it isn't magic. But it's a counter-balance to the sharp. It gives you a bit more willingness to rebuild those atrophied prosocial muscles. And if that doesn't work, order an appetizer. You might just be hungry.

- Melissa and Johnathan