So far we’ve looked at how we can be overly nice and how that causes us by default to be mean to someone else, which is normally ourselves and sometimes someone else like a spouse. We also considered how being overly nice can cause collateral damage to others as the nice-oholic is indirectly mean to others when they’re being mean to themselves. This leaves a very important question: What does it mean to be properly nice or as I call it, nice to a point?
The other week a good friend recommended someone to fix our vaulted ceiling that peaks at 23 feet in our yet to be finished new room (it’s a big room). It needed repairing from a leak, which was a recently discovered gift caused by someone who had already proved incompetent and had been fired (incompetence is the gift keeps giving). The damage would’ve been more upsetting to me, but we already needed to fix the ceiling because the original drywaller was garbage. (Yea?) Sorry, let me rephrase that: He screwed us over. (I’m not sure if that’s a better problem.) Considering how many years he had been taping drywall (and how much he bragged about his skill), he knew what he was doing when he did a terrible job on the ceiling, especially since where we could see was pretty good. In the daylight from the ground the ceiling looked fine, but up close from on the scaffolding, you could see how bad it was, and it was made obvious for everyone to see when the lights were on. Unfortunately, when he was working, we didn’t have our ceiling lights working yet. Knowing we’d have lights on eventually, however, didn’t bother him. Why? Because he was moving up north after our job (a fact he didn’t tell us until later when we tried to reach him). The worst part was he preached Jesus to everyone including me (an ordained pastor) and insisted on listening to the Bible on audio when he worked. That being said, anyone who claims to be a Christian, but refuses to go to church because they think they’re above it is definitely missing an important part of the message. Considering the New Testament insists that believers are the “Body of Christ” and regularly talks about corporate worship for encouragement and to keep each other accountable, he must not have been listening to his audio Bible very closely. Maybe if he had someone keeping him accountable, he would’ve done his job properly and not skimped on it to save himself time.
The person our friend recommended came by the next day, checked out the room, and said if I rented scaffolding they’d be happy to do the ceiling. This person told me they could do two days one week and then they’d be away for a week. What’s nice to a point? I knew it was a job requiring more than two days and scaffolding isn’t cheap to rent, so I suggested we wait until they could dedicate a solid amount of time to do the job. I was nice to a point, and they agreed. About a month later we were set. I put up the three levels of scaffolding, and when this person arrived they confessed they were afraid of heights – what? My wife, being scared of heights herself, told this person not to bother and that I would take care of it. That’s an example of someone being overly nice to one person and screwing someone else over. Why did I want to hire someone? Because I didn’t have time or the desire to do the job. I downplayed my wife’s suggestion (as nice as I could) and encouraged this person to do the job like they originally offered because I already had the scaffolding up. This person needed help getting up and down the ladder and I had to do a few cuts for them because they couldn’t handle reaching up to do it. At the end of the first day, they said they’re much better when there are only two levels of scaffolding, which was fine because the majority of the work was only two levels. I agreed to do the very top if they could do lower parts. The next day, however, they sent me a message while I was working to say they did about 15 minutes of work in six hours because they were so scared and they would need to hire an emotional support person to help them do the job. It turned out they could no longer handle the two levels either (bummer).
I give this person credit because they really wanted to finish what they offered to do, but it was time to call it. Trying to be nice, I messaged asking if we should just call it (asking is nicer than telling) and they agreed (and were probably very grateful to be let off the hook for the job). The bottom line is this person had been overly nice saying they would do the job, which meant they were being mean to themselves and indirectly to us. They should never have agreed to it in the first place because of the height, which ended up costing me an unnecessary chunk of money renting scaffolding and the time to set it up and tear it down. This person should’ve been nice to a point and simply said, “I’d like to do this job, but I’m scared of heights, so I’ll have to pass.” It would’ve been better for all of us, especially since the person I talked to after said if I had talked to him a month ago he would’ve done it right away, but now I’d have to wait two to four months before he was available (a bigger bummer).
Overall, I would say I’ve been overly trusting with a lot of the people I’ve hired, which led to a lot of my problems. In this case, however, I would say I was nice to a point because I trust my friend and if she said this person was very good then I should be able to trust it. I was told in business and construction, you can only get up to two of the three main goals: cheap, fast, and good. For instance, had money not been an issue, this project would have been done a long time ago and it would’ve been fast and good. At one point I was settling for people showing up because finding good help was so difficult. In this situation the drywall “fixer” contacted me because they were given my number. They also showed up like they said they would and it was very easy to negotiate with them. If it was a normal room, I’m sure they would’ve been great. Not only would they have shown up, they would’ve been good and cheap. Unfortunately, they were scared of heights, which was something I hadn’t even considered being a risk when they were approaching me about doing the job. I keep finding worst case situations with this room.
So what does nice look like?
- Knowing when to say yes or no: The above situation is a good reminder that sometimes we need to say no or it can make it worse for you and/or others. Other times, we need to push ourselves because saying yes is good for us even if we don’t “feel” like doing it.
- Having integrity: Being nice means you don’t do a crappy job thinking you’ll get away with it like the original drywaller did. As I was taught, “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters.” (Col 3:23, NIV)
- Aim for mutual benefit: My brother has a large pool with a heater – it’s pretty sweet. My family is allowed to go swimming Sunday afternoons and the one week I got there to find he was still doing yard work. His lawn takes him about three hours a week (like a sucker), which is a lot more than my 15 minutes. While my girls were swimming with his kids, I helped him with the lawn. Part of me was glad to have a break from the family to do a mindless task (I’ll admit it) and the other part wanted my brother to know we weren’t taking advantage of him. There was a definite mutual benefit in that moment.
- Find nicer ways to be honest: We need to be honest, but we don’t want to be rude or hurtful about it. For instance, if a wife asks if the outfit she’s chosen looks good and it doesn’t, you shouldn’t lie (even though many guys find that easier). We should be honest, but there’s a nicer way than “Ew, gross, no!” or “Oink, oink.” One option would be, “It’s not my taste,” or “I’ve seen you wear better.” Honesty should be done with consideration of a person’s feelings.
- Use simple responses: Simply saying things like “Wow,” and “That’s interesting,” are generally much more appreciated than being corrected, criticized, or brushed off. For instance, I recently said to my wife, “Is it just when I talk or does my family tend to shut everyone down or correct them when they try to share something?” and her response was “They don’t correct you.” She not only missed answering my question, she corrected me. It wasn’t a blatant correction, but a good listener would’ve answered my question or simply replied, “That’s too bad it feels that way,” and then pointed out that she doesn’t think they correct me. Letting this correction moment go, I offered an example, “Tonight I mentioned our church had a guest speaker from Jews for Jesus and he shared how the location where Abraham was told to sacrifice his son was actually the spot where Jesus was later hung on the cross, the response from two of them was ‘Our pastor’s been to Israel and he gives good points, too.” Instead of her saying something simple like “I can see how you felt that way,” or something to affirm me before adding her point, she went straight to “They were just adding to the conversation.” At this point I shut down (like I did earlier in the night with when those two people said their point) because nice people know when not to push their own agenda in order to prevent a potential conflict even if it leaves them feeling a bit suppressed – it’s the better of the two potential options.
- Ask questions: Using the above example, instead of correcting me, my wife could’ve asked questions to help me feel like what I was sharing mattered. Questions are great. I recently asked someone, “What’s the best thing you’ve learned this summer,” and it led to one of the most interesting conversations I’ve had in awhile.
- Give timelines: I often have clients mention how someone has sent them a message they don’t know how to answer, so they just don’t respond. I always recommend at least sending a note to give a timeline for when they will properly respond. It’s not nice to leave people hanging. Avoiding people and/or situations typically leads to a bigger blow up later.
This week may you consider what you can do to be nice to a point.
Rev. Chad David, ChadDavid.ca, learning to love dumb people (like me)