On the Importance of Being Nice

There's an old saying that you should always be careful whom you abuse on the way up, because you'll see them again on the way down. In general, it's safest to be nice. I learned this to my detriment a couple of years ago when I wrote a negative review about a book in my field. I thought I was as generous as I could be while still being truthful, but sometimes the truth doesn't matter. When my own book eventually came out, this author slammed me as hard as she could in a negative review of her own. Would she have been less vindictive if I had been more generous myself the first time around? It's hard to say....this person has a reputation for being a bit off, and truthfully I've never seen her write a kind review about anyone she sees as a threat. But still, if I'd been nicer myself, I would have to be having these second thoughts about it now.

What got me thinking about this was a dream I had last night about an old acquaintance from graduate school...someone who had, I thought, been rather aloof and patronizing, though I was never sure why. I looked her up this morning to find out what had become of her, and behold! Nothing at all had become of her. She had ended up in a non-tenure track lectureship teaching writing--a field far outside her area, and for most of us who pursue Ph.D.s in literature (a completely different field from Rhetoric), sort of a last resort.

Anyway, after discovering what had happened to this old acquaintance, I had a momentary spasm of guilt....because years ago (at a different institution) I happened to be on the review committee that screened incoming applications for a position in the department, and her application was in the pile. Because I thought she was patronizing, I said nothing when her application came up. I could have spoken for her, but I didn't. I said nothing at all.

And so she didn't make the first cut.

This is not to say she'd have gotten the job; there are multiple levels of screening, and this was only the first level. But it's important who speaks up for you in these things. A helpful word or two makes the difference between having your chance or not.

So now there she is, in a lectureship outside her field. I feel bad for her, actually...is she happy there? Would she have wanted to be in that first institution after all?

Still, she had her chance once, too. She should have been a bit nicer.