The Golden Rule - What does it mean today?
There are many variations of the Golden Rule and most religions have one. Here are many examples. I like to think of a version that means not to just do what you would like someone to do to / for you, but what they would like to be done to / for them, which might be different from what I'd like, especially in this multicultural society. Of course, it's hard to know what someone else might want, so I at least try to think what I might want in a similar situation.
Today it was something as simple as contacting a web site owner that their website was messed up. It wasn't so messed up that I couldn't find the contact info. It turns out that it was like that since Februrary - 10 mos. and no one told them. It is likely it had at least a few visits by real people each of the 40+ weeks it was in that condition, but no one contacted them. They were thankful that I let them know. It was a matter of having too many domain names and one didn't get pointed to the new website.
I also try to use it in my business. Many businesses strive for customer satisfaction, but there have to be limits. Nonetheless, those limits can be explained in a polite and professional manner. In a large corporation, it would not be a requirement of any of the staff to take that level of effort unless they had sales people who were trying to make a sale. Once the sale is made, I have found that in order to keep a customer, sometimes they outright lie to them. This happened to me with Quicken Loans and it was very frustrating. They were successful in keeping us as customers for 2+ years. It is sad when the only thing important is the money. I hope most people have jobs or run businesses that don't lead to that.
"[M]any of us believe that the Golden Rule does not go far enough! We need to apply the ethic of reciprocity not only within our own community, but when dealing with persons of other religions, the other gender, other races, other sexual orientations, etc. And we need to apply it, in fact, to the web of life and the Earth itself." - Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Visalia
Today it was something as simple as contacting a web site owner that their website was messed up. It wasn't so messed up that I couldn't find the contact info. It turns out that it was like that since Februrary - 10 mos. and no one told them. It is likely it had at least a few visits by real people each of the 40+ weeks it was in that condition, but no one contacted them. They were thankful that I let them know. It was a matter of having too many domain names and one didn't get pointed to the new website.
I also try to use it in my business. Many businesses strive for customer satisfaction, but there have to be limits. Nonetheless, those limits can be explained in a polite and professional manner. In a large corporation, it would not be a requirement of any of the staff to take that level of effort unless they had sales people who were trying to make a sale. Once the sale is made, I have found that in order to keep a customer, sometimes they outright lie to them. This happened to me with Quicken Loans and it was very frustrating. They were successful in keeping us as customers for 2+ years. It is sad when the only thing important is the money. I hope most people have jobs or run businesses that don't lead to that.
"[M]any of us believe that the Golden Rule does not go far enough! We need to apply the ethic of reciprocity not only within our own community, but when dealing with persons of other religions, the other gender, other races, other sexual orientations, etc. And we need to apply it, in fact, to the web of life and the Earth itself." - Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Visalia