There's a saying, often attributed to French Enlightenment writer, philosopher, satirist, and historian François-Marie Arouet, better known by his pen name Voltaire, that advises:
"Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good."
Meaning that striving for flawlessness (the perfect) often prevents people from completing, implementing, or appreciating a valuable, functional, adequate, but imperfect result (the good).
Perfection is rarely attainable and even if it is attained, it's rarely sustainable. Chasing perfection in your personal life can lead to a life of missing out on all the little joys along the way.
However, no one wants to fly on an aircraft whose pilot settles for "close enough" on landings. No one wants a meal that the chef settled for "not bad." No one wants their accommodations to be close to clean.
Perfection in the professional world, especially in the service industry, should be the goal. But some people take their laissez faire attitude from their personal life to work with them. Then wonder why their boss or coworkers are always finding fault with their efforts.
A man whose having trouble separating his personal life from his professional one turned to the "Am I The A**hole" (AITA) subReddit for feedback.
Successful_Bar9187 asked:
"AITA for tell my Type A perfectionist sister-in-law (SIL) that she’s gonna f**k up her baby’s life if she doesn’t change?"
The original poster (OP) explained:
"My SIL (32, female) and myself (26, male) are working together. We’ve been working at the same organization and have been at it for years now. When I first began working here, we had several meetings with other colleagues, including team-building exercises."
"We even learned our enneagrams and personality types. We have shared duties in the hospitality department for 2 months, and it’s the first time I’ve worked with her. I know she’s type A, but I didn’t know how far it could get."
"The issues began within the first week. She’d nitpick at this and that. 'That bedsheet isn’t folded properly' or 'those shoes aren’t aligned correctly'…. There was always something she’d find that she didn’t like about what I did."
"As a type B, I could just allow those things to roll over me. But over time it got more and more difficult to ignore."
"The day before last, I had prepared a guest room for our organization's CEO. I know him well and he’s a close friend. I had just finished the room prep when she came in and started accusing me of not doing a good job."
"She said that one side of the quilt was hanging off too much over the right side of the bed (barely could notice it). I had used the 'wrong' room freshener as it was 'more feminine'. There were so many tiny things that she found wrong with the work that I’d done, insisting that it must be to the perfect standard she had somehow instilled as law."
"She’s also pregnant and expecting. That’s contributed to her usual amount of smug perfectionism. My brother, her husband, is on a trip. He’s also a perfectionist so they both are perfect for each other."
"No matter what I said to calm her down, she’d interrupt me and yell. So at the end, I said what was on my mind for a while. I told her that if she doesn’t learn to manage her obsession for perfectionism, she’s gonna f*ck up her baby's life."
"I said that her kid is gonna grow up in an environment where they will always feel inadequate and incapable of pleasing their mother. That they’ll grow up with all kinds of emotional trauma if she were to expect from them a high standard of perfectionism."
"She burst out crying and began to accuse me of not understanding. She’s only 1 month pregnant, and I’ve been working with her for 2 months now. She’s been like this from the start, and some of our mutual sympathizing friends have said that she always sets unreachable, unrealistic, perfectionist standards for everyone."
"So AITA for telling her this?"
"I feel like I said it to her as a duty for the sake of her kid who’s gonna be my family too, and not as a way to insult her."
The OP later added:
"We are both equals at work. Hospitality isn’t our main job; it’s just a shared duty. The scale of our hospitality is just a few rooms we prep for a guest, usually a colleague from a different branch. This isn’t the Ritz nor is it a regular hotel."
The OP summed up why they might be the a**hole in their situation.
"The action I took was to say that her perfectionist behavior would mess up the life of her baby. That action may make me the a**hole as it may be a boundary I shouldn’t have crossed, as she’s also pregnant and it may be disrespectful."
"If someone called me an a**hole, I’d probably agree with them because regardless of why I said it, it’s still a terrible thing to say to a mother who is expecting her first child. She’s probably already, as a Type A, extremely worried about how she’s gonna raise this kid to the perfect standards she’s set for herself."
"What I may have done wrong is make her believe she’s gonna be a failure at parenting as that’s what she fears most."
Redditors weighed in by declaring:
- NTA - Not The A**hole
- YTA - You're The A**hole
- NAH - No A**holes Here
- ESH - Everyone Sucks Here
- INFO - more information needed
Redditors decided the OP was the a**hole (YTA).
"So you work in hospitality, or hospitality adjacent, and think half-a$$ing everything is OK. By your own admission, your work is inconsistent and substandard. Get out of the service industry then. It requires 'perfection.'"
"Your sister-in-law is not nitpicking based on the examples you gave. She's trying to maintain the professional standards that are required in your profession and you don't care. You're the office f*ck-up that everyone has to constantly fix their work and you don't even recognize it."
"There are jobs that are fine with 'close enough,' but hospitality and anything service industry is definitely not one of them. No one wants to enter a hotel room or cruise ship cabin that's 'sort of' clean and 'kind of' tidy, where things aren't lined up properly, folded consistently, and where the bedding is barely noticeably askew. That's how you described your own work."
"Your SIL is just meeting the minimum requirements for your job and asking you to do the same. Your half-a$$ed sloppy performance reflects poorly on your entire workplace. I'd give you hell if I was stuck working with you too."
"But I'd report your incompetence because you're sloppy and you don't care. Instead of getting you fired like you should be, your SIL is trying to help you and you respond like a petulant child."
"Instead of recognizing your 'yeah, whatever...' attitude is the problem, you decide to say the cruelest thing you can think of to attack the person doing their job correctly and trying to help you too."
"Grow the f*ck up. 'Type B' personality doesn't mean you get to not do your job to the standards it requires. YTA. Massively." ~ MohawMais
"YTA, but I want to also add that reducing someone’s personality to one of two types is very flawed and is a seriously oversimplified personality model, especially when describing someone who is just well suited to their job." ~ Present-Aside8155
"You claim, 'I feel like I said it to her as a duty for the sake of her kid who’s gonna be my family too'. No, you didn't. You said it because you were angry and annoyed at her."
"You're just trying to justify saying something rude to her, because you know very well it was not okay and you feel guilty. If it were truly for the sake of her kid, you would've brought it up very differently." ~ Informal-Insurance63
"YTA. This is a workplace. If you don't like how a colleague is acting, you address it with them and have a conversation and escalate to your manager if need be. You do not make comments about their pregnancy and future child. Totally inappropriate.
"You wrote, 'I feel like I said it to her as a duty for the sake of her kid'. That's not true. You said it because she was pissing you off, nit picking your work. You were not worried about a baby in this moment, that's bullsh*t."
"What you said crossed a line - you made a personal attack and it was not coming from a place of kindness or genuine concern." ~ happybanana134
"It also is untrue. I have a type A mom and love her to death. She didn't ruin us." ~ OldMaidsAreCool
"Also why is his work still sloppy? It sounds like she’s told him several times." ~ Otherwise_Chemist920
"Because he's 'type b' which is basically a socially acceptable way of saying he's a lazy a**hole who doesn't give a f*ck about his job." ~ catbro1004
"I am not a perfectionist by far. I’m lazy, etc... except when it comes to my job. The OP has virtually no work ethic. If my boss or a coworker or even a subordinate had to keep telling me I was doing something sloppily, I’d be so embarrassed." ~ Karma-leigh
"Of all the things you could have commented on, you chose to throw a jab at her unborn child? YTA and already a sh*tty uncle since you think you’re justified." ~ Yzma92
"YTA. I’m type B, and it’s tiring hearing people use that as an excuse to be careless. It sounds like you possibly work in hospitality, and all the things your SIL mentioned are important."
"Even if you were, for example, setting up a conference room, ambiance is important. You can’t have disorganized files not stacked neatly, distracting smells, chairs skewed in different directions, while meeting the CEO."
"It doesn’t matter if they’re a close friend; it’s unprofessional. You projecting your work squabbles—her work ethic versus your lazy, sloppy performance—as an attack against her motherhood is major a**hole behavior." ~ No_Whole9920
OP may want to rethink their own professional attitude.
"Close enough" isn't likely to get him very far in an industry that demands consistent standards be met.
