Thoughtful Thursdays: Dis-R.E.S.P.E.C.T.
Once upon a time, the great Aretha Franklin preached about the principle of giving and getting respect. While her song Respect was more about give and take in a relationship, this same principle can be applied to production.
As a producer, you are guaranteed to run into all sorts of situations where you will feel disrespected or you may disrespect people without knowing it.
For me, I've been slowly expanding my production company - La Ti Do Productions - into a dynamic team with the goal of making our program offerings diverse, inclusive, and entertaining. In doing so, sometimes this topic comes up for discussion, so I wanted to expand it to a wider realm of chit-chat.
I want to address the topic of DIS-respect because in a world where we're always talking about being politically correct and where we're more considerate than we've ever been as a society, (albeit there are exceptions to my inference), people seem to love tossing this word around without actually having a valid reason to claim it.
Defined from Dictionary.com:
Disrespect - in regard to human interaction - IS the feeling that you've been shown a lack of courtesy relating to your personality, intelligence, personal appearance, etc.
Disrespect is NOT a result of a producer, director, or manager asking you a question or making an assumption about you based on historical evidence of your work ethic.
Let me be clearer...
Unless a producer calls you an inappropriate name, calls you out for something that has nothing to do with your job, harasses you inappropriately, or something similar... you were NOT disrespected. You were managed... old school style.
The job of a producer is hard. It's his or her responsibility to make sure the entire operation is running smoothly and that there are no deterrents to success. Therefore, if you were fired because of a lack of productivity... you weren't disrespected. You were fired.
So, with all that said, let's all be more cognizant of what disrespect is and isn't. It's not about a tone. It's not about an eye-roll. In this setting, it's about content of the message and the intent behind it.
Can you apply this clarification to anything you've experienced lately?
DISCLAIMER: This is part of a series of weekly posts where I give my opinion on hot-button issues in the production world. They will always be my opinion and are always meant to spark conversation!
