Paving The Road To Hell

Accommodation is the trowel of a scoundrel

The road to hell, they say, is paved with good intentions. I grew up with grandparents repeating that line and it never really made sense until now. It was usually hurled at me after I came up with some harebrained idea about how to make my life, and thus the world, a better place. Things seem so easy to me as a child, and I could never understand why adults wanted to muddy it up with some old adage about good intentions being the devil's low hanging fruit.

Today's topic got me thinking about compliance. As an executive of a mid-sized company, we create what are called "Policies and Procedures." These are handbooks which are basically a set of rules designed to keep our company and employees within the guidelines of legal compliance and ethical boundaries. It is generally boring stuff we suffer our staff through so we can check the box that they have be duly informed about the safety and legality of their specific job. God bless the compliance creators as it is oft a thankless but necessary job.

Our goal in writing policies is to boil down the intentions of the rule or requirement of law to a simple "idiot proof" level. We give the employee a basic overview of the policy, why it is important, what are the consequences of noncompliance and inform them to smile while making eye contact with the guest. I added that last part, but it should be at the end of all our policies. However, throughout my 45+ hospitality career, no matter how "idiot proof" we made a policy, there is always a George Costanza waiting in the wings to challenge our efforts.

My issue today is not with compliance, it is with accommodations granted that skirt established guidelines. Accommodations are the exceptions to the rule and today, they are being batted about with reckless abandon. To be sure, understanding fairness and accommodations is innate in all human development. Even children understand the fairness concept of first come first serve. So, when a child cuts the lunch or milk line, they are aware of the rule they are breaking yet are seeking accommodation. They will argue that they have a meeting with a teacher, or they are really thirsty. They claim “elite” status and beg indulgence for their infraction. My point is, they innately knew the rule and chose to break it. To further that point, every family has an arbiter of fairness, the child that inspects every slice of pie to ensure equal portions for all. So, when our institutions make accommodations for “special” circumstances, it triggers a built-in anger response by those left toeing the institutional line.

One of the greatest challenges of leadership is having the power to grant accommodations yet lacking the wisdom of how to use it. Far too many leaders believe their role is precisely to make accommodation judgments. I mean, C-Suite membership has its privileges and why not wield that influence by fixing the few wrongs in this world? The aggrieved are all about us and the trowel in the right hands can fix a multitude of “sins” by granting accommodations. Sadly, too many leaders opted for making the accommodation that “feels” good rather than making the difficult yet just decision of ordering the baby be split in half.

The bevy of accommodations being hurled about these days are staggering. From support animals on airplanes to early voting and mail in ballets in our various states, the push to accommodate virtually every inconvenient nuance of individuals’ lives is appalling. But what leaders don’t understand is that issuing an accommodation to forgive a violation of the rules to one person creates privilege status to the grantee and chump status to the rest of the people that follow the rule.

Nowhere is this, privileged verses chump dichotomy playing out greater than President Joe Biden executive order to forgive student loans. This single order elevates millions of students to instant privileged status, while at the same time making chumps out of every family that planned and saved for their children’s education. It also is a stick in the eye to all student loan borrowers that have repaid their loans and to every single taxpayer left footing the bill. Finally, and most egregiously, President Biden’s edict rewards the institutions of “higher” learning by not only holding them harmless for profiting from this government sponsored loan scheme of granting worthless degrees to unsuspecting students, but by allowing them to continue their tuition charging charade. This new presidential accommodation is a mighty trowel smoothing the road for universities to charge even higher tuitions fees to their unsuspecting yet privileged future classes.

Yes indeed, the privileged classes of ’27 are currently undergoing orientation across these fruited plains. They are currently learning the rules and regulations of their respective universities. What they don’t know yet, is that throughout their four years of continued matriculation, they will be witnessing their school’s deans, social workers and diversity officers issuing accommodation after accommodation to every conceivable aggrievement under the sun. The class of ’27 has entered a relative hellscape paved by good intentions of accommodating leaders. What they have not yet learned is that under the ivy-covered walls, is inscribed the immortal words, “Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter Here!”

Giving that there is only a “Stairway to Heaven” and a “Highway to Hell,” I think we have a notion of the expected traffic patterns to our final destination. For those who recognize the destructive pattern of relativity resulting from our leaders wielding the trowels of accommodation, the question remains, are our leaders ignorant to the tragic results of creating privileged verses chump classes or are they entirely aware that their actions create discord? For with the former, there is hope that enlightenment is possible and errors in judgment can be corrected. Unfortunately, too many are coming to believe it is the latter and if that is the case, lord nefarious must be identified and defeated. For right now, hell is in full production of mortar and our schools and universities are troweling out accommodations with more fervency than Pope Leo X advocated for his road paving indulgences.

At the rate our education system is churning out pavers, perhaps Lucifer is building runways so he can transport his denizens to their particular circle even faster. I see no flaw in this assumption as it has been obvious for some time now that the airline industry, with their hellish rules and restrictions, has been in the devil’s court. I just hope they will allow me fly with my alligator support animal…