The Inherently Transactional Nature Of Many Relationships

There’s beauty in the world and in people, but it’s not there at every turn, no.

Years ago, when I was still married to a different person and her brother was alternating between being one of my best friends and an annoying pest, I wrote a three-paragraph article on my old blog about whether “true altruism was possible,” i.e. does anyone really do something solely out of the goodness of their heart? I am not sure. I mean, maybe saints and Mother Teresa (is she a saint yet?) and maybe a few old women in your neighborhood who bake brownies for new residents, but even those people must do something along the way that’s for themselves. So, I’m not sure we have a truly, fully altruistic person strolling among us. Maybe tho. Maybe I’m just spiteful and bitter. I vary on that perspective by day.

I don’t really remember why I connected that post to my ex’s brother, but I know at the time it was tied. Odd what we remember.

Well, this morning I was talking to one of my friends, who does HR at a big Fortune 500 company, about the transactional nature of relationships. Obviously this is a series of different buckets. Most employment relationships, unless you’re the founder/owner of a place, are transactional — especially in deeply “at-will” environments…