All that, for that?
Performance outrage, solitary salutes, and the oddly human habit of turning
Welcome to Pushing Ink, where we navigate the broken world of work, detour into pop culture, and occasionally embark on whimsy-filled side quests… among other hot topics
Driving hasn’t exactly been fun lately. Not just the astronomical gas prices, the bad eyesight, or a car barely holding itself together at nearly 140,000 miles. Just driving period, especially when, let’s be honest, we all kind of suck at it.
Yes. All of us.
It’s failing to use turn signals. Refusing (or flat-out forgetting) to use cruise control. Treating the speed limit like a polite suggestion. In short, far too many of us act like idiots behind the wheel. And it gets worse when every brake light, every oddly human habit of turning right or left (the latter the bane of my existence in any downtown), or every time someone cuts you off is taken personally.
The other day, I was heading to a work-related event in a neighboring city, late afternoon traffic already thick. A car zipped up alongside me on a two-lane stretch, squeezing between me and the car behind me as the lanes narrowed to one. I shook my tired head, not the least surprised when they passed the second they could, tucking themselves right up behind a dump truck several car lengths ahead.
I gave it no further thought. Let the irrational drivers be ahead of me! I even patted myself on the back for not letting that inner road-rage monster loose, the one that flares in record time when someone insists on riding your bumper, even when traffic’s already moving well above the speed limit.
Onward we went for several miles, speed demon practically welded to the dump truck. The two of them moved so far ahead they disappeared from my radar, until we reached a crossroads at a country stop sign minutes later.
The dump truck signaled right, heading north.
The speed demon signaled left, heading south.
I was already impressed by all the signaling and then what came next took it even further.
As I caught up, the dump truck lumbering through its slow, cumbersome turn, the speed demon lifted his right hand in a perfect, solitary finger salute. Pointed. Deliberate. Veins probably bulging to match the one in the center of his forehead. (I’d bet on it!) A glorious cultural gesture. Only I wasn’t sure who the recipient was. The dump truck, who couldn’t even see it but apparently had the audacity to turn right? Or me, daring to catch up, exist, be female… who knows!
Either way, I was so impressed by the commitment, the sheer conviction in that single finger, that I burst out laughing. The kind of deep, rolling laughs that almost turn into hiccups. I couldn’t help myself. It reminded me of the time some kid tore around a row of cars, including mine, thinking they were hot stuff and ready to show some smoke, only to slam the brakes when they noticed the local police tucked into a corner parking lot, watching. The rest of us had seen them; the knucklehead had not. I laughed so hard I cried.
As to the speed demon with that glorious raised finger, I laughed even harder as they turned and gunned it, tearing down the road in an imaginary cloud of smoke and tire marks. Only to immediately pull into a lone driveway to park at a house I swear couldn’t have been more than 100 feet from the stop sign.
In that short stretch they threw open the car door and … sat there.
“All that, for that?!” I squawked, completely baffled by what I’d just witnessed. I expected the speed demon to leap out of the car, hair on fire, sirens blaring, some emergency, some crisis, some reason for all that fury packed not just into tailgating, but into that glorious, classic middle finger.
Nope.
Nothing.
Nadda.
Not even a rage-fueled charge, foaming at the mouth, coming at my car. You know, Cujo-style, for no reason whatsoever. Not like I had done anything but my imagination can get the best of me sometimes.
All that to sit in their driveway?
The absurdity of road rage never fails to make me think about anger more broadly. How we react when we feel wronged, when our patience snaps, when we think the world owes us something. And it’s this kind of behavior (both on the road and, as I’ve seen countless times in the working world) that’s made me question so many things, but nothing more than leadership.
Emotions are treated like little fee-fees that don’t belong at work. Yet somehow, anger isn’t labeled as an emotion, it’s a leadership skill. Not that anyone will admit it. I saw it so often that, for far too long, I believed anger was leadership. Managers screaming until their faces turned blood-red, veins bulging, spittle flying, throwing threats and accusations like confetti. (Surprisingly, middle-fingers were not the standard.) What they called leadership was really just an inability to regulate emotions, a default (fear-loaded) setting masquerading as authority. No apologies ever forthcoming because they, too, equated anger to leadership skills.
Yes, anger has its place, like any emotion. It’s valid. But if it’s the only one you bring as a leader (or in life in general) that’s a problem. I’m sorry (not) but employees are not verbal punching bags any more than they’d be physical ones.
Employees and colleagues are not here to regulate someone else’s emotions. Especially not when that someone holds power.
Same goes for driving.
Don’t get me wrong, I like to give empathy its due. I hear my mother’s voice in my head: maybe they had a bad day, maybe there’s a reason (a valid one) for acting like an idiot behind the wheel. Surely there’s a reason the speed demon hugged everyone’s bumper and flipped off… someone. But this is the same woman who once handed cash to a lone stranger outside a fabric store because their car (supposedly) ran out of gas and they didn’t have money. I railed against the implications, the danger, the red flags of that one. Only to hear, but maybe they were telling the truth.
Empathy has its moments. Neither of these (speed demon, stranded stranger, emotionally unregulated leaders) are it.
So, back to the speed demon with the perfect middle-finger salute, because this is what it looks like, getting mad about nothing. Mind you, I’ve had my own hothead moments in the car (or life in general) blowing my gasket and feeling foolish later. But recognizing it, learning to self-regulate, that’s where real power and leadership live. Watching that little theater unfold over ten or fifteen minutes was embarrassing, but oddly clarifying.
All that anger. All that vitriol. A full ten-out-of-ten middle-finger performance. And then, to pull into your driveway and, I don’t know, stew? It made me wonder if this was a daily ritual. Blowing people off the road, throwing shade, only to sit in a driveway and contemplate life or perhaps dwell on the commute, the enemies you made along the way.
That last image is the one that stuck. Not the speeding. Not the salute. Just someone sitting in their driveway, engine ticking, fury (hopefully) cooling, while the world keeps spinning like nothing happened.
A tiny roadside opera. Performance outrage, if you will. Curtain drops. Nobody claps, because there wasn’t even a special guest appearance by Cujo.
Bummer.
What do you think?
Until next time, my friends—take your breaks, chase a sidequest or two, breathe, and be ready to lead with a little whimsy.
Beth aka The Pushing Ink
Now for some humor
About me
I’ve been fascinated by the broken world of work (and other random hot topics) for as long as I can remember. My first job was at 12, delivering newspapers, an early lesson in unpredictability, absurdity, and the occasional human weirdness. Since then, it’s been one head-scratching employment adventure after another.
I initially went back to school late-ish to become a divorce counselor, but life nudged me toward what actually excites me: poking at the quirks, snobbery, and chaos of work itself. I earned a bachelor’s in Applied Psychology (work psych) in 2014 and a master’s in Organizational Leadership in 2018.
I’ve spent decades bouncing in and out of newspapers (city beats, courtrooms, the whole nine yards) and wandering through the nonprofit world’s strange corridors. Now, with Pushing Ink (a former newspaper column turned passion project), I write about leadership, people-pleasing and the tyranny of niceness, pop culture, humor, the occasional absurd sidequest and more.
Still very much a work-in-progress like myself, you can find me online under The Pushing Ink on YouTube and other social channels (minus the former bird app), where I keep experimenting with whimsy, insights, and chaos.