Anna Valdiserri:

I’ve always found double standards incredibly icky. I understand that sometimes genuinely ok people have unavoidable personality quirks they make up for in other ways. Hell, I have unavoidable (at present) personality quirks I constantly try to make up for. Nobody’s perfect. I also understand that people with specific skillsets may be highly useful to a group even though they have conspicuous failings. However, at times there’s a fine line between putting up with Joe because is really good at coding though he has the social skills of a potato, and “Uncle Joe is fine, really; just never, ever leave him alone with the kids…” At some point, a very rigid line HAS to be drawn, and the more lines have been deleted to accommodate people’s ‘quirks’ the more difficult it gets to pick that point. When I see that kind of attitude becoming the norm in a group, rather than the exception, I get worried; is that line going to be drawn before or after someone gets hurt? And when a group is asking people to tolerate the misbehaviours of those in power just because they are in power… no. Just no.

This kind of thing can get very toxic very quickly in instructor cadres or long-term students. Keep reading at Swimming In Deep Water.