this is a series of blog posts sponsored by generous contributors who helped cover my renewal costs for this site. First up is Ben Waddington (@falsedog) who’s subject ‘take people as you find them’ had me stumped for a while

Take People As You Find Them

My Nan was very proud that she took people as she found them, she often said this, when questioned, about the bikers she knew. My Granddad used to say things like ‘Nick Knack Noo’ and randomly shouted ‘HEY – ty two AND a quarter’. So you can see why I favoured Nan.

My Nan and Mom both worked at the arcade in Rednal that was locally known as ‘The Doss’ or ‘the copper coin’ after the six foot in diameter back lit penny sign.  This for many years was a biker hangout. The fact I grew up around bikers, flashing lights and repetitive noises actually will explain a lot about my attention span and general attitude to those that know me.

These days its no real surprise that bikers in this country aren’t the violent sociopaths that populate the American and Australian gangs. Most a decent working men with families. Of course that’s not to say they’re all angels, I mean they are groups of testosterone driven males with reputations to uphold and fondness for chains.

But back then there was still a stigma attached to the bikers and many people wouldn’t look past their appearance. Many people didn’t know for instance that the MAG rally from the Lickey Hills that still goes on to this day, is not just a protest against the helmet laws, but is also a massive fund raising event for local children’s charities. I still remember scores of men of all shades of leather and hair on bikes, I remember the smell of exhaust as hundreds of chrome and rubber monsters rode past. My nan never made any judgements about these guys, they looked after her and she still tells story of the one biker running in front of moving traffic to grab a small child that had wandered away from his parents into the busy road.

I’ve got to admit that I still have trouble understanding ‘take people as you find them’. I used to work with kids that had been expelled from school, often from underprivileged background and with criminal records. I would often find these guys to be rude, obnoxious, and downright aggressive. If we at the centre had carried on expecting this standard of behaviour this is exactly what we would have got. So we expected more and often got it.

But there’s another meaning, these kids I worked with did have scary reputation and the files we were allowed to read were horrible. But I made a decision early on to to be polite to the kids that were polite to me regardless of their past transgressions (‘transgressions’ being a nice term for ‘holding a knife to a stranger’). This often paid off.

Those kids were a lot like the Bikers, exiled from the mainstream with only half deserved reputations. And in both instances it’s not so much about them, its about you and the bullshit you bring to any relationship you have. Not too drag the best out of people but give them the room to impress you. And most importantly treat people how they treat you.

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