How to handle poor social behaviour to a old senior from a colleague?

Question

Background

I am working in a small business (< 15 employees) as a software developer. Roughly half of us are. The rest is working as IT specialists for system integration. The coworker I am speaking of is working in this field. He is doing his apprenticeship here and is currently in the second year, if I am not mistaken (could still be first year too). Even though he is an apprentice, he has customer appointments, so he is away for 2/3 of the time.

For simplicity, let's just call him 'Jake' from now on.

Our office is located in a building with apartments in every floor above the base floor. So there are ~20 parties living here, who are regularly passing by our office. Most of them are old and already retired. Some of them are kinda weak, so we sometimes have to hold the door open. Of course there are a few seniors who are annoying and seek to talk to us more than we would like to, because we need to work. And I can understand that, because I guess they might be a bit lonely living here. But almost everyone living here is very kind and doesn't do that.

What upsets me

Now to create the connection between the two situations described:

Rarely a senior needs help with IT and we are glad we can provide it. We also do it for little money, just as a gesture (our boss likes and propagates a nice and friendly behaviour in and around the office). When Jake was asked to help an old man with his IT stuff, he did so. No problem at all.

Later that day, the old man came into our office, to give some money to him, because he was helping nicely he told us. Unfortunately, Jake was working somewhere else. So the senior left it on his place. The sum doesn't matter, as this is symbolic for me. I just thought 'what a kind man'.

So when Jake was back the other day and the old man was going to his apartment, I told him: "Yo Jake, the man who left money on your place is there. If I were you I'd go there and say thank you."

He replied "No. I don't mean to be rude, but..." and cut his sentence, staying inactive. I was kind of speechless, because I can recall childhood memories where I could have returned everything I got from people trying to gift me if I did not thank them. Anyway, I was confused and left.

Note: By no means was this man annoying to any of us at all. So this couldn't be the reason.

What happened after that

This left me pretty upset, because even though he saw him a few times after that, he never went to say thanks for the money. I find this situation pretty unbelievable. To put it in perspective: He is 20 years old and doesn't seem to have learned the same lesson I did.

Because we work in a small business, I can say that everyone except him would have thanked the old man with no problem. As I was left in a state of disbelief, I talked to the two coworkers I have a really good connection to and told them what happened. They thought the same.

What I am thinking of doing

I am by no means manager of anyone here. We have a flat hierarchy and most of the time the people who are oldest and have worked here longest are the people who make a decisions here and there, but mostly that responsibility belongs to our boss (of course).

So what are my options? My thoughts are:

• Leave it, it's not worth it
• Talk to him why I think this behaviour is unacceptable socially and why I think it gives a bad image of our company
• Talk to our boss (which I think might be overkill and put me in a bad light)
• Don't care if he knows, but adjust my behaviour to a very distant one

The last option would be my option of choice if it wasn't in a professional environment. Normally in non-professional environments I begin to avoid people like that on the spot, because I respect old people and can't stand any misbehaviour against them.

Answer 1

Why don't lead by example instead of trying to "teach"?

As you mentioned, Jake is junior and still learning things, (maybe both professionally and personally).

• Next time you see the senior resident, thank him for his kindness in front of others, preferably the junior being present.
• The time after, never lose an opportunity to thank someone, be in amongst the peers or others, repeat the act for all other occasions, and the behaviour should spread.

In my experience, most good behaviours are contagious, just like the bad ones.

Answer 2

Either mind your own business, or engage with him in a constructive way.

You are blowing a minor slight way out of proportion, and one customers are certainly not going to notice.

Furthermore, you are showing exactly zero interest in why this happened. Perhaps the part after the "but..." was "but I had to listen to that old guy's racist harangue for 30 minutes while fixing his computer and there was kiddie porn on his computer and I don't really want anything to do with him." Being old doesn't make anyone more kind or moral; the BTK Killer gets old too.

Maybe it's something more personal, like he thinks "I got into IT so I wasn't a barista working for tips and I resent these old weirdos I work with continually pressuring me into doing free work that's not part of my actual paying job. They're at the end of their careers but I'm trying to build mine." Maybe it's something that will make it difficult for your company to retain newer talent in general.

Your chosen options are all aggressive and do not bother to even attempt to come to a place of understanding. Instead of "telling him his behavior is unacceptable" or narcing him out to the boss or shunning him, how about asking him questions? "Hey, you seemed bothered by helping OldGuy23 with his computer, did everything go ok?" In an honest spirit of inquiry, using camaraderie instead of blame, you should be able to find out the underlying causes of this behavior you find so disturbing. Was it something about this person in particular, is it something about needing to do this at all, is it just not thinking someone needs to be thanked multiple times for allowing someone to do mostly unpaid charity work for them?

Find out why. Maybe it'll change what you're thinking; if not, you can just show maturity yourself and continue to set a good example. Or if for whatever reason you're unwilling or unable to unearth those reasons, just do the same and mind your own behavior.

Answer 3

When accepting the apprenticeship, Jack probably thought that he would get valuable work-experience regarding systems integration. Not that he would spend many hours fixing old people's computers. When working on the computer of that old man he didn't learn much related to his study/future line of work, which is the idea of an apprenticeship. I think the notion that Jack should have to thank someone for a few dollars (which I assume the amount was) after performing many hours of skilled work for him is beyond me. If anything the man should thank him for taking him away from his apprenticeship for hours and not insult him with a token reward far below market-value.

UPDATE

I don't say it is wrong to request Jack or any other intern to perform some favors for the elderly in your building. Actually I think it is nice that your company does this. However I do think Jack or any other intern who does this should get some respect for this. Because as I and others wrote earlier, they are essentially doing extracurricular unpaid work. They should not be treated as ungrateful schoolboys when they react coolly after receiving some insignificant token reward for it.

Answer 4

What makes you certain he didn't thank him? I doubt you are aware of all conversations (both in person and telecommunication) that your co-worker is privy to.

Regardless though:

This comes across as looking for something to be upset over as opposed to an actual grievance. Lets look at what you have put forward as options and see if they sound like reasonable behaviour based on assumptions of a co-workers inaction.

Leave it, it's not worth

I think you already know that I am going to say this is the sensible answer. It is the professional and mature way to handle such a trivial grievance

Talk to him why I think this behaviour is unacceptable socially and why 
I think it gives a bad image of our company

Talking to him if it is something that bothers you this much may be appropriate but "gives a bad image of our company" is a pretty extreme assumption of both the situation and others perspectives.

Talk to our boss (which I think might be overkill and put me in a bad light)

This will likely reflect poorly on you and not on the person who helped an elderly man with his computer and may make him less likely to help others in the future.

Don't care if he knows, but adjust my behaviour to a very distant one

This is petty and reflects poorly on you and your professionalism and maturity not on the person who helped an elderly man with his computer.

It may be wise to ask if this is really what is bothering you about the colleague or if there is some other factor aggravating this trivial matter into a larger issue.

Answer 5

He replied "No. I don't mean to be rude, but..." and cut his sentence, staying inactive. I was kind of speechless, because ...

We could guess all sorts of things that he was going to say. There would be an indefinite number.

My feeling is that you were so busy being shocked because he hadn't learned your childhood lessons, that you simply didn't ask politely and sympathetically, "but what?" and give him time to answer.

Maybe he is shy. Maybe he is embarrassed that the man gave him money for help freely given, maybe ... maybe ... maybe.

There's only one person who knows and it isn't too late to ask him but ask non-judgmentally.

Anecdote

Once when I was quite young (about 11) my sister's boyfriend took me to a football match. I wanted to say thank you afterwards, I wanted to all the way home, I was desperate to thank him, but words failed me. It was only at the very last moment before we parted that I managed to mumble, "Um ... thanks anyway." It was the feeblest of thank-yous but I was shy and simply didn't know the right words. As you can tell it stuck in my memory. I'm good at thanking people now.