Friday Forward - Knowing When (#492)
I’ve seen people lose relationships, business opportunities, even careers, because they insisted on winning battles that didn’t matter in the long run
A few weeks ago, my wife and I went to dinner with friends at a small restaurant in the city. We expected parking to be challenging, as street parking was our only option. But as we approached the restaurant, we saw an open space just a few doors down.
As I prepared to parallel park, I noticed an older woman standing in the middle of the space. I rolled down our window and let her know we were about to pull into the spot and politely asked her to move. She replied, “I’m sorry, I’m holding this for my family.”
Notably, there was no approaching car, or any other indication that her family was arriving imminently.
We cordially explained that reserving a parking spot by physically standing in it was not okay. While not technically illegal, most people would agree that this clearly violates a shared social contract. She nodded, seemingly in agreement, so I began backing in, only to realize she hadn’t moved an inch.
This time we were a little firmer in letting her know what she was doing wasn’t okay. She kept repeating “I’m sorry,” but she still wouldn’t budge.
At that point, I had three options:
Keep backing up and hope she moved.
Get out of the car and escalate the situation.
Drive away.
Though I was frustrated, I chose the third option. I pulled away and let the woman keep the space.
My wife offered to get out and try to reason with the woman, but I declined. The space wasn’t worth it. We found another one a few minutes away. The delay caused us to miss our reservation slot, and we had to wait 20 minutes for another table, but I’m still confident we made the right call.
Today, nearly every interaction can be recorded and posted publicly. While this fact is never lost on me, I’m surprised how often businesses and individuals forget this, especially in tense moments. Even though we were clearly in the right, a video could have come across very poorly if it appeared to show us confronting or trying to run over an elderly woman. I’m not famous by any stretch of the imagination, but I do have a public profile, and a 30-second clip, stripped of context, could have caused damage that far outweighed the benefit of a convenient parking spot.
I don’t shy away from standing on principle or speaking up for what’s right. If someone in our car had a mobility issue, or if we were rushing to something truly urgent, perhaps I would have made a more confrontational choice. But in that specific moment, it just wasn’t worth a fight.
Plus, it’s certainly possible the woman’s family genuinely needed that spot more than we did. I’ll never know.
What I do know is this: when the downside far outweighs the upside, often the smartest decision is to walk away. Too often, too many of us let pride or anger push us into fights that aren’t worth the risk. We escalate situations that could easily be defused, at the cost of our time, peace of mind, or reputation. Every viral video of a public freakout on a plane, or in a grocery store, or on a sidewalk, started because someone decided to escalate things in a moment where escalation gained them very little.
I’ve seen people lose relationships, business opportunities, even careers, because they insisted on winning battles that didn’t matter in the long run. We all have a sense of fairness, and it’s natural to want to right wrongs when we see them. But sometimes it’s best to let things be, especially when the price of acting may be high.
In poker, the best players know when to fold a seemingly strong hand. In life, it’s often the same. Sometimes the real win is walking, or driving, away.
Quote of The Week
“Never wrestle with a pig. You both get dirty, and the pig likes it.” – George Bernard Shaw
Have a great weekend!
-Bob
robertglazer.com
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Driving is the perfect training ground for life - so many opportunities to get upset over things that could not be more insignificant in the long run. So much of driving is a shared social contract - when to merge, how to behave in traffic etc. - that inevitably gets violated millions of times every single day.
Great post!
Thank you for this reminder about humanity and its impasses. Unfortunately it does not matter who is right or wrong in that moment. What mattered was your choices and boiling it down to having a beautiful evening with your wife! Well done! The other lady’s behaviour was her choice and she did not care about an escalation. Better her blood pressure raise than yours;-)
I got into a bad business deal once. The owner of a water sports shop told me what was in the shop if I needed to use it, use it. It was a blind trust policy, if I needed something we just recorded it. He also was sweet enough to offer me 10 paddle boards for my business and I could do a payment arrangement. I was not comfortable with that one and declined, but his intentions were good…. I think….
At the time I was working for peanuts and there was a verbal side deal - I asked him repeatedly to put a contract in place. Silly me, I ignored the red flag when he didn’t put anything on paper. When the relationship went south, he told people I stole the gear or took without consent, and of course there are cameras everywhere. That is indeed what it looked like, without anyone knowing the backstory.
Stay safe out there…. Danielle Pointon