Thoughts on Behavior Choices

A little background on why I'm writing this and how it's influenced my
thought process for the day:

First off, I cursed myself. Sometime over the weekend while moving my
mother-in-law's 10 tons of stuff from Ocala to Spring Hill, I
mentioned in passing that I would rather be yelled at by our company
president than do that again. That statement resonated through the
multiverse, and on Tuesday, I did, in fact, get yelled at by the
company president.

For what, you ask? It boiled down to me not being telepathic. My boss
worked on her laptop, and when something was missing, she called the
Help Desk. My boss had escaped to a site, and so I had to go.
Normally, I do not deal with her, as she prefers to only deal with
managers. She asked me why something was not put in a specific place,
and when I gave her the accepted IS answers, seeing as I did not know
my boss' intentions, she proceeded to give me hell. Seeing as I like
my job, I stood there and took it with a smile.

The next day, my boss mentions that he too had been yelled at by her
that morning, for also not being telepathic enough to know that our
parent company was going to change a major system feature without
telling us. I commiserate and share my story. He shrugs and says this:

"Don't take it personally, it's just the way she is. She doesn't mean it."

I smile and say something really politically correct, and go back to
my desk. But it bothered me.

He's right, it is the way she is. She's rude and dismissive to anyone
who is not Senior Management. Note: I don't take her personally. It
would give her a victory over me if I were to let her toddler like
tantrums bother me. I feel bad for her that this is the way she feels
she must express herself to get someone to do things. She went through
three executive secretaries in 3 months because none of them would
work with her. Before one of them left, she told me the president
learned her behavior from the board of our parent company. So, it's
inherited juvenile behavior.

I was raised to be nice and polite. I call fast food workers sir and
maam, much to the surprise of a lot of my friends. I watch my language
and care how I present myself in public. So I wonder...

I've seen her outside of work. She's actually social and pleasant. She
does charity stuff. So, I wonder, why would you purposely make the
choice to be rude and mean? Seeing her outside behavior, I know she
can turn it on and off. If you could do that, why turn off the nice
and turn on the mean? Maybe I've got the wrong idea of which one is
the real her and which one is the act...

Maybe she feels that if she's not a rude person, nobody will respect
her. Maybe she feels that if she's nice, people will walk all over
her. But it speaks volumes for our hypocritical corporate culture that
while I have to follow our company values of respect and dignity, it's
tolerated for her to be rude and mean. It's a bad standard, and a bad
example. At what point do you become exempt from being a decent human
being?

I don't think you ever do...