the commotion in dominica

and everywhere else too

listen to this story:

today i sit in the sand of a beach in dominica, trying on snorkel fins at an oceanside resort in the early stages of a hasty and ill-fated construction.

the place is called “diving donnie’s snorkel tours.”

diving donnie is the lead instructor. he wears a shirt with his name proudly emblazoned across its back.

diving donnie also has two assistants: jacob, and another whose name i don’t catch.

i listen to their improvised safety briefing and watch their clumsy handling of our fins, deciding it’s possible none of these men has ever been snorkeling.

donnie’s treatment of jacob is atrocious and degrading. he screams at him, calls him names and tells him he is doing everything wrong.

jacob is visibly wounded, as anyone would be.

perhaps because of my recent layoff, or perhaps because i once taught snorkeling to entitled, fat, pasty tourists under the leadership of a tyrannical money grubbing piece of shit, my heart breaks for jacob.

i want to say something to donnie. so i do.

i discreetly tell him he’s being cruel to his staff and it’s making his customers uncomfortable.

he points out that my fins are on the wrong feet. he turns to jacob, who is still completing the last screamed order donnie hurled at him, and screams at him again for not helping me put on my fins. then he loudly tells me that jacob needs to learn.

this is a common lie bad leaders tell themselves and those who question them. every job i’ve ever held has had at least one manager who traffics in cruelty, openly berating and humiliating good workers, then justifying it, usually loudly, reasoning that if the person can’t handle the cruelty, they aren’t cut out for this business.

the problem, it seems to me, is that this logic can justify any level of cruelty in any business.

it absolves abusive managers as they extract an emotional and psychological toll from those over whom they hold power.

not only are they not owed any such toll, but the cost is ultimately charged to the organization for which they work, as the victim loses all motivation to do good work.

the cost is charged to the community too, when the victim takes the cruelty home to their family, which often includes children, who then take it to school.

if i’ve learned one thing in nearly forty years of walking around and doing shit, it’s that so much of the cruelty we hear and experience from others is not a sound created for or by us, but an echo of sounds created for others, far beyond our sightline.

how do we stop it?

jacob’s glare toward donnie suggests violence might be an option.

and i can’t really blame him, although that has its own toll.

it seems to me we may be doomed to this bizarre and pained economy, never paying or collecting things of value from each other, only destroying them.

perhaps the cruel managers are correct, and we are simply violent nihilists, costumed in capitalism, and dancing until we die.

these thoughts cascade as we shuffle out into the water and float unnaturally above a tabletop reef, where the wildlife seems perfectly unbothered by our presence.

i raise my head above the surface to gaze upon the steep and immense cliffs that hang above the beach, covered and dripping with vegetation.

then i turn away, toward the open ocean. jacob is there, just a foot or two away, alone and clearly still in pain. together, we’ve fallen behind the group.

he looks at me vacantly.

“hey, jacob, come here,” i whisper, looking around.

“what’s up?” he asks.

i put my hand lightly on his shoulder. then slowly, seriously, and as clearly as i can, i say to him, “we’re going to KILL diving donnie.”

he erupts into laughter, and so do i.

a moment later, we are laughing so hard and loud, the snorkelers who’ve moved ahead are turning back and pulling off their ill-fitting masks, curious and puzzled by the commotion.