“Action indeed is the sole medium of expression for ethics.” Jane Addams
This is a Choral Ethics Blog post repeat from 2017-2018. I need to slow down during the summer as much as all of you. I try to be here, one way or another, every week because I know many of you look forward to this blog and I don’t want to disappoint you. Hope you’ll enjoy one of our Oldies but Goodies! You can always reach me for help with your Choral Ethics Dilemmas during the summer by email: . Please note, this is my new email. Have a great summer! MLGA
Many of the problems people contact me about have also occurred to me. I may share with my correspondents how I handled a similar situation; I may not. With 20/20 hindsight, I often feel I handled it poorly with a Choral Ethics perspective. After having time to really think (I hope) objectively, I may suggest a better strategy for my correspondent’s similar problem. Such is the case this week with Jerome*.
By all accounts, Jerome is a nice guy. You know the type; easy-going, generous, happy-go-lucky and willing to pitch in or let you borrow something….most of the time. Slow to anger on all fronts of his life, Jerome has reached a breaking point and wants to know what he can do to prevent a blow-up. Good question, Jerome, because after being pushed past the point of no return, I’ve blown up more than once and I’m not proud of it.
Jerome has been the director of choral activities for 15 years at a very nice Liberal Arts college in the southwest. Five years ago, his college was lucky enough to build a brand-new music building with all the bells and whistles. There are two concert halls, a choir room with a choral library of his dreams, a shared wind ensemble/orchestra room, with studios and practice rooms galore. The only thing none of the music professors, ensemble directors and private teachers thought about was music supply storage.
In this wonderful music building, there certainly is storage, a very nice and large shared storage room. There are plenty of specially designed built-ins such as music stand carts and special shelves for stand lights and folders and all sorts of specialized things. There is only one problem; it is in an inconvenient spot in the building; at the very end of a very long hall in the practice room complex. Within weeks of the music department moving in, they soon realized their mistake not realizing what a hassle it would be and brought it to the attention of the administration. The music faculty was told, with the specialized and customized features in that storage room, it could not be moved to another space, so they had better make the best of it.
They have tried. Custodians make sure there is at least one music stand in each practice room every Monday morning. Jerome and his ensemble directing colleagues check with each other about number of chairs or lights or folders or stools or stands each will need regularly.
Jerome explained, every evening before he leaves for the day, he gets what he needs from that storage room for the next day and puts it in his choir room. And at least two or three times a week, music stands or lights or whatever he brought are not there when he arrives the next morning.
At first, it didn’t bother him but now he is livid even before he gets out of his car and if things have “disappeared” or even if they’ve not. It’s a complex problem because he leaves his choir room open for his students if they want to practice together or for the A Capella group or if any of his choirs want to work together in groups too large for a practice room.
He knows it’s not his students taking stuff. He has mentioned to them more than once if they need to use stands or stools or lights there is no problem as long as they don’t take them from the choir room. One of his colleagues recently borrowed stands from Jerome’s room and casually mentioned he didn’t think he would mind; that’s what lit the fire under Jerome’s smoldering and why he wrote.
I told Jerome I get it; after hauling stuff for his own rehearsals for five years, and often not finding it where he put it, he has had enough. He’s a nice guy. Folks think they can do whatever they want because he IS a nice guy and is sure to not mind. But he does mind. He doesn’t want to be a jerk, but he will be a jerk if he blows up. He doesn’t want to be the bad guy, so he needs to figure out how to solve the problem before he blows.
As much as he might hate it, I suggested he lock his choir room every evening before he leaves. Explain to his students he will be locking the choir room unless they ask him to leave it open. They can plan ahead of time to use it, which isn’t a bad idea, but the room will be locked routinely otherwise. Or he could leave the choir room open but NOT haul stuff in preparation for the next day. Since he has had to do this regularly anyway, it wouldn’t be that much of a change. His choir office is always locked if he’s not in it and it’s right next to the choir room; he could put the stuff in his office. These are three different ways for him to gain some sort of control over the situation and might make him feel better.
Nice guys are nice; they shouldn’t be pushed into not being nice.
*Name Withheld
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