Custom

One of the guiding principles of my life has been to pay honour and respect to whomever it is due.  Certainly, I have not always appreciated the person in the position, and voted against them, but I have always honoured them in their position.
I cannot really take credit for any good things in my life, as I was brought up a certain way, and have chosen to keep on in some directions.
I have never been one to try to get away with stuff.  Another thing I believe is that he who lives by the sword will die by the sword.  My thinking is, if one tries to be sneaky then someone will try to be sneaky to them.  So, sometimes to my detriment, I have tried to be upfront and a “what you get is what you see” sort of person.
One of the highest compliments that I ever got, was someone saying to me, “you treat everyone the same.”  I know that whatever the roll, or how high powered someone is, they are people first, and that is the level I endeavour to relate to them.
We had a guy at work who had departmental heads under him.  I attended a few meetings as a fill in for my boss.  The guys authority was through the stratosphere.  One of the fields was he was an expert in was copyright (I am so glad someone is, as to put it mildly I was less than enamoured with copyright.  He took on the copyright board and won.)  Anyway, I know I was out of my league, but they kindly treated me well.  The thing was, although this guy had all this authority, I used to play squash with him.  Fair dinkum, most people just want to be treated as people, no matter their position.  At the other end of the spectrum, I have seen people act like their position made them better than others.
I was in a meeting and one of the beginning exercises was “find out something others don’t know about that person.”  The lady I spoke to had had an animal named after her.  It was total news to her colleague.  We became good friends from that point on (I was already friends with her colleague, and his research was a whole story in itself.)  I had an Iranian Doctor and the nurse was British.  I had had good chats with the Doctor, and was asking questions of the nurse (well if she could probe me, I could probe her).  Even though she and the doctor worked together, some of her answers were like news to the doctor, who started asking his own questions.
Australia had a visit from a US President.  I sure did not agree with the guy, but felt he deserved our respect.  I was so embarrassed by one of our Senators, who acted like a real galah towards him.  As Merril says, you do not need to agree with someone, but there is never an excuse for rudeness.
Whoever they are, if you treat someone with respect and as a person, they tend to open up. ​