Earlier, I wrote on the importance of being excellent at what you do. But not only should you embrace your occupation, you should embrace your employer as well.

We went to the movies, recently (saw Arthur & the Invisibles) and were surprised by a change in the matinee policy: Instead of showings before 6:00, now matinee pricing ends at 4:00.

I – not aggressively, but with my full price ticket for the 4:05 showing in hand – asked a manager about the change. He hemmed and hawed about how it was corporate change and everybody’s doing it, blah, blah, etc.

Then he said “I wish there was something I could do about it, but they won’t let me.”

On another recent occassion, I was surprised to see an image of Aussie hair products on an animal cruelty display. We’ve used their products for years, and I remembered seeing on their label that they do not engage in any sort of animal testing.

So I looked again, and this time, saw no such claim. I called the 1-800-947-2656 number labeled “Questions?” and asked about the ommission.

The helpful woman said that, yes, I was correct that it did say that at one time. However, since they were purchased by Proctor & Gamble, they could no longer make that claim.

She went on to downplay P&G’s policies on animal testing, and how much of it is FDA-mandated, etc. She wanted to be sure I realized, though, that “while they continue to phase out animal testing as much as they possibly can, we don’t use any animal testing in the Aussie product line.”

Each time, it was the “they” that struck me. They, as in ’someone not me.’

When you feel yourself wanting to to say “they,” rather than “we,” decided to change some policy, ask yourself why.

That’s not really fair to your boss, is it?

If you truly feel the need to distance yourself from the people you work for, perhaps you need to truly distance yourself – physically, as well as philosophically.