Takt - Tact

There are nice, or tactful ways of making requests, broaching subjects and asserting authority, that avoid making people feel like you’ve just taken a massive shit on their duvet cover. There’s also not so nice, or tactless approaches that do just the opposite, although duvet cover could be exchanged for any household item or body part. I understand why people can be purposefully tactless, if they want to be a prick and for everyone to hate them. Demanding, for example, an employee do some demeaning task or other rather than asking politely makes them feel special, big and clever, as well as suggesting they have inadequate genitalia and/or self-esteem. It’s the people who have no idea they are being completely tactless in any circumstance that worry me. How anyone cannot think before they open their big, offensive gob that what they’re saying might actually upset someone, or piss them off entirely is beyond me. Perhaps I’m totally wrong and simply overly sympathetic, empathetic, or just plain old pathetic, but I’d like to think another person’s feelings should be considered before your own. The obvious exemption to this is comedy. I think if you’re performing standup, you have licence to say absolutely anything you want, so long as it’s funny. The people in the audience know that your set is basically an act, and so shouldn’t be taken completely seriously. It’s when serious people, seriously piss other people off with their conscious or, more worryingly unconscious disregard for tact that I start to seethe inside. Unfortunately however, I lack the ability to construct an adequately tactful approach for telling them they’re being an insufferable tosser.