Monday, March 17, 2025

Elbows Down

Whether with tariffs or in the workplace, in the long run, humanity always loses when tit-for-tat retaliation is the response of choice

By Eric Nederlof, Representative

Elbows up! We’ve been seeing or hearing a lot of this phrase these days in Canada in response to the tariff war with the US. It’s a throwback hockey term that conjures up the legend that was Gordie Howe, so naturally it resonates with a lot of Canadians during this current dispute.

Using your elbows in hockey to hit an opponent is against the rules, and like any penalty, it’s considered especially dirty play if you are the instigator using such tactics. It may be viewed differently when done in response to someone else’s dirty play or when used as self-protection, but in either case it’s still a penalty.

Arguably, Canada is going elbows up into the corner against the US during this play in response to dirty play against it first and, as a much smaller adversary, needing extra self-protection. However, the US contends that it was the victim of dirty play in previous plays and is only retaliating in kind.

Well, how far back do you go and where does the tit-for-tat end? If this keeps up, eventually the game changes, the gloves come off, and things are settled outside of regular game play—which does not bode well for the undersized player ill-prepared to fight.

Regardless of what one believes when it comes to justifiable play in a hockey game or even international politics, humanity always loses when retaliation and violence are the response of choice. Yet, these are often the first go-to responses taken by people in life’s situations, particularly against people we don’t know or know just well enough not to like them.

Retaliation, payback, or tit-for-tat are things we feel justified in doing when we have perceived slights against us—real or not. In fact, we usually try to make our response just a little harsher than what we received to send a message that we are not to be messed with.

But guess what? Your perceived slight will have either been unknown to the perpetrator or them responding to a perceived slight from you. It’s rare that anyone would admit they started something.

Just ask any parent breaking up their children’s squabbles and see how far back the slights go. It’s been escalating like that since Adam and Eve in the garden.

This attitude in the workplace makes for hotbeds of trouble and a very unfriendly and noncollegial space. Worker satisfaction suffers and often results in a revolving door of employees. Most people do not want to live or work in this type of environment.

So why do we? In a nutshell, it is our natural, human reaction. There is a reason we have to be taught to turn the other cheek, walk a mile in someone else’s shoes, that two wrongs do not make a right, and to love our enemy. These things, since the garden of Eden, no longer come naturally to us.

It’s why we need things like collective agreements, policy and procedure handbooks, HR departments, government legislation—and referees in hockey. They help to protect us from ourselves (and others). They provide a framework and structure that allows us to understand expectations, provide rules of engagement, ways to address wrongs real or perceived without having to take the law into our own hands and escalating conflict as we are usually too eager to do.

They allow us to take a step back, take some deep breaths, and calm down. They allow us to consider how we might, after putting ourselves in the other person’s shoes, turn the other cheek toward them to try to make them our friend instead of an enemy and resolve to make things better and right instead of worse and wrong without being taken advantage of. As we have the opportunity, we should do good to all people.

So, maybe at times, because games are short, you feel like you have to play hockey with your elbows up. But in real life, it is always best to keep them down. Use the resources and tools available to you while playing the long game to achieve a better outcome, gaining friends instead of making enemies.

Elbows Down

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