LETTERS: It was our first meeting 13 years after he left school. I had become a doctor and Joe pursued his passion for music. I remember him as an affable guy, despite going through what I thought was an odd phase in school.
School life was relatively peaceful, but there were intermittent episodes of incivility or, in another word, bullying.
Joe was one of the ringleaders in one of these episodes.
He proudly told me about bullying others. While I was occasionally bullied at school, he was the same too at some points in his life.
But I had a strong sense of justice. I found it odd that people felt entitled to pick on others as they wished.
When I became a senior myself, I was opposed to bullying. I also grew to see victims later having victims of their own.
I'm sure many have come to regret it later in life, but many don't.
I saw a classmate, who never got out of his rage, running into trouble in matriculation and was eventually kicked out. Bullies become victims of their own folly.
Incivility is unfortunately common, from schools to banks and the civil service. It is also problematic in other countries.
I knew a medical consultant in England who received patient complaints about how he treated his colleagues.
He no longer works as a doctor. It's a shame as he was a brilliant clinician. Imagine how far he could have gone by just being nice. Incivility does have less apparent victims.
The "Civility Saves Lives" campaign there promotes awareness and compiles evidence of adverse and potentially deadly consequences of hostile working environments. Incivility impairs performance during a crisis, hinders learning and results in lost productivity, affects profits and demoralises employees.
We know from experience that incivility poisons work and other environments. There is evidence to back it.
A study by Dr Samuel DeMaria in New York found that medical teams working in hostile environments during a medical emergency performed poorly in every metric.
I urge everyone to pause and think about this when you see incivility in healthcare or other critical settings. Incivility not only makes you feel bad as it will affect you and those around you.
We need to stomp out incivility. It starts with every single one of us. We must be kind to others and be more thoughtful about what we say or do. We must celebrate examples of leaders promoting positive and productive learning environments.
Like many of us, I was saddened to read about the news of Zulfarhan Osman Zulkarnian, who died at the hands of his fellow UPNM cadets.
Imagine if a different "learning climate" was fostered by treating him as a fellow cadet instead and as one of us. One who deserves our compassion and help. His success would be our success. Zulfarhan could have been a success story and, crucially, alive.
We are seen as a kind and compassionate society. So, we should strive to live up to our values. Do better. Start and build on the kindness campaign and the excellent work by others in promoting civility across society.
In the early years, Joe was kind and supportive. Then he wasn't. I wonder who turned him that way and whose lives he may have ruined. Lacking insight, he is yet another casualty.
When civility reigns, I hope the stories of our children will be different. We will all be winners in the fight against incivility.
HAIRI HALIMI
Kuala Lumpur
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of the New Straits Times