Saturday, April 10, 2004
I Think, Therefore It Is
Perception can be just as bad as assumption. Perception is based on feelings. Perception isn’t always accurate.
I had a boss, (the boss I have mentioned throughout), who tried almost daily to convince me that perception is all that mattered. Facts did not matter if someone perceived something to be true. To rely solely on perception can be a shortcoming, closing one off to a wide variety of people, places or things. It can also be very dangerous when it comes to world issues.
One day I was outside on my break and as I am one of those who likes all different types of people, I was not selective in who I hung out with during those breaks. I am able to befriend many, many people as I’m not “above” or “too good” or “better” than anyone else.
There is a saying out there, “You can often tell much about a person by the company he keeps.” Wrong. I don’t believe that for a second. This is judging someone on perception and again, perception isn’t always right.
I have very few close friends whom I trust explicitly with my friendship and loyalty and I have hundreds of acquaintances. Acquaintances can be a matter of people I see only at work or they can be people I might go do something with, something simple and harmless, like a buddy thing. In those instances, it does not matter to me what their political beliefs are, their religious beliefs, if they drink, smoke, etc. I’m not supplying them with my trust nor are they supplying me with theirs. I have acquaintances who believe the opposite of me in almost every topic. Therefore, it is impossible to judge what kind of person I am based on the person I might be standing next to at any given moment.
So I’m outside on my break and I’m standing with three of my co-workers who I liked talking to when I saw them. Again, they were acquaintencas, not friends, but I enjoyed their company and their stories. This particular incident occurred in December of 2001.
In the days and weeks after September 11, 2001, many people found themselves out of work, laid off. Our company, which dealt in travel, took a huge blow as people were terrified of traveling and cancellations came in large numbers. Many other companies in this field had to lay people off and we were starting to get concerned.
However, the CEO of this company did some cutting of costs here and there, tightened up the budget and some of our little perks were cut out. But not one of us lost our job. Our company took a hard hit and our CEO did everything to ensure we remained employed.
That meant we did not get raises and we did not get our Christmas bonus. Some people don’t seem to understand that a bonus is just that. It’s a bonus. A gift. The company does not owe it to you and the fact that some relied on that bonus demonstrates their ignorance and basically, stupidity for counting chickens before they were hatched. Never, ever count on money being there until you have that check in hand. Hell, I don’t even count on it till it’s cleared my account, but that’s another post for another day. The point is, we weren’t getting bonuses and we weren’t getting raises but we all got to keep our jobs. And to be quite honest, while I was grateful for the bonuses I did receive, they and the raises weren’t that much to make that huge of a difference in anyone’s lives.
But some people are never happy. Some people cannot see the bigger picture. Some people care only of themselves and how they got jipped and not how because of this extremely small sacrifice, (if we must play off of their victimization card), everyone was able to continue on and make it through this really tough time while businesses and companies all around us were laying people off, closing their doors and going belly up.
The three co-workers I was sitting next to, looking at, listening to, were bitching about this very thing. Complaining how they were being screwed while the CEO lined his pockets. Fucking ridiculous. I listened to them for awhile and then I said, “Aren’t you all just glad we still even have a job? If losing my bonus and a raise means I get to keep my job, I think that is more important.” They all stopped, thought for a moment and eventually agreed that it was a good thing afterall.
Where does my point about perception come in? I’m glad you asked. Before I started working for my boss, I worked in a different department and this is where I was when this incident occurred.
I came back from my break and was called into the manager’s office. (Suddenly I’m reverted back to a 12 year old being called downstairs by her parents wondering and going over a list of every possible thing she’s done worng...what do they know..what did they find out....wait a minute, I haven’t done anything....what did I do?) I get in there and the manager asks me to close the door.
Uh-oh. This isn’t good. (Shit! --Racking brain-- What did I do and I better figure it out fast; need to find out just how big this is before she starts asking questions...think damn you, THINK!)
She proceeds to inform me that a manager from a different department overhead MY conversation outside.
Oh. Okay. Cool.
No. Not cool. Seems the eavesdropping manager didn’t get her facts straight. Because I was outside, sitting next to these three people, listening to them complain about raises and bonuses, that meant that I, TOO, was bitching and moaning about raises and bonuses.
Which I was not.
I informed my manager that this was not the case that what I actually said was....
“It doesn’t matter what you said. The perception is......”
You’ve got to be kidding me. I tried to tell her again that I did not say these things, I said.....
I was cut off again, told it doesn’t matter because again, as long as it was perceived that I had said these things, then it was so.
Facts had absolutely no place in tihs company. The manager continued on to tell me that I did not need to defend myself, I did not need to give my excuse or my side of it. I told her that I, in no uncertain terms, most definitely did need to give my side of it if I was going to be accused of something, especially something which disgusted me as much as it did any manager or supervisor who heard hundreds of employees bitching about this no raise/no bonus deal for a couple of weeks now.
I gave my side and was still told that the facts did not matter. What mattered was how people perceived me.
A few months later, I found myself working for the very manager who had accused me of this b.s. to my then boss. The first time my manager (new one) tried to shove the perception idea down my throat, I told her the above story, not knowing for a second that SHE was the one who had run in to “tell on me” in the first place. My co-worker, who had been working for her at the time, is the one who informed me later that it was this manager who had done this.
From then on, every time she brought up perception and tried to make me believe that perception is all that matters, facts do not, I made a point of telling her the entire story, pretending I didn’t know it was her. I made a point of stating that the person who was eavesdropping, number 1, should have minded her own damn business and number 2, ran inside to tattle on me before I had ever opened my mouth to say anything and number 3, what I actually said.
Going over the situation, presenting the facts, providing fricken witnesses did not sway her from the idea that perception is all that matters.
I see this every day from a certain group of people in this country who close their ears to facts, proof, eye wtiness accounts and believe in the hype, the perception and take that to be the truth. The gospel according to the media. And I feel quite the same way about them as I did about my boss. Fools. Absolute fools.
Perception is based on feelings, what you think is there. But perception can be grossly inaccurate and people who base their decisions, believe they know and understand fully, the situation, all because of what they think they see or hear, are foolish. That’s all there is to it.
What you think you see, what you think you hear, what you think you know isn’t always the way it actually is.
