Perceptions

I have been thinking a lot lately on how we come to arrive at some of the judgements that we make. I was working this morning and as usual, my mind can tend to wander (don't tell my clients). Something from 20 years ago came to my mind, and I began to get angry. I had worked for a major potato chip company and had a route. My day would start at 3:00 in the morning when on my way in to load my truck would make my first stop because it was right along the way in to the chip factory. It was a huge warehouse store, where they worked all night stocking before the crowds came. I would have my skids of product pulled down from the loft, and would stock all of the things, have them put the skid up, so that when I had my truck, all I had to do was swing by the store, put the product on the skid and get it in the back room where they would put it up in the steel later. It saved about an hour of my day doing it like this. I would still get to the chip factory before most all of the other sales people, load my truck and leave, sometimes just as the other sales people started to arrive. Because I left so early I wouldn't see a supervisor until I got back in at around 3:00. We weren't allowed to come back in for the day before 2:00 pm. If you happened to be paying attention to when I started the day, you will notice my work day was about 12 hours long. Because the supervisor wasn't there until 7 or 8 in the morning, he thought that maybe I wasn't there until then either, so when I would come back in for the day at 3, and sometimes 2, he thought that I wasn't working. He was there 6 or so hours, I was working 10 to 12 hours, so since he only thought from when he started his day, that must have been when I did. Some of the other sales people didn't get back in until 4:00pm or so, but started well after 7, and didn't put in nearly the same amount of hours, but since the supervisor could only think from his reference point of when he started his day, he would think that the other sales people worked longer hours than myself. It was something that made my blood boil, and I guess still does.

I even had an evaluation where I had a 30 percent increase in sales, and he looked at the paper, looked at me and said "that can't be right," and proceeded to go through stop by stop to see if there was a stop that wasn't there the time before, or a huge error, and when he couldn't find one still wouldn't say job well done. Let me tell you how that made me feel...

Maybe this all came up to the surface so that I could get it out of my system. I hadn't thought about this for years. Maybe I thought about it so it would prompt me to write, as it's been a good long time since I've posted. Or maybe it came up because of all of the commotion going on about the election and running mate talk, and all of the beliefs, that I'm hearing people talk about.

I believe that our beliefs are based on what we perceive. and our perception of things are what we see on the surface, for the most part, and our perception of things don't change until we see something different, or someone shows or gives us more information.

If someone sees a guy at noon every day out messing around in the yard, they maybe believe he doesn't have a job and is a slacker when he could have worked all night and had just gotten home. Or maybe he works all night so he can watch the kids all day while his wife works so they don't have to have a babysitter. I bet if a poll was taken by the cars driving by daily, a good many might say the guy was a slacker, because all they see on the surface is him out in the yard. They are there at night when he leaves for work, or in the morning when he comes home. They don't have all of the information.

I see all of this election stuff going on right now. Everyone has their running mates picked and now the decision making process has begun. It's interesting that right now, there isn't a whole lot of information known about one of the running mates, I won't say her name., I'm trying to be bipartisan. Perceptions and beliefs are changing daily as more information is coming to light.

It's going to be really interesting these next few months. Perceptions will change. Beliefs will change.