Perception Isn’t Reality
Growing up, I always did what I could to just be an overall good person and make people feel welcomed. Family members and close friends would say that I was kind and that I had a welcoming personality. These constant reminders made me feel great and showed me that I was doing a great job of showing others the kind personality I had. Just by these experiences, I believed that everybody saw me as the kind person I was, but learned I was mistaken when I got my first job.
I was sixteen and I was working at the local 99 cents store near my house. I was hired as a cashier which seemed pretty easy, so that got me excited. I was working at the store for a bit— but this day felt different. I did my usual things, such as… clocking in and then asking the manager on duty what I was going to do for the night. They put me on the floor to fix aisles and organize the products on the shelves. It was an easy task and I worked on it that the whole day, but by the time my break came around I noticed that not even one customer had come up to me for assistance. After my break, I went up to my coworkers and casually asked if they had any customers come up and ask them questions. My coworker said that they had customers come up to them all day. I found it weird that no one asked me for assistance, but didn’t think too much of it.. I just thought no one came up to me because the customers just didn’t have any questions yet. The rest of that day I worked and stayed alert just in case any customer wanted some help finding something or had a question about something. It was no use. No one came up to me that day and I went home thinking about it a lot more than I should’ve.
I tossed and turned all night thinking of any other reason as to why no one had asked for help specifically from me. I laid in bed thinking to myself, Maybe I forgot to put on deodorant. Or maybe the customers believed that I was too busy. Maybe I just didn’t pay enough attention and there were customers trying to get my attention. This last thought eased my mind and I finally fell asleep thinking that I had found the answer to my question. The next morning, I woke up ready to go to work later that day, thinking it was just pure coincidence that no one had come up to me the day before. I went through my day as I would any other day. I went to school and then I drove home at the end of my fourth period as I did any day. Once I got home I took a short nap and after that I headed to work. When I arrived at work I walked straight to the back, put in my employee number and clocked in. I put the purple name tag that read my name in small writing on the left side of my collar, as I always do. I then headed out to the sales floor. Once I was out there, I headed to the aisles I was assigned to and began to move things up and place things that were in the wrong aisles back in the right aisles. I was focused on my job, but not so focused that I couldn’t notice the customers around me walking and shopping around for items we sold. I bent down to start picking up some items that were left on the baseboards, and I also hung up items that had fallen. While I did that I noticed a customer at the other end of the aisle and didn’t think much of it. I’d be finished by the time they got to me. A couple minutes passed and I got up and noticed a customer was beside me with a shopping cart trying to pass on by. They must’ve snuck up on me and I felt rude for not noticing them. I quickly moved out of their way and apologized, but they turned and gave me a dirty look. I figured they must’ve been there for a couple minutes trying to pass on by and I had been in their way working away. I thought, Why didn’t they just simply say “ excuse me”? I would have gladly moved out of their way. The end of that day couldn’t come soon enough. I think it’s because I couldn’t focus all day I constantly checked the time and went to the bathroom to make sure I looked presentable. Every Time I checked the time it had only been 10 minutes later than the last time I checked. The day just wouldn’t end and I just felt out of rhythm like I had just lost the grasp of it all. I sat in the aisle thinking to myself not focused on my work when the manager on duty came around into the aisle I was in and told me it was my turn to go on break. As I walked into the backroom I continued to think about what was going on and just what I could do differently. While on my break I sat in the backroom in silence just thinking of what I could be doing that was making people not want to talk or ask questions to me. Then all of a sudden a coworker of mine came into the back about to go on their lunch break and saw me there in silence sitting and asked me why I was just sitting there. I told them that it was a stupid problem and that I should be thinking about it as much as I should but that the problem was that no costumers seem to come up to me. When I told them this they said “ wow you’re lucky, customers always come up to me” but after that, they told me that they used to experience that when they first started working here and that they only solved it when someone told them that their natural face just wasn’t that welcoming. I thought about that and then they told me “ No offense Derick but when you first started working here, I honestly thought you were gonna be a jerk” and then they explained that I just looked angry or annoyed whenever I was working. I said thanks for the advice and returned to work. Then I just laughed about it and started an experiment where I would smile non-stop for one day while working and surprisingly it helped a couple customers had actually come up to me but that was tiring to constantly smile. I was content with this customers had actually seen me and actually wanted help from me and that made me feel useful but it also made me sad that people had a predetermined idea of me just based off my face and it wasn’t like I knew that my face looked like that, it was just out of my control. This made me think a lot more about what I would look at and that I should take a step back before predetermining it for what I saw and to look deeper into what it actually was.
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