People and Perceptions

Since I was a little girl I’ve loved to read.  At 10 years old I read Anne of Green Gables in a week.  My passion for reading slowly evolved in to a love for writing which followed me all the way through high school and in to college where I wrote concert reviews for the school newspaper.

As life came at me and I became more dedicated to building a career, my passion for writing fell by the wayside as responsibility stepped in.  Here I am many years later with the opportunity to write again and I feel a little bit frozen.  The questions that continually pop in my head are:  Have I become too sappy?  Can I still spell?  Will I be relevant?  So, I’ve been holding off, waiting for “when the time is right”.  Well, I had an experience that I want to share and this is a good place to start…

                                                               

I grew up in East Vancouver, a community filled with struggling families, some on government assistance, and hand me downs were not uncommon.  Through the years I went to school and focused on being smart, dedicated, hard working, and tried to scrub the streets of the East Side off of me.

Fast forward to my late 20’s and you’ll see me working in a suburban paradise around people whose parents aren’t separated, they’re well educated, and hard working too.  I’m now part of this group of people.  Yup, that’s right, little ole’ me, smart, dedicated, and ready to blend in.

One weekend night after I had started working at this suburban paradise I showed up at my favorite dive bar where the crowd was diverse, the smell of stale beer present, and there was the general “thank god it’s the weekend” feel about the place.  I was sitting at a table guarding jackets while my friends were outside smoking and as I looked around I locked eyes with a current coworker who was so squeaky clean it was intimidating.  I had no choice but to walk over and say hello.  I sauntered up and we kind of looked at each other before he introduced me like this “Hey guys, this is Melina, she makes my budget duo-tangs”.  Now what’s a budget duotang you ask?  It’s a photocopied piece of paper where an employee can read how much money they have to spend.  “Seriously”, I thought.  That’s what I get?  The Budget Duo-tang Girl???  Really???  I kind of just looked at him and walked away.  I hadn’t just put my self through college and climbed my way up the corporate ladder for this.  It was so insulting.

The thing about this is that we never talked about running in to each other.  3 years of working with each other regularly and not one mention.  Sooo, when do I bring this up?  On my last day of work of course.  I’m having what’s realistically my last conversation with this coworker and I ask “Do you remember when we ran in to each other at that dive bar and you introduced me as the girl who makes your budget duo-tang?  I was so resentful!”  He thought for a second and said “Oh, don’t you remember?  I had missed the cut-off for receiving a budget duotang and needed help.  You photocopied the whole book for me and I was probably just really happy about that!  It sucks we didn’t talk about it cause it was a miscommunication.”

Ummmmmm… I stood there stunned.  Feet glued to the floor, ignorance washing over me with even a little shame creeping in.  I had 100% forgot about that part.  He had called me not understanding his budget because he was newish to understanding the budget and I helped him get a budget duotang, such a simple task that made his job easier.  He was just being awkward and I was clearly being defensive and it got the better of me.  All this time the self-righteous part of me had it in for this guy because he didn’t appreciate my work.  But he clearly did and I wasn’t open to see it.  I would like to think of myself as a very open person willing to let all sorts of people in but I think this may be a case of perception versus reality.  Because I was feeling insecure about this new fancy job I assumed I was being judged.  I wonder if a closer friendship would have formed had I been more open minded.

Let this be a lesson everyone, what you see is clearly not always what you get.

Will this story set the tone for the rest of my blogs?  I’m not sure yet.  There will be funny stories, and sad stories I’m sure.  I always seem to have life lessons to share so there will definitely be some of those.  But, this is what I promise.  I promise that everything I share will be with open-mindedness.

To all of you reading this,

Melina