Life is very
interesting in that somehow, in all forms of life, from a microbe, to
a spider, to a whale to a human, every one experiences life as if
they are the center of the universe.
People talk about
narcissism, or ego, but the fact is, the perception that we are the
center of our lives, is hardwired into all lifeforms. I find this
fascinating and curious.
There is a
mathematical construct beneath this that I would like to understand
better.
An artifact of this
is that most people think and feel that the way they experience the
world is the way everyone else experiences the world.
There are common
patterns to be sure, but the assumption that I think this way,
therefore it IS this way is not really accurate.
Because I’ve done
a lot different jobs in my life, and have lived in many different
places, I’ve been able to see how the same patterns repeat in
various spaces.
Or maybe, I’m just
wired this way. When I was a kid I had more fun organizing my
toys than playing with my toys. I was always sorting by
different patterns.
I’ll offer an
example of what I’m talking about from when I worked as a pharmacy
tech in a retail pharmacy.
There was this very
bizarre requirement from the corporate level that the pharmacists
were to always say that the script would be ready in 5 minutes.
Which is unrealistic. But, the pharmacists did what they were told.
The reason why the corporate level had this bizarre requirement
probably came from some MBA fresh out of school, with lots of book
smarts and no real world experience. It was goals oriented. Which
often loses sight of “effectiveness.” Goals are easy to measure,
effectiveness, not so easy.
The result was that
people stood around waiting because they thought their script would
be done in 5 minutes.
However, most of the
time it was put in a queue of the scripts ahead of it and on a good
day would take at least 15 minutes.
So, customers would
hang out in front the of the pharmacy waiting for their script and
getting increasing impatient in their energy, because they had been
told it would be 5 minutes.
There’s this thing
called the 2 minute rule. I remember learning about this when I was
teaching leadership while in the Air Force. I’ve heard and seen
this applied in all sorts of ways.
True to the 2 minute
rule, the customer would realize at about 13 minutes, this is taking
longer than 5 minutes and I may as well go take care of something,
and leave.
This was frustrating
the pharmacists to no end. They felt that people were hovering and
glaring at them while they were working. And when the script was
finally ready, the customer was no longer there.
After watching this
a bit, and seeing the level of stress and tension building and
building in the pharmacists. And this is a fairly common reaction
among pharmacists which I’ll explain in a bit.
I pulled them aside
and suggested a few things to help them better understand the
situation.
I suggested that
they ignore company policy and tell people the truth. If it will be
15 minutes before the script is done, tell them it will be 15
minutes. If the queue is so huge that’s it’s going to be 45
minutes, tell them it will be 45 minutes.
The truth is
actually more respectful to the customer. Every one lives busy lives
and and feels stretched for time. No one enjoys waiting
unnecessarily.
I also explained
that the customers waiting in front of the pharmacy was not thinking
at all about the pharmacist. They were thinking about what they were
going to make for dinner, or the argument they had with a co-worker
that day, or what they need to do next on their to do list, and so
on.
People live in the
center of their lives.
A lot of people
spend an enormous amount of time, energy and focus judging against
something that is simply human nature. It’s not good or bad, it
just IS.
Lots of suffering
comes from resisting what IS.
It’s not effective
to try to fight reality, it’s much more effective to work with it.
I remember reading
this adage once, and it’s spot on.
Don’t worry
about what people are thinking about you, because they’re not.
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