Mistaken Identities - II

Did you think on what was in this space yesterday? If you didn’t, go back and read it. Take five minutes. Note a thought or two about what you read.

Now, get inside the heads of those you observed in the reading. Reverse the perspective. What might they think about you from a simple sighting such as you had of them? What story might they assign to you based on that short glimpse?

What is your story? How might that differ from what others may have ascribed to you? Do you see a difference here? Or did you believe similarities were the constant? If the latter do you feel your life is that self evident? Your story just springs to life for others to see and understand?

I doubt that. We all make assumptions about others. Their happiness or solitude and misery, or perhaps we see them as competent doers able to leap from task to task with nary a problem.

What then controls our thinking about these ‘others’? Are we positive about them when things are looking good for us? Or are we down on them when we are down with our own life? Perhaps our moods run opposite: up about others as we are down in our own mood and vice versa. Interesting thought, that. We should think on that another day!

For now let’s tackle the stories we assume others lead from our glimpses of them in ordinary circumstances. Remember these are strangers to us. We do not know them, just this one moment sitting in traffic or standing in the grocery line, or waiting for a train. Moments of contact and then only barely.

I had two such moments of contact yesterday. We were out and about picking up the newspaper for delivery to two post offices and 31 drop off sites. It was a long day for two old guys, especially with our health gripes! And yesterday we were asked to add another pick up at a mailing prep center and take it to a second post office. Seemingly a simple task it was fraught with first finding the mail prep center (not where we thought it was), then finding incomplete paperwork for the post office, and finally seeing 4500 newspapers loosely laid out in long, flat, wobbly mail trays. Most were stacked next to their front door and we had to pick up each tray, carry it outdoors and load into our van. It was tiring and uncomfortable. This was 11 AM or a little after, and our day had begun at 6 AM moving 7500 papers to and through our garage and then 6200 of them to the Warrenville post office.

By the time we got to the Winfield post office (and having to look for it!) we didn’t have a loading zone available for us, and no staff readily able to instruct us on what to do. Finding one staffer I told him we were here with the newspaper drop off. He hesitated and then told me that usually the paper work goes through the front window first with payment, then the unloading. I asked if I had to walk around the entire building to the front entry or was there an internal passage. He dithered and I said, “oh f--k! I’ll walk around the building.”

He shouted, “watch your language or just leave.” I said, “I’ll meet you at the front window.” By the time I got their, he looked me in the eye and refused my transaction. Just like that. Refused to do his job. No cooperation.

So I left. Rocky was with me and I told him what had just happened. With his 30+ years experience working in the printing business and managing huge mailings through the postal system, he took on the task of getting our postal business accomplished.

Talking with the postmaster, we were able to file our papers and pay our $643 and unload our newspapers on their dock. The postmaster helped us do that and talked with us about the altercation. I apologized for being out of humor and pooped. But I couldn’t get over the way the staff person had so obdurately assumed his stance of noncooperation without even trying to learn about the situation.

The postmaster told us their mission is to build relationships with the public and customers. This had not happened in our case and he apologized for that. He admitted that it was a culture change for postal staff and that it would take time to realize.

So. A situation that informs us of two people, the postal staff and me. Both were wrong. Both assumed something about the other. Probably both of us thought the other stubborn and arrogant. Both of us were right on that point! But sadly those assumptions didn’t get us anywhere.

It was the calm and cool determination of Rocky that got through the junk and got the job done! And it was the flexible willingness of the postmaster to keep the work moving through personal differences. He is the right person in the right job!

The mail clerk couldn’t have known what we have been through recently, nor could he have understood what it is like to produce a newspaper via volunteers and handle so much of the detail work doing it. Nor does he know how committed all of us are to the well being of our communities through our work on the paper. That is our motivation, and when we run up against those who have nothing to do with the paper, but have the ability to stand in its way…that really can light a fire!

On his side, he is holding down the fort of the post office during lunch hour all by himself (yes, Winfield, Illinois, is a small town with a very small post office). Here he had me walking in his back door (the loading dock) totally unfamiliar with the procedures of the place. And expecting to be served regardless. When he dithered, that was misunderstood by me as unwillingness. And that caused my spark. He would not have known that. I did not give him a chance to do his job and recover. And so the situation grew ugly.

My bad to be sure. His, too, but more on me. I brought the short temper into his workplace.

I said there were two incidences to report. One was waiting in line to see the postal clerk at his window. In front of me were two men, one in his late 40’s, the other in his late teens, maybe. Both were dressed in poverty, unshaven, hair unkempt and unshorn, shoes decrepit and heavily worn. They clearly were down and out. What they were there for I do not know. But I wondered about their story. All I know is the postal clerk handled their transaction sensitively and efficiently. Then he turned to me and refused my transaction! The rest you know.

What we think of the other person’s story and how it impacts us matters. What we do about it matters more.

Sometimes we do alright. Sometimes not.

October 12, 2012