Reverse thinking

She stated that upon entry to the designer store, this time, she was not greeted, until perhaps ten minutes of being in the store, and when she was eventually acknowledged, she was advised that she would have to be placed on a wait list to be attended to. My associate said many questions immediately surged to her frontal lobe; many of these questions of course were stained with racist, classist, profiling undertones – as this was the first time she was ever wait-listed or even advised of this concept.

My associate said a real surge of anger began to surface, as she started thinking all of the requisite thoughts that accompany feelings of rejection based on whatever the grounds may be – or perceived to be. So, seeing an opportunity for a lesson in diplomacy, we joined her the very next day to journey to this luxury outlet to examine this ‘unacceptable level of interaction’ – according to her tale.

Immediately upon entering the establishment, I noticed the overworked staff, running from pillar to post attending to each client with such attention to detail, that they were in fact sticking to their ethos of each customer being ‘the most important person in the world’ at that time. I saw many other potential clients either sitting in comfortably designed seats patiently awaiting their turns to be provided service, or having a quiet and patient look at the items on show. As my associate stated, after about ten to fifteen minutes, we were approached by a visually weary associate, who advised we would have to be wait-listed.

I simply asked, “How so?” The attendant informed that during this very busy July / August period, the influx of visitors made it very challenging to provide the standard of care and attention to each client as they were known for; as such they wait-listed clients, to ensure each was fully attended to. By this time, my associate who had shared the experience completely deflated, was silently muttering, “Oh, okay then, it wasn’t about me.”

Many times, we view experiences based on our past encounters, our histories, our life lessons, and perhaps our own inherent issues related to self-esteem, and sometimes, our over-thinking of a situation may lead us to read more than what is in front of us. This particular experience, reminds that even though there are enough experiences that can be chalked up to all the related social ills, sometimes, ‘it is just what it is’, and no more. Sometimes our reverse thinking takes us to places we need not visit.

This being stated, it is also important to understand that we have all been acclimatized enough to be able to identify the social cues, both stated and unstated, both covert and overt, that may lead us to come to our various conclusions. The end point must be that whilst we ensure we continue to be aware of the society within which we operate, we must also be aware that every action does not revolve around us.