A new acquaintance deserves room to be different from the person their title led you to expect.
REFLECTION
WHAT THIS MEANS
A job title is a poor description of a human being. Meeting a surgeon, a plumber, an accountant or a soldier, you arrive with a set of assumptions about temperament and interests, and the person then has to spend the first half hour either fitting them or correcting them. Most people are considerably stranger and more interesting than their occupation suggests.
When you meet someone new, get past what they do within a few minutes. Ask what they have been enjoying lately, or how they came to be here. You will find the actual person somewhere other than where the label pointed.
A QUESTION TO SIT WITH
Whom did you misjudge before they had said a single sentence?
MORE IN PERCEPTION & ATTENTION
- A small choice made with consideration can spare someone a problem they would have been too polite to mention.
- The quiet work of making people comfortable deserves more credit than the visible work of impressing them.
- A person’s good intention becomes more useful when it learns the details of another person’s day.
Free, with nothing to buy inside it.