An Observation

So today I went into a big institution. I talked to the receptionist. A pleasant open young woman. I was assigned a representative to help me. He was professional. Seemed to know his stuff. Kind. Patient when I asked questions and when I told him I already knew what he was attempting to teach me, but at one point he needed a certain card. He became animated and seemed to be a little upset that he didn’t have any at his workstation. He rifled through the receptionist’s desk. She had stepped away. She returned and stood apart, against the wall. There was definitely a power dynamic at play. She quietly asked him what he was looked for. He told her. She reached down to a lower shelf and handed a box to him. “Are you sure?” he asked her with distain, totally dismissing her. Apparently they were the correct cards but they weren’t in English. He hurried to another representative’s workstation, also empty. He jubilantly retrieved a card and gave it to me.

Later when he went to hand in some of the paperwork we had filled out, I walked over to the receptionist and asked her if I could tell her something kind of personal. She said yes. We had already made a light but lovely connection when I walked in. I told her that sometimes when someone was feeling insecure they said things to belittle or dismiss another person in order to make themselves feel better. I told her I wanted her to know that she hadn’t done anything wrong, that I knew she had been trying to help. Her eyes grew large. She thanked me and said she didn’t realize that people did that. I said yes that sometimes they do and that we’ve been trained to react as if it is our fault, as if we did something wrong. I could see in her eyes that I didn’t have to add the words “as women” — she understood. She also told me how wonderful it was to learn about the world by seeing it through others’ eyes. I told her I would be speaking to the representative about how he treated her.

When all our business was concluded, I thanked the representative for his skill, his kindness toward me, and for his patience. I also told him that the way he spoke so dismissively to the receptionist really bothered me, so much that I had almost asked to be assigned to a different representative. I told him that I then decided to give him a chance and to tell him what I noticed at the end of our time together. He thanked me. Said he appreciated my point of view but that of course I couldn’t know what their relationships was, implying that it was so much banter since they were work colleagues. I informed him that he had spoken to the receptionist in a way that wouldn’t be appropriate no matter what their relationship was. She could have been his significant other and it still wouldn’t have been okay. It wasn’t so much what he said but how he said it. He looked very taken aback but stopped defending himself and thought about what I said. Maybe I only made a dent. Maybe even that didn’t happen, Who knows? Anyway I shook his hand and asked him where the restroom was.

15 June 2022