Our snap judgements are often wrong. By Liane Arno
WHY I thought going into Bunnings on Christmas Eve was a good idea I will never know. I was with Matt and searching for a garden tap. I was in the section marked for garden hoses but couldn’t find the taps.
Incredibly there was a rare Bunnings storeman not only in sight but in the same aisle and I asked him if he could tell me where the taps were. “You’ll find them in Aisle 43.”
We navigated the hordes of shoppers, made more difficult as I had to guide Matt who is clinically blind, and found the plumbing session full of bathroom and kitchen taps but not a garden tap to be seen. Back we go to the original aisle, through more hordes of shoppers and found the garden taps. As I railed at Matt that the storeman would have looked at me, a grey haired ‘sheila’, asking the question, and immediately thought I wanted a kitchen tap.
WHY I thought going into Bunnings on Christmas Eve was a good idea I will never know. I was with Matt and searching for a garden tap. I was in the section marked for garden hoses but couldn’t find the taps.
Incredibly there was a rare Bunnings storeman not only in sight but in the same aisle and I asked him if he could tell me where the taps were. “You’ll find them in Aisle 43.”
We navigated the hordes of shoppers, made more difficult as I had to guide Matt who is clinically blind, and found the plumbing session full of bathroom and kitchen taps but not a garden tap to be seen. Back we go to the original aisle, through more hordes of shoppers and found the garden taps. As I railed at Matt that the storeman would have looked at me, a grey haired ‘sheila’, asking the question, and immediately thought I wanted a kitchen tap.
At which point the storeman turned up and I pointed out the location of the garden taps in his aisle and charged him with my theory. He laughed and confirmed that he had assumed I wanted kitchen taps. I smiled too but I was a bit grumpy.
When we teach we often tell our students, when encouraging them to survey their potential customers, to never assume. Because if you assume, you make an ‘ass’ out of ‘u’ and ‘me’.
How many assumptions do we make in life?
Still at school, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to be when I grew up and sought the advice of my parents. Mum was at the time head of business studies at a TAFE and Dad, a Squadron Leader in the RAAF, had previously been a teacher. So it seemed natural to me that I should join the teaching profession. When I suggested it they both recoiled in horror and told me I would hate it. Dad suggested I could be a stripper as he thought they made good money. I don’t think he was joking.
I thought I would join the police force. This was 45 years ago, so you can imagine how very few women there were in the police force then. I remember the application process was odd. I used to love puzzles and was quite good at them. I, along with a room full of hopefuls, were asked to do those old IQ tests. When I went to be interviewed by the sergeant conducting the tests I sat waiting for him to interview me while he filled out some paperwork. After a while of just sitting there I said, “Do you want me to tell you why I want to join the police force?” He told me there was no need as I had topped the group in the test.
How stupid is that? I could have been a psychopath. While being able to do a maths puzzle or recognise a pattern has benefited me in the past, how many others have been disadvantaged because of a narrow assumption of what intelligence is? These tests completely ignore creativity and problem-solving skills, not to mention social skills. In particular they disadvantage those who haven’t attended an English-speaking school. They probably wouldn’t have admitted Hercule Poirot into the police force at the time I joined.
Speaking of non-English-speaking people, how many of us assume they are ‘stupid’ and ‘ignorant’ because they can’t speak English. They probably speak several languages and probably are better educated than those who label them. These ‘labellers’ also assume, topically now because of what happened in Bondi, that because immigrants are Muslim that they must be a terrorist.
I don’t want to over simplify the differences between Christianity and Islam but my understanding is that the main difference is that Muslims do not believe that Jesus Christ was the son of God or that he was resurrected. Instead they believe he was a prophet in the same way as Muhammad. Other than that both religions believe in a single god, the prophets from the Old Testament, that Mary was a virgin, that Jesus performed miracles, Satan and angels, a second coming of Jesus, the day of judgement, an afterlife, heaven and hell. Both believe in the importance of social justice and treating others with respect and love.
I know many of you will have heard the term ’jihad’ and believe that it means a holy war. When I delved into it I found the word has several meanings. Firstly it means the personal struggle all of us have to resist temptations and become a better person. Secondly it is to strive for a better society. Finally it can mean an armed struggle to defend Islam or to fight against oppression. Is that any different from what we would all do in our own society?
And frankly since when did we really follow the words of the scriptures in their literal ways in today’s society? The Old Testament decrees that if you work on the Sabbath you should be put to death, if you eat pork you should be put to death, if you plant two crops side by side you should be stoned to death by your entire village, if a woman interferes in a fight she should have her hand cut off, if you masturbate and then ejaculate then you need to give two turtle doves to your pastor, and if you wear a suit that contains two different fibres of linen and wool you should be burned at the stake by your mother. Oh - and man shall not sleep with man. Seems to me we are just a tad selective.
How on earth did I get onto this looking for garden taps? Must be the time of year!
I will finish with a happier note. When I was a little girl crying because I felt I was useless my father said to me, “Liane, have confidence in yourself. You are no better or worse than anyone else. Always have confidence in yourself.”
Without this advice I would have always assumed I was hopeless. But with this message I will always give things a go – and never assume.
I can therefore blame Matt when selecting the tap as he assumed that all taps were the same gauge and we had to return it to Bunnings on Boxing Day to even greater hordes. The storeman was nowhere to be seen.
When we teach we often tell our students, when encouraging them to survey their potential customers, to never assume. Because if you assume, you make an ‘ass’ out of ‘u’ and ‘me’.
How many assumptions do we make in life?
Still at school, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to be when I grew up and sought the advice of my parents. Mum was at the time head of business studies at a TAFE and Dad, a Squadron Leader in the RAAF, had previously been a teacher. So it seemed natural to me that I should join the teaching profession. When I suggested it they both recoiled in horror and told me I would hate it. Dad suggested I could be a stripper as he thought they made good money. I don’t think he was joking.
I thought I would join the police force. This was 45 years ago, so you can imagine how very few women there were in the police force then. I remember the application process was odd. I used to love puzzles and was quite good at them. I, along with a room full of hopefuls, were asked to do those old IQ tests. When I went to be interviewed by the sergeant conducting the tests I sat waiting for him to interview me while he filled out some paperwork. After a while of just sitting there I said, “Do you want me to tell you why I want to join the police force?” He told me there was no need as I had topped the group in the test.
How stupid is that? I could have been a psychopath. While being able to do a maths puzzle or recognise a pattern has benefited me in the past, how many others have been disadvantaged because of a narrow assumption of what intelligence is? These tests completely ignore creativity and problem-solving skills, not to mention social skills. In particular they disadvantage those who haven’t attended an English-speaking school. They probably wouldn’t have admitted Hercule Poirot into the police force at the time I joined.
Speaking of non-English-speaking people, how many of us assume they are ‘stupid’ and ‘ignorant’ because they can’t speak English. They probably speak several languages and probably are better educated than those who label them. These ‘labellers’ also assume, topically now because of what happened in Bondi, that because immigrants are Muslim that they must be a terrorist.
I don’t want to over simplify the differences between Christianity and Islam but my understanding is that the main difference is that Muslims do not believe that Jesus Christ was the son of God or that he was resurrected. Instead they believe he was a prophet in the same way as Muhammad. Other than that both religions believe in a single god, the prophets from the Old Testament, that Mary was a virgin, that Jesus performed miracles, Satan and angels, a second coming of Jesus, the day of judgement, an afterlife, heaven and hell. Both believe in the importance of social justice and treating others with respect and love.
I know many of you will have heard the term ’jihad’ and believe that it means a holy war. When I delved into it I found the word has several meanings. Firstly it means the personal struggle all of us have to resist temptations and become a better person. Secondly it is to strive for a better society. Finally it can mean an armed struggle to defend Islam or to fight against oppression. Is that any different from what we would all do in our own society?
And frankly since when did we really follow the words of the scriptures in their literal ways in today’s society? The Old Testament decrees that if you work on the Sabbath you should be put to death, if you eat pork you should be put to death, if you plant two crops side by side you should be stoned to death by your entire village, if a woman interferes in a fight she should have her hand cut off, if you masturbate and then ejaculate then you need to give two turtle doves to your pastor, and if you wear a suit that contains two different fibres of linen and wool you should be burned at the stake by your mother. Oh - and man shall not sleep with man. Seems to me we are just a tad selective.
How on earth did I get onto this looking for garden taps? Must be the time of year!
I will finish with a happier note. When I was a little girl crying because I felt I was useless my father said to me, “Liane, have confidence in yourself. You are no better or worse than anyone else. Always have confidence in yourself.”
Without this advice I would have always assumed I was hopeless. But with this message I will always give things a go – and never assume.
I can therefore blame Matt when selecting the tap as he assumed that all taps were the same gauge and we had to return it to Bunnings on Boxing Day to even greater hordes. The storeman was nowhere to be seen.