or; can't work with these nails painted!
As I mentioned in my last article, last Friday I had the opportunity to be a clown in a parade. I went for the “punk rock” clown look – consequently, my little sister had painted my fingernails black.
When I returned home, I was unable to find nail polish remover, so I decided to wear the polish to work the next day as a joke.
Now, here's the deal – at my job, I'm respected, I'm trusted, and I'm responsible. I know my stuff – I know a lot about flowers, trees, and shrubs, I'm able to help people put together pleasing designs for their yards, I'm very skilled at driving the tractors and getting the people's trucks filled well with their mulches, etc.
On any given day, I'm treated with respect. Customers come in, ask me questions, I answer their questions, we're all happy. I give them a hand, and they're peachy keen. But last Saturday, with the nail polish on my fingers, things were . . . different.
It all started about nine in the morning. They'd called back a scoop of gravel on the radio, and I headed back there to fill the truck up as they pulled around. I walked up to the open window of the vehicle, and the look on the driver's face was one of . . . revulsion. I asked them to pull to a certain spot so I could fill them up, and the older gentleman driving the truck said, “Are you sure you can do this, young'un?”
I turned around, flabbergasted. This was the first time that I'd ever been questioned in my abilities in driving my tractor. I'm the best there is – nobody questions me and my beautiful tractors. (They've all been named, but that's a story for another day.) I brushed it off, saying, “Of course, sir! No problems,” not realizing the reason behind it. I scooped him and went about my business.
About fifteen minutes later, I approached an older lady in the flowering shrubs section and asked, “Hello, m'am. May I help you out with anything?” I crossed my arms across my chest, and again I got the look of revulsion. She said, “That's okay, I'm fine.” I walked away. Thirty seconds later, another coworker, Jack, went over and asked the lady if she needed help. For the next fifteen minutes, he was answering questions for her and helping her get a whole cartful of shrubbery.
Finally, I started to think something was wrong. I ran into the bathroom, to see if there was something wrong with my face. Looking at myself in the mirror, it occurred to me – the nails. I hadn't given them a second thought the entire hour I'd been at work. Suddenly I realized what had caused that look of revulsion and the reticence to have my help – they thought I was a punk kid.
I decided to take advantage of this opportunity and turn it into a social experiment. I started to take notice of the way I was treated by all of the customers coming through the store.
Throughout the entire day, I was treated the exact same way by almost every customer who I attempted to help. There was the occasional exception – in particular, I helped a woman and her children design her entire front bed, and some of the people who I scooped mulch for were appreciative without complaint . . . but more often than not, people didn't want to talk to me. They AVOIDED me.
One person in particular, a man in his seventies (whose truck I had filled with soil three or four times) would not let me fill his vehicle with soil. He refused, said that he would wait until someone “more qualified” (his words) were available to fill his truck. This was a person who had loved the way I had taken care of him many times before, and now he would not allow me to help him. Ugh.
What a telling experiment. I've now realized that we are all too quick to judge. I've never had problems like this before, and now here I was, being ostracized simply because I had black nails. Other than that, I looked the same way I always look – green J & L shirt, Levi jeans, and work boots. But the simple fact that I had black painted fingernails changed me from accepted and respected to shunned and untrusted. Huh.
Moral of the experiment: Maybe we should all be a little less quick to judge . . . because sometimes it's just a veneer, hiding the real person behind.