Returned 21 results for 'Monthly Archives: August, 2016'
An interesting set of conundrums for Bill at the Barber Shop
Tuesday, August 16th, 2016
One of our employees called Bill was telling us about an interesting event that occurred whilst visiting a barber shop that led to many conundrums.
Typical barber shop - place of many conundrums? image courtesy clintonbarber.com
This was his second visit to this particular shop. As he was entering the barber shop a little boy of about seven beat him to the door and inside there was the same barber who cut his hair over a month ago and gave Bill the hi-five. Meanwhile the kid approached two ladies sitting down and seemed to know them and then went to the barber’s chair to sit down to have his haircut. Bill thought he would wait, plus there were three other barbers there and they seemed to be finishing off haircuts to the customers there.
Bill sort of pointed to the kid while looking at the barber as though he was going to get the hair-cut first and proceeded to sit down on a bench facing the barber. After about 5-10 mins. one of the barbers about 2 seats down had finished and Bill thought there was a chance that he would have his turn now. It turns out that this barber didn’t even exchange eye contact with Bill and went to the back of the shop. Bill’s first conundrum was whether there was some kind of mistake and whether the man had just gone to the back for a break. Bill waited and the man came back and just sat with his other barber friend. Bill’s second conundrum - the barber must have assumed that Bill wanted a haircut with the barber that greeted him with a hi-five. Bill also concluded that various customers liked to have their haircut by selected barbers and he would not want to offend anyone by taking the customer away. So Bill didn’t say anything and made the decision to wait.
About 15 mins. elapses and two women with a kid walk into the shop and asks the barber whether he would cut the child’s hair. The barber looks at Bill and speaks in Spanish, Bill replies that he doesn’t understand Spanish and the barber asks whether Bill was going to get the haircut. Bill simply nodded without thinking and the barber says that it would be after Bill but he turned around and saw a free barber and asked him whether he could cut the kid’s hair. Some of our astute readers might have picked up the cue of what was happening here but Bill was unaware of what was going on as he already felt that he ‘belonged’ to this barber. So the new kid gets his haircut by one of the free barber. Here is another conundrum - maybe Bill should have spoken out and asked why they were getting a haircut after him but Bill assumed that he needs to honor the barbers code of conduct. After all, he didn’t know any better.
After about 30 mins in where Bill was becoming increasingly impatient as the barber seemed to be taking so much time, two guys walk into the shop. They seemed to know the barber that was supposedly going to cut Bill’s hair and asked about getting a haircut for his friend he was with. He (Bill’s barber) called out to another free barber and asked whether he could cut his hair. Around this time the woman who seemed to be related to the kid that was having his haircut came and sat near Bill. The conundrum started to sink into Bill and he looked at his clock and made a decision that if the barber went beyond another 5 mins. he would simply walk out of the shop. His frustration was that not that the other people were getting his haircut but the barber seemed to take a lot of time over this kid. It was nearing 40 mins. when Bill was about to walk out of the shop but luckily the barber just finished.
So a very interesting conversation ensued as the kid got of the salon chair and the barber pointed to Bill to sit down. As he was doing so the ‘mother’ of the kid was having a conversation in Spanish. Bill got the jist of this conversation when the barber seemed to imply that Bill was with the mother and the kid and she swung her head and the barber gave a big sigh in surprise and patted Bill on the head. Bill knew that this was a mistake on the part of the barber to assume that Bill had come into the shop with the kid. Bill now wondered how the barber was going to behave but the barber did not provide an apology or say anything about the matter. Bill finally got his haircut and measured on his watch how long the barber took to cut his hair compared to the previous kid that he did. Bill’s time was 28 mins compared to the kid before him which took 45 mins. Maybe the barber wanted to speed things up knowing that Bill had waited patiently all this time.
The readers may want to get involved in this episode of conundrums. There were many possibilities and both parties maybe to blame for Bill not getting his haircut in a timely manner. Maybe the waiting game was not a big deal in the culture that the barber grew up in. What would you do and why?
Tags: barber shop, conundrum, misunderstanding
Detecting arrogance - Jumpdates ThinkTank Labs
Monday, August 15th, 2016
The subject of arrogance is extremely wrought with uncertainty since many of us can associate to some extent to the qualities of arrogance due to our egotistical nature. We at Jumpdates ThinkTank Labs have fed conversations on this topic through our unique machine language algorithms and came up with some insights.
Arrogance means different to different people
To categorize as someone being arrogant is in a way putting yourself in their shoes and making assumptions and deductions that you somehow have a superior handle on arrogance than they have. If you say, you spotted arrogance, does this mean that the other person is not aware of his/her arrogant behavior. Maybe you are right, because you sympathize with the notions of arrogance and for you to characterize that quality in others means you have more experience in the real world and is in a better position to make that statement. Are you really?
People’s definition of arrogance will differ from one person to another. Suppose you asked or posed that question to the person who you are implying is arrogant. For example a direct question ‘Are you arrogant or do you have arrogant traits’. What do you think the most likely responses would be? Maybe you will get a very diplomatic response or maybe you will get back anger and resentment. Who is to say that one is right and the other is not.
You just need to search the internet for thousands of articles posted on this subject and if you chose to understand the topic, then you are probably in the small percentage who cares as much. However, the fact that people don’t feel the necessity of understanding every topic under the sun, or taking an inherent interest does not imply that they have shortcomings in those particular topics. Maybe through their experience they are able to spot people with certain characteristics than the next person who has gone through many books on psychology.
It has been said that any shortcomings in human beings is a product of the person not being aware of those shortcomings. So, you could say that someone who is arrogant will not be able to find true definition of the meaning and thus try to correct themselves. This begs the question of how much should you be yourself in group or ‘toe the line’ with respect to others in terms of dignity, respect, society etc as a whole.
It has also been said that it takes one to know one. Maybe the arrogant person already knows his shortcomings and have leveraged it to his advantage to overpower and control others around him. After all ‘arrogance’ with all its negative connotations has perceived qualities that others may be craving for. For example, the person who lacks confidence. You don’t need to look too far for those kinds of people, we have one running for the White House and has millions of supporters.
Many topics on this subject advises people to steer away from these kinds of people. But the argument could be, how can you deal with these people effectively if you had no choice but to work with them for whatever reason. Maybe you are being a coward from running away from those people and not be able to deal with them. Maybe you are doing yourself injustice in mixing with more ‘normal’ people around you and incubating yourself from potentially good relationships with other people. You know what they say ‘birds of a feather, stick together’!
The point being made is that when it comes to ‘arrogance’, there are no black and white decisions that you can make and can label someone uniquely in this category. Like I was saying earlier, some people can ‘show-off’ to a potential mate that they are interested in and anyone else peering in may find this person ‘extremely arrogant’. We all have egos and some to a lower extent and others to a higher extent. We all have to live together and make choices and maybe for a particular group of people they have worked out their differences and get by. Maybe for those people who are struggling with their own internal issues find themselves out of tune with the rest of society. Who knows? But one of the highest esteemed human trait that can be found in anyone, is the ability to self-reflect and see it objectively from another’s point of view.
Tags: arrogance meaning, arrogant, detecting arrogance, jumpdates thinktank
Couples behavior to each other has a profound psychological effect on children
Friday, August 12th, 2016
It is not difficult to see that children growing up in a household develops personalities based around the family members. At an early age say 5-10, children have no references to base their opinion on and naturally they look to their parents or elders to satisfy their curious minds. What many parents fail to realize is that the part they play in those tender ages can have a profound psychological bearing on the upbringing of the child. We often hear of stories where troubled people going into their adulthood almost always blame how they came to be on their parents. You may have heard cases where the ‘mature’ adult has blamed his aggressive nature because his father used to beat him up badly. Or the case where the ‘mature’ woman finds it difficult to make important decisions since the mother always used to remind her of that.
Parenting requires understanding your own behavior
I put apostrophes around the word mature, because maturity would indicate knowing your shortcomings and trying to do something about it rather than blame another for the situation you are in. Many people go through life without ever realizing their shortcomings and this becomes even more important when it comes to raising children. We may feel that what we do or think should not have any bearing on the child, but it has a huge effect! Unless you pay attention to the small subtleties that children are picking up from the conversations and actions you have with them or your spouse, you may be sending mixed signals which will affect them for years to come. Your actions will be all important to the development of your child. I will give you another example of a careless approach that parents overlook on no fault of their own but the damaging effect it can have on their children.
Take the case of a young woman who wants to buy a house and to move out of the family protection to be more independant. Unfortunately, the parents have their own views on the cost of a home and upon finding out that their 28 year old daughter had gone and made an offer on an house that they feel to be too high, there is naturally tension between them. However, the odd thing is that the parents encouraged her to go and look for a house that she wants to buy. However, it pains them to think that their own daughter has paid too much on the house and she should relinquish it. The father then decides that he will take on the responsibility of finding a house for her daughter and so she agrees. You may be wondering, what is wrong with that? There are several problems with this..for a start the parents have given her freedom and then almost immediately took it away. This is why you are going to get children into adulthood who are insecure in their decision making. The whole idea of buying a house in the first place was the decision of the daughter. Secondly, the parents are dearly wanting the daughter to see her find her own happiness in being independent and eventually settling down to get married. The parents have always griped about how she can’t do this or do that and not able to stand up for herself. So now you can understand the damage that parents are unknowingly bringing to their children. These actions only creates a cyclical event within the family time and time again, in one hand you have parents who want their children to be independant but on the other they are incapable of making important decisions in their lives.
What the parents have failed to realize is that their actions came about on the factor of money and thereby giving more importance to that and taking away the important factor of independent thinking. Their daughter who obviously also with the same mindset like their parents does in fact agree and ends up also making a wrong decision herself and so the cycle repeats.
There is no single solution to parenting, but the most important thing to understand is when you say something, really mean it. Otherwise whatever you say will be empty in substance because you would be prepared to retract from it if something does not meet your expectations.
Tags: independence, parenting, practice preach
Working with professionals - How to produce the right result with the right price!
Thursday, August 11th, 2016
The world of today moves so fast that we often overlook or do not find the time to ponder over the relationships we have with everyone around us. It is true to say that over time we come to trust our closest members such as our spouse, children, friends etc. However, we often overlook the people that come and go who also play an important part in our lives. I am talking about the attorneys, realtors, contractors, car mechanics etc. They are essential to our everyday needs and as much as we hate using them, they are a necessity in our everyday lives. So what can we do to ensure there is trust amongst these groups of people since many have heard horror stories in their dealings with these groups of people or have experienced it yourselves.
Working with professionals requires some thinking
Attorneys, accountants, realtors and even doctors are in a niche that allows them to exercise power over the naive clients they interact with. It is a sad fact that some of these people who have this specialist knowledge can often abuse it with their clients. In my experience it’s a rarity that you find people good people who stand on moral grounds and this especially falls upon lawyers. It is odd that such an esteemed profession should also have the worst rap amongst the general populace. But we can almost always equate this to the money factor The underlying motivator for them is to make money at the minimum time possible and as quickly as possible. This would mean that they will go to lengths to achieve that which is basically say an outright lie without feeling any remorse. Many attorneys will initially be genuine and sincere about the rates and work they do but the general consensus is to see how much they can milk you once you come under their wing. You maybe wondering why someone like myself could have such distaste for this profession and my reply would be that I have had experience with not just one buy many lawyers.
Some of these attorneys are very well dressed and give an outwardly shiny personality to their clients. Unfortunately, it does not always translate to good work or a genuine empathy to your predicament and work. The truth of the matter is that many clients have become a bit smarter in the approach with attorneys and other groups of people. One can learn from those people who have worked with these difficult types of people in conducting a business and have come out as winners. The problem is that many attorneys shy away from those people and would rather go for the naive and innocent or ‘green’ type of people.
One can easily develop the skills required to work with these people but you just need to know how. We will show you in simple steps in Part 2 of this post on how to protect your own interests and produce an outcome that is more desirable to you when dealing with such people. It is basically an exercise in developing positive relationships.
Stay tuned!
Tags: dealing with attorneys, handling professionals, how to negotiate
Lessons learned - Squabbles between couples are a good thing
Wednesday, August 10th, 2016
Squabbles between couples are a good thing - image courtesy classic105.com
It is a well known fact that some of the gender differences are known to scientists and psychologists alike. One of these differences lies in how a man or a woman use their cognitive abilities that they are inherently born with and apply it to their daily lives. Women are considered more instinctual thinkers and think of details whereas men are more pragmatic in the way they reach their conclusions. So who is right and who is wrong. It would be a complete waste of time and energy to deduce one gender is greater in some respects than man. However, we cannot argue the fact that this is definitely a man’s world. ‘It would be nothing without a woman or a girl’, the lyrics of the famous artist and singer James Brown, ‘It’s a Man’s, Man’s Man’s World’.
To argue over the instinctual nature of women and the logical sense of men would be futile in exercise and like comparing apples and oranges. The right approach to these differences is to understand how these differences can work together to bring about something greater than by itself. The gnawing and thrashing of couple squabbles is in actual fact a good thing. This usually arrives from polarized views in their thinking ie. the instinctual versus the logic. What many people don’t realize that each time you arrive at an agreement from those squabbles there is a greater awareness and understanding of cooperation between couples. This should be a goal and known fact from the social interaction of couples. However, there is a BIG catch for this to work smoohtly and effectively. If one feels defeated and bitter over an argument, the couple’s relationship may take a path for the worse. What can possibly be good from one party having been defeated over their arguments by a decisive win by the other party. All couples should take note. It is a marriage of co-operation and both have to give and take without harboring ill feelings between each other.
Unfortunately, in the ideal world we are not made to act or react in such a way depending of course on the topic of arguments or discussion. Our opinions and arguments stem from the way we have been brought up and the way we shape our personalities from our internalized experiences. But the truth remains that we have some qualities and values that we can always aim for in order to make ourselves better than what we are. These traits have been passed through generation after generation and they can come in any shape or form ie. cultural, religious, spiritual, hardship etc. But there are common threads of human qualities that we put head and shoulders above the rest. These include sincerity, generosity, kindness, integrity amongst others. If we are true to those values than I will make a bold a statement that the world would be cured of 99% of the problems we see facing today.
So the lesson learned is that the next time you come out of an argument, make sure you have the empathy in check so that both individuals have gained something positive out of the argument.
Tags: couples, fights, insights, quarrelling
