Welcome to Day 2!
AKA "See! I told you it wouldn't be just a one time thing!"
Today's post is about something I find myself pondering quite a bit lately... which is the relationship between trust and honesty.
The inspiration for this post comes from a phone call I got this morning in regards to a car accident I was involved in last week. It was a minor accident, I slid on some ice/sleet going approximately 10 miles an hour and crashed into another car. Minor damage to both vehicles, no airbags deployed, and for her part, at the time the person I hit was pretty understanding about the whole thing. The first thing I did was make sure no one was hurt before doing anything else. She was so understanding that she even offered to settle the whole thing for cash to spare me a bump in insurance premiums. Unfortunately (or fortunately in hindsight), I've been in this person's shoes and know that there can be unseen damage beneath plastic bumpers and knew that I wouldn't have the cash on hand to pay for both vehicles, so I exchanged information and went through insurance. I called it in, got the claims process under way admitted fault and set the process in motion so we could both move on with oru lives. Having resolved the situation like two mature adults she drove off, and I waited for a series of tow trucks because my car wouldn't start.
Everything was moving along until I got a call this morning from my insurance company saying that the other driver was claiming she was hurt. My first reaction was anger... After all, I'd done everything right... I'd called in the accident, offered to wait for the police to show up to file a report, submitted the claim to the insurance company, and I'd gotten out of my car onto a busy highway to make sure the other driver was ok, which she was. She was up and walking around, taking pictures of the damage to her car and my car, she answered "no" when i asked her if she was hurt. Though she was reasonably stressed out, she seemed in perfectly good health.
Later this morning though, I reconsidered my initial reaction. I tried my best to put myself in her shoes. Sometimes when you get into an accident, much like the damage to the vehicles, damage isn't apparent at first. Though I can claim to be many things, a doctor isn't one of them. How would I feel if symptoms arose a couple of days later linked to the accident that left my neck or back in excruciating pain? I'd feel pretty lousy if the person who caused the accident suddenly balked at covering my medical bills. Just another reason I'm glad I went through insurance... Taking that into account, I can see that maybe my anger was a bit rash at the time.
Before I go any farther, I should point out that just because I sympathize with the person, doesn't mean that I agree with them. I testified to the insurance company what I observed. I'm not a doctor, but at the time of the accident she did not appear to be injured. It was a very low speed collision. No airbags deployed. I also pointed out that I did not know every detail of what she did over her holiday that may have been responsible for said injury either... Not that I didn't trust her, but how could I possibly know what caused her injuries?
But I kept coming back around to that initial response... my initial flash of anger... Why was my first response to feel like I was getting ripped off? Having been involved in a few minor accidents in the past and having friends/family who have done the same, I've seen myself and others face plenty of less than honest behavior on the side of victims... "victims" whose damage was paid for in cash pocketing said cash rather than repairing the damage to their vehicles... demanding more money than the damage was worth and using it to fix damage not caused by that incident... outright lying to insurance companies to avoid taking responsibility for accidents they caused... In the course of dealing with a car accident there are a million ways for someone trying to do the right thing to be fucked over... And there comes a point where all the guilt in the world won't keep you from at least contemplating doing something selfish...
I know this sounds like common sense, but it shows just how much hinges on trust and our understanding of basic human nature in our every day lives. Lets take a simple example...When you buy your morning cup of coffee, you trust that all the ingredients in and including your cup were handled in a safe if not pristine manner. This is actually a much larger leap of faith than the average person might take than if they scrutinized it.
For simplicity's sake we'll work our way backwards. First stop: The Coffee Shop.
You trust that the barista/deli clerk has cleaned their coffee urns properly, has made a fresh pot of coffee and has maintained a certain standard of cleanliness and safety (washing hands, clean counters, clean cups, acceptable drinking temperature, unspoiled creamer, etc) when you decide to order a cup of coffee. You may even have to ignore several 'red flags' along the way. Employees not wearing latex gloves, that sticky stuff on the counter, that the blender used to make your double caramel macchi-whatever was actually clean after a quick rinse after making the previous customer's drink, dirt and smudges on the display case glass and floor, etc. You also have to trust that the person preparing your cup of coffee isn't bitter about the fact that they're stuck working as a barista, something no one really sets out to do as their life's ambition**. This isn't a slam on the hardworking baristas, but rather a simple statement of the fact that much like other jobs working in fast food that their job doesn't necessarily pay a living wage. There have also been reports of employers such as Starbucks, engaging in union busting activities, when their workers have tried to unionize in the past (citation at the end), but what I'm getting at is that you have to trust that the employees want to do a good job and aren't bitter or resentful towards their employers and taking out that (well justified) anger against the customers... basically the you have to trust that workers at their core are responsible, clean, happy to work and not assholes.
But lets go further back than that to the materials. You have to trust that the cups, if made from recycled materials, were made in a clean and sterile way. You have to trust that the coffee beans made their journey from farm to beverage in that same clean and sterile condition. You also have to assume that the beans are grown in an clean an acceptable manner in a country that may not have as stringent regulations regarding food safety as the USA does.
The point is that just to drink a cup of coffee you are trusting hundreds if not thousands of people to do the right thing. To choose to do things properly and safely as opposed to cutting corners out of laziness or greed. From the farm workers to the federal regulators to corporate america, we expect all of these parties to do the right thing, despite mountains of evidence to the contrary. It requires us to ignore all the deaths/illnesses from contaminated bacteria, to assume that people don't get fed up/aggravated with unreasonable demands from management, and to assume that regulators are doing their job.
And the same can be said of pretty much anything else in our daily lives. Driving a car or taking a train, going to the bank, etc. We are all required to trust one another to an extent in order to avoid living in some sort of mad max dystopia. It requires that we all believe that people are, for the most part, good-natured, kind, and honest. Whether because that is how people are, or because the consequences for not being that way can be harsh and unforgiving.
My point is that we need trust in our lives to make them in any way enjoyable. When confronted with a breach of that trust it's natural to recoil, but before you hand down an iron clad judgement try and put yourself in the other person's shoes...
There's much more to say, but that will have to wait for another day.
Till next time.
Cheers,
Chris
* = And who wouldn't be stressed out after you got rear ended right before the holidays?
** = No disrespect to the hardworking baristas out there that bring joy and sunshine into our lives. I'm just referring to the fact that no one says they want to be a barista when they grow up in kindergarten.
Starbucks Union Busting Article.. one of many.
No comments:
Post a Comment