Hmmmmmm
Reflections
Person in the mirror.
Back in 1994 I was working for a company in Los Angeles, California. I joined the management team to run one of their store locations. The first location I was assigned to was in El Monte California which is a city just outside Los Angeles. For those who are not familiar with El Monte, the city at the time was a city with a predominately Hispanic community. Also at the time the community was inundated with a great deal of homeless which walked the streets constantly twenty four hours a day. Many of the homeless I was told were indigents which were discharged for mental institutions and had now place to call home other than the streets. I don’t know how much truth was in this but many of the homeless were not Hispanic and seemed to have disturbances which lead one to believe they were eccentric at best.
The store in El Monte was in one of those strip malls which accompanies many cities where specialty stores are place together in the name of effortlessness In shopping to the community. After spending over twenty years with the number one retailer in the country whose dominance was eclipsed by the great Walmart, I left said company after number one became number three. I soon found myself in a company which suffered the same infirmity as the one I left. That disease was having upper management who cared more about white shirts and ties and status rather than the changing times.
An example of this is when I wanted to show that the company cared about the community it was in by making subtle changes to the precedence set by the company. When I first take an assignment I don’t think that my knowledge or experiences is the cure all to affect change in a department, I know that it takes the entire team and surroundings to affect that change. I first saw that I was the only non Hispanic person in the store. I also noticed that English was not the spoken language among the patrons and the employees. I wanted to change the enter/exit signs on the door to read in Spanish and I wanted to change the radio station from the approved radio station to the leading Spanish station in Los Angeles. When I called my district manager about the changes I met resistance and typical banter about the restrictive rules I must abide by.
Two months later when my district manager made a visit to congratulate me on the huge profit increases. I got joy in seeing his face turn bright red when he stepped to the door and read the sign on the door and his ruddiness further brighten when he stepped inside and heard the radio station. He should have fired me for disobedience and insubordination but he couldn’t argue with my results. This is what I mean about how companies productivity is failing because of stuffy white shirts not bending with the community they serve. I am often heard stating the companies are in the business of punishing its employees and its customers in order to make a profit. Just imagine how much profit could be generated if companies stopped the punishment.
The first thing that caught my attention at the El Monte location was an employee named Ralph. Often times we become jaded to expectations when dealing with youth today. Ralph surprised the paradigm in my mind with his attitude. The first thing that impressed me was he called me sir which was unheard of from a teenager in Los Angeles. The second thing was when I asked him to do something; it was done with my having to ask him over and over again. Finally I found his acceptance of new task and projects refreshing. Ralph was a gem, one of those employees that managers dream of. Also and the most important thing was that Ralph was a credit to his parents.
After observing Ralph for a few months I knew he had great potential and would be a great asset for the company. I chose to pull him off to the side and offer him a chance to move up the ladder by entering the management training program. I pulled Ralph off to the side and told him of my impressions of his talent and work ethic. I told him that he was a credit to the company and to his parents and that I wanted to offer him the chance to advance with the company by joining the management team via the management training program.
My eyes bugged out of my head and I had to do a double take when Ralph told me; “Thank you sir, but I’m not interested.” I was shocked at Ralph’s’ response. The first thing I thought of was maybe he was nervous that the position was too much responsibility and that caused the apprehension. The truth was far more impressive than what was going through my surprised mind. After asking Ralph why he was turning down this great opportunity: He went on to state he was accepted to go to a college which taught aviation and he was going to be the first in his family to go to college. After hearing this I felt ashamed of my initial thoughts and was proud that he was choosing to follow his goals.
It was about three months later and Ralph came to me and asked if he could still be put into the management training program. I looked at Ralph and without hesitation I told him absolutely not. This time it was Ralph whose eyes were bugging out of his face and after he did a double take he asked me why. I told Ralph that he was going to be the first in his family to go to college and that was more important than the management program.
Ralph then proceeded to tell me that the college had over accepted the amount to students for the year and had no room to let him in. Ralph further stated that he was willing to work another year and try again the following year. After hearing this I reiterated to Ralph that the offer of the management training was still not extended to him. Again Ralph took a double take with bugged eyes and asked why.
I then escorted Ralph outside the store and pointed to the plethora of homeless walking the street and told Ralph that he will be like them in ten years. Ralph looked at the strange and dirty homeless folks walking the street and looked at me and started to laugh. His laugh was extinguished real fast when I further told him that if I were talking to one of those homeless people when they were eighteen they too would have laughed. I continued to explain to Ralph that each of them had at sometime allowed a dream of theirs to be deferred. With each dream deferred they found themselves making a slight turn form the mirror of their lives.
I told Ralph that I didn’t want him to start making those same concessions. To make a long story short I made sure that I did everything within my powers to ensure that Ralph demanded and was allowed in to the school that had accepted his application. Ralph did go off to college and I don’t know what became of him but I do know he didn’t allow his initial dream to be deferred.
Another incident which comes to mind is of a young man I met in the management training program. James was a Mormon who was a transplant from Utah. His church had transferred his wife to teach in Los Angeles. James himself had just finished a stint in Central America with his brothers in the church as a missionary. He was a bit naïve in the talking to. James neither smoked nor drank, he didn’t even curse on have a bad word to say about anyone. To think of him as a husband and father of two young boys was extremely hard. I guess I was a tad bit jaded to the world and someone like James only refreshed my hopes for my fellow man.
It was three months into James’s training that I decided to visit him to see how he was coming along. He was stationed at a location very close to my house and I thought I’d drop in on him on my way home. Upon arriving at the location I was in complete shock as to what I saw. I was so stunned that rather than confronting James at the job sight I asked him to meet me at my house when he was finished at work.
When James came over the first thing I asked him after sitting him down was for a cigarette. James reached into his pocket and pulled out two packs and asked me if I wanted menthol or no menthol. That is when I let into him. I said to James: When was the last time you looked into the mirror. You have a earring in you ear at work and to add insult to injury it is a dangling one. You were drink alcohol on the job when I showed up and cursing with the other guys and not to mention smoking and you are so confused that you carry both kinds of cigarettes. The man I met a few mouths back who was a proud family man and a proud Mormon who had unrelenting values is not the same man sitting before me now.
I went on to tell him that he must have stopped looking at himself in the mirror to the point of turning his back to that mirror, because if he even took a peek at himself he would be disgusted in what he had become. James started crying, which was not the effect I was looking for and then he started to explain why he had changed, which didn’t really make sense.
I don’t like telling this story because if I didn’t experience it for myself I would think of this story as complete fallacy. James became a walking and breathing case study of personality digression. The story of Ralph and the homeless along with the story of James and the metamorphosis caused me to believe in having a full length mirror.
Do you know who is in Your Mirror?
There is the person you see form time to time that always tells of the five pounds they
have lost even though you see them getting fatter. There is the person who stepped outside wearing something that makes you say “Oh no you didn’t think that looked good!” There are the folks who to follow a crowd or a fashion trend put on something that is something they would have gawked at before it became fashion. I often see people performing their work out in public because of the fashion statement they want to make. Men and boy working out their biceps with every third step because they chose to walk out of the house without a belt and having their pants hanging down halfway on their thighs. Their biceps are working pulling up their pants. And women and young ladies working out their triceps pulling down their short and very tight skirts and dresses every third step. The bottom line is YOU LOOK STUPID!!
I like to ask that everyone keeps a full length mirror in their home. Every day you must strip down completely exposed and stand before that mirror. The first thing that comes to mind is of course the physical person standing there. Many of us think that the mirror lies but it’s not the mirror that is lying but the eyes staring into it. Yes you should start with the physical self that stands before that mirror but then look deeper into the self and begin to realize who is in that self. The truth of the matter is that the first person we lie to is ourselves. The first person we deceive is ourselves and the first person we hurt is ourselves.
I don’t ask for you to get that mirror and stand before it completely exposed because I care about your self esteem. I am purely selfish in my request because I’m thinking of me. For if you stop lying, deceiving and hurting yourself, I know you will not lie, deceive or hurt me.
Person in the mirror.
Back in 1994 I was working for a company in Los Angeles, California. I joined the management team to run one of their store locations. The first location I was assigned to was in El Monte California which is a city just outside Los Angeles. For those who are not familiar with El Monte, the city at the time was a city with a predominately Hispanic community. Also at the time the community was inundated with a great deal of homeless which walked the streets constantly twenty four hours a day. Many of the homeless I was told were indigents which were discharged for mental institutions and had now place to call home other than the streets. I don’t know how much truth was in this but many of the homeless were not Hispanic and seemed to have disturbances which lead one to believe they were eccentric at best.
The store in El Monte was in one of those strip malls which accompanies many cities where specialty stores are place together in the name of effortlessness In shopping to the community. After spending over twenty years with the number one retailer in the country whose dominance was eclipsed by the great Walmart, I left said company after number one became number three. I soon found myself in a company which suffered the same infirmity as the one I left. That disease was having upper management who cared more about white shirts and ties and status rather than the changing times.
An example of this is when I wanted to show that the company cared about the community it was in by making subtle changes to the precedence set by the company. When I first take an assignment I don’t think that my knowledge or experiences is the cure all to affect change in a department, I know that it takes the entire team and surroundings to affect that change. I first saw that I was the only non Hispanic person in the store. I also noticed that English was not the spoken language among the patrons and the employees. I wanted to change the enter/exit signs on the door to read in Spanish and I wanted to change the radio station from the approved radio station to the leading Spanish station in Los Angeles. When I called my district manager about the changes I met resistance and typical banter about the restrictive rules I must abide by.
Two months later when my district manager made a visit to congratulate me on the huge profit increases. I got joy in seeing his face turn bright red when he stepped to the door and read the sign on the door and his ruddiness further brighten when he stepped inside and heard the radio station. He should have fired me for disobedience and insubordination but he couldn’t argue with my results. This is what I mean about how companies productivity is failing because of stuffy white shirts not bending with the community they serve. I am often heard stating the companies are in the business of punishing its employees and its customers in order to make a profit. Just imagine how much profit could be generated if companies stopped the punishment.
The first thing that caught my attention at the El Monte location was an employee named Ralph. Often times we become jaded to expectations when dealing with youth today. Ralph surprised the paradigm in my mind with his attitude. The first thing that impressed me was he called me sir which was unheard of from a teenager in Los Angeles. The second thing was when I asked him to do something; it was done with my having to ask him over and over again. Finally I found his acceptance of new task and projects refreshing. Ralph was a gem, one of those employees that managers dream of. Also and the most important thing was that Ralph was a credit to his parents.
After observing Ralph for a few months I knew he had great potential and would be a great asset for the company. I chose to pull him off to the side and offer him a chance to move up the ladder by entering the management training program. I pulled Ralph off to the side and told him of my impressions of his talent and work ethic. I told him that he was a credit to the company and to his parents and that I wanted to offer him the chance to advance with the company by joining the management team via the management training program.
My eyes bugged out of my head and I had to do a double take when Ralph told me; “Thank you sir, but I’m not interested.” I was shocked at Ralph’s’ response. The first thing I thought of was maybe he was nervous that the position was too much responsibility and that caused the apprehension. The truth was far more impressive than what was going through my surprised mind. After asking Ralph why he was turning down this great opportunity: He went on to state he was accepted to go to a college which taught aviation and he was going to be the first in his family to go to college. After hearing this I felt ashamed of my initial thoughts and was proud that he was choosing to follow his goals.
It was about three months later and Ralph came to me and asked if he could still be put into the management training program. I looked at Ralph and without hesitation I told him absolutely not. This time it was Ralph whose eyes were bugging out of his face and after he did a double take he asked me why. I told Ralph that he was going to be the first in his family to go to college and that was more important than the management program.
Ralph then proceeded to tell me that the college had over accepted the amount to students for the year and had no room to let him in. Ralph further stated that he was willing to work another year and try again the following year. After hearing this I reiterated to Ralph that the offer of the management training was still not extended to him. Again Ralph took a double take with bugged eyes and asked why.
I then escorted Ralph outside the store and pointed to the plethora of homeless walking the street and told Ralph that he will be like them in ten years. Ralph looked at the strange and dirty homeless folks walking the street and looked at me and started to laugh. His laugh was extinguished real fast when I further told him that if I were talking to one of those homeless people when they were eighteen they too would have laughed. I continued to explain to Ralph that each of them had at sometime allowed a dream of theirs to be deferred. With each dream deferred they found themselves making a slight turn form the mirror of their lives.
I told Ralph that I didn’t want him to start making those same concessions. To make a long story short I made sure that I did everything within my powers to ensure that Ralph demanded and was allowed in to the school that had accepted his application. Ralph did go off to college and I don’t know what became of him but I do know he didn’t allow his initial dream to be deferred.
Another incident which comes to mind is of a young man I met in the management training program. James was a Mormon who was a transplant from Utah. His church had transferred his wife to teach in Los Angeles. James himself had just finished a stint in Central America with his brothers in the church as a missionary. He was a bit naïve in the talking to. James neither smoked nor drank, he didn’t even curse on have a bad word to say about anyone. To think of him as a husband and father of two young boys was extremely hard. I guess I was a tad bit jaded to the world and someone like James only refreshed my hopes for my fellow man.
It was three months into James’s training that I decided to visit him to see how he was coming along. He was stationed at a location very close to my house and I thought I’d drop in on him on my way home. Upon arriving at the location I was in complete shock as to what I saw. I was so stunned that rather than confronting James at the job sight I asked him to meet me at my house when he was finished at work.
When James came over the first thing I asked him after sitting him down was for a cigarette. James reached into his pocket and pulled out two packs and asked me if I wanted menthol or no menthol. That is when I let into him. I said to James: When was the last time you looked into the mirror. You have a earring in you ear at work and to add insult to injury it is a dangling one. You were drink alcohol on the job when I showed up and cursing with the other guys and not to mention smoking and you are so confused that you carry both kinds of cigarettes. The man I met a few mouths back who was a proud family man and a proud Mormon who had unrelenting values is not the same man sitting before me now.
I went on to tell him that he must have stopped looking at himself in the mirror to the point of turning his back to that mirror, because if he even took a peek at himself he would be disgusted in what he had become. James started crying, which was not the effect I was looking for and then he started to explain why he had changed, which didn’t really make sense.
I don’t like telling this story because if I didn’t experience it for myself I would think of this story as complete fallacy. James became a walking and breathing case study of personality digression. The story of Ralph and the homeless along with the story of James and the metamorphosis caused me to believe in having a full length mirror.
Do you know who is in Your Mirror?
There is the person you see form time to time that always tells of the five pounds they
have lost even though you see them getting fatter. There is the person who stepped outside wearing something that makes you say “Oh no you didn’t think that looked good!” There are the folks who to follow a crowd or a fashion trend put on something that is something they would have gawked at before it became fashion. I often see people performing their work out in public because of the fashion statement they want to make. Men and boy working out their biceps with every third step because they chose to walk out of the house without a belt and having their pants hanging down halfway on their thighs. Their biceps are working pulling up their pants. And women and young ladies working out their triceps pulling down their short and very tight skirts and dresses every third step. The bottom line is YOU LOOK STUPID!!
I like to ask that everyone keeps a full length mirror in their home. Every day you must strip down completely exposed and stand before that mirror. The first thing that comes to mind is of course the physical person standing there. Many of us think that the mirror lies but it’s not the mirror that is lying but the eyes staring into it. Yes you should start with the physical self that stands before that mirror but then look deeper into the self and begin to realize who is in that self. The truth of the matter is that the first person we lie to is ourselves. The first person we deceive is ourselves and the first person we hurt is ourselves.
I don’t ask for you to get that mirror and stand before it completely exposed because I care about your self esteem. I am purely selfish in my request because I’m thinking of me. For if you stop lying, deceiving and hurting yourself, I know you will not lie, deceive or hurt me.
posted by Christopher Darrick Odom | 1:47 AM
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