Whiffing and People-See-What-They-Expect
So after quite a break, the whiffing blog popped into my head the other day (a term of time I've been heavily criticized for "overloading" a bit.. the other day has referred to 6 years ago in one rather gross example, but this time really like "yesterday"), and I figured I'd jot down one or two things that happened along the way.
So there's this theory, whose origins I'm not too certain of at the moment, though it seems something appropriate in the world of the Hitchhiker's Guide or the likes of Discworld. It says that People-See-More-Or-Less-What-They-Expect-To-See, though I can't remember the exact wording. Hmm, maybe it was Terry Goodkind, now that I think about it. Well, wherever it came from (and yes, some part of me is probably going to be annoyed with that problem for the rest of this blog), this theory has some truly great applications.
The best part is that people generally don't think they'll fall for it, which is probably the biggest reason that this works. I'll give you an example:
Buried in the mini "proof" was an application of people having some expectation of what a temp doing temp work is supposed to look like, and then they only see what they expect. People didn't give me that look like, "I see you, I know you're up to a little mischief, but it's cool cause I'm cool, and cool people give you the 'I'm being cool about this' kind of permissive look" kind of look, instead they gave if anything only the briefest glance as they carried on in unbreaking unpausing conversation as some low level brain function told them a temp was near by, and appeared to be doing some temply thing. Then *poof*, instant invisibility.
So, fast forward, it's a couple years later. Under totally different circumstances, I began a series of smaller whiffs that in aggregate probably serve a whole other type of whiffing. I'm in this class that meets Thursday nights on some far away campus from where I live. Trying to judge the rush hour, the amount of time finding the classroom and getting parking, I leave enough time to be a little bit early for the 7PM start. Traffic and bad directions smite me, so I show up about 5 minutes late.
I walk in the first day, and there's what looks like probably the whole class sitting down in the classroom. The teacher gives me a slightly odd look, to which I nod, not wishing to interrupt the lecture. He returns the nod, and I quickly take the nearest seat to the door. The white board is covered with diagrams and small notes, something I find a bit odd about a class that just started, but it's a new school, so I don't know the rules here, perhaps professors all show up early here and make sure the first set of lesson notes is already on the board for you so that at class start you can jump right in. This guy couldn't possibly have written all that stuff on the boards in 5 minutes, but I'll just have to pay more attention and collect what I missed. Nothing else out of the ordinary happens that class.
So next week, I aim for it again, but this time I pad even more to make sure that I'm a little early. 6:45 in the parking lot, awesome. I collect my stuff and walk over to the classroom. To my surprise, the door is closed. 'Perhaps the class before is running over and hasn't gotten out yet'. I wait a few more minutes.
Now it's 6:50. No one. The class is still going full force. I choose to go for the interruption, everyone can't get out of the room in enough time for it to be ready for the next class now. In I walk...
...and there it is, same teacher, he gives me a quick nod. Around the room, everyone seated, taking notes. Several White Boards already filled. Now this is definitely odd.
I check the registrars roster again at the break; the time seems mysteriously gone. So I look at the class web page and syllabus. There it is: classes meet Thursday night, 6PM - 9PM.
ugh.
The odd look suddenly makes sense.
The non-notice suddenly makes more sense.
I, having no idea, didn't give off any indication I thought I was late. And so people immediately formed theories to explain it. I can only imagine some internal monologues, if the thought ever rose up that high:
I guess.. I don't want to know ;) Let's just say that I had been whiffing hard enough that it seemed to cross back into the realm of plain normal operations. And keep your eyes on seeing only what you expect to see.
So there's this theory, whose origins I'm not too certain of at the moment, though it seems something appropriate in the world of the Hitchhiker's Guide or the likes of Discworld. It says that People-See-More-Or-Less-What-They-Expect-To-See, though I can't remember the exact wording. Hmm, maybe it was Terry Goodkind, now that I think about it. Well, wherever it came from (and yes, some part of me is probably going to be annoyed with that problem for the rest of this blog), this theory has some truly great applications.
The best part is that people generally don't think they'll fall for it, which is probably the biggest reason that this works. I'll give you an example:
So not too long ago, I was a temp working for this publishing company in downtown Boston (no, I don't want to give away the name, but that one). Nothing really relates to the life of a temp like being a temp, and temps get pretty much the low end of everything there is to be had or do around the office.
One day, there was pizza in the office. I don't want to quite say "free pizza" in the office, because it was made somewhat clear through implication that this pizza was for the regular staff, as it was put in the regular staff area of the office, and the full time staff were near to falling over themselves to avoid contact whenever you noticed them all eating a bite of pizza (as if somehow you were supposed to forget that most of them wouldn't be caught dead eating lunch together normally, let alone they're all now eating the same thing at the same time).
Some quick inductive reasoning and a sly look passed among the row of temps (and a few things that I hope they weren't reading the Instant Messenger conversations at the time about), divined the situation.
I shared a theory with the others, relating to this, trying to take the idea out for a spin and see if any of the overqualified temp minds could spot some glaring problem with the theory (whoever came up with peer review was pretty damn clever). The theory went: temps are invisible. The proof went: temps are below the regular notice of full time staff, as long as they appear to be doing what they should be doing (temply kinds of things, like copying, making coffee, walking around with a stack of papers, filing papers, repeating the same sequence of 10 things forever, etc). Temps are periodically sent on tasks around the office by higher level staff who can't be bothered. Therefore, to gain invisibility, a temp merely has to look like they're not lost or otherwise unoccupied in some task.
Skylah was particularly amused by this theory and immediately wrote me back. Ok hotshot. Prove it.
I walked into the main area, without the usual lost look an unassigned temp carries with them the world over. I was on assignment, moving just a tad faster than my usual meandering pace. I made straight for the break room. Many of the regular staff were crowded in around the slices. I gave a nod, and a small gap opened around the boxes, regular staff at a subscious level clearly not wanting to give any interference to a temp clearly assigned to task. I placed two slices of pizza rather professionally on a paper plate, and walked back out to the other office room.
Buried in the mini "proof" was an application of people having some expectation of what a temp doing temp work is supposed to look like, and then they only see what they expect. People didn't give me that look like, "I see you, I know you're up to a little mischief, but it's cool cause I'm cool, and cool people give you the 'I'm being cool about this' kind of permissive look" kind of look, instead they gave if anything only the briefest glance as they carried on in unbreaking unpausing conversation as some low level brain function told them a temp was near by, and appeared to be doing some temply thing. Then *poof*, instant invisibility.
So, fast forward, it's a couple years later. Under totally different circumstances, I began a series of smaller whiffs that in aggregate probably serve a whole other type of whiffing. I'm in this class that meets Thursday nights on some far away campus from where I live. Trying to judge the rush hour, the amount of time finding the classroom and getting parking, I leave enough time to be a little bit early for the 7PM start. Traffic and bad directions smite me, so I show up about 5 minutes late.
I walk in the first day, and there's what looks like probably the whole class sitting down in the classroom. The teacher gives me a slightly odd look, to which I nod, not wishing to interrupt the lecture. He returns the nod, and I quickly take the nearest seat to the door. The white board is covered with diagrams and small notes, something I find a bit odd about a class that just started, but it's a new school, so I don't know the rules here, perhaps professors all show up early here and make sure the first set of lesson notes is already on the board for you so that at class start you can jump right in. This guy couldn't possibly have written all that stuff on the boards in 5 minutes, but I'll just have to pay more attention and collect what I missed. Nothing else out of the ordinary happens that class.
So next week, I aim for it again, but this time I pad even more to make sure that I'm a little early. 6:45 in the parking lot, awesome. I collect my stuff and walk over to the classroom. To my surprise, the door is closed. 'Perhaps the class before is running over and hasn't gotten out yet'. I wait a few more minutes.
Now it's 6:50. No one. The class is still going full force. I choose to go for the interruption, everyone can't get out of the room in enough time for it to be ready for the next class now. In I walk...
...and there it is, same teacher, he gives me a quick nod. Around the room, everyone seated, taking notes. Several White Boards already filled. Now this is definitely odd.
I check the registrars roster again at the break; the time seems mysteriously gone. So I look at the class web page and syllabus. There it is: classes meet Thursday night, 6PM - 9PM.
ugh.
The odd look suddenly makes sense.
The non-notice suddenly makes more sense.
I, having no idea, didn't give off any indication I thought I was late. And so people immediately formed theories to explain it. I can only imagine some internal monologues, if the thought ever rose up that high:
Well, he doesn't look the least bit concerned. Perhaps he has another class that runs over.
Well, he doesn't look late, so it must be that his boss won't let him out any earlier than 7.
He doesn't offer any odd responses to interrupting the lesson, but he seems to not wish to give interruption. He must not be able to get here earlier than 7.
I guess.. I don't want to know ;) Let's just say that I had been whiffing hard enough that it seemed to cross back into the realm of plain normal operations. And keep your eyes on seeing only what you expect to see.
