This is Wrong, Wrong, WRONG

Heads Should Roll…


I haven’t mentioned this before in my blog, but I have been conducting a life long study in first impressions and human nature. Some parts of my study were done intentionally, while others were quite unintentional and not very much fun in the retrospect.

I’ve found that, as a society, we have been conditioned to look at things like a man’s appearance--skin color, hair length, or choice of clothing--and base our interactions with a given individual on what I call “visual cues.”

I believe that no matter how many laws are passed or how much social pressure is brought to bear, each of us will continue to assess our fellow humans using social “norms” rather than intuition and a little common sense.

Further, the results of my study, to date, suggests that many of us, if not most of us, are just plain STUPID and GULLIBLE, and that as a result we end up playing the wrong game with the wrong people at the wrong time in the wrong places.

You ever heard the old saying that “a man can steal a great deal more money wearing a suit rather than brandishing a gun…”?

Insurance salesman, my old business partner, and several lawyers I’ve encountered through the years easily come to mind.

For instance--I, personally, suffer from a mild case of male pattern baldness, giving me a thin spot on the crown of my head and the resulting receding hairline. In the past ten years I have gone from cutting my hair down to 1/8” every week (an old fashioned crew cut) to having grown an 8” long pony tail. I’m desperately trying to avoid the “Billy Ray Cyrus Mullet” look, however.

I guess that you could say that “the jury is still out” regarding my success or failure...

I’ve also gone from regularly wearing a suit and tie to basically living in shorts and boat shoes or sweatpants and tennis shoes.

Same person—different packaging.

You would be amazed at the different receptions I get from people, based on my hair and clothing.

“No…I don’t have a rolling paper on me, thank you very much…”

I really enjoy messing with peoples’ minds if they are particularly condescending, and I will play my Billy Bob Thornton/Ernest T Bass/ Jeff Foxworthy impression on them, then watch them freak out the next time I see them when I mention that I’m a mechanical engineer, that I went to Georgia Tech, and I want to try out to compete on the game show “Jeopardy.”

When it comes to financial transactions I’ve found the disparity to be even greater.

Try getting off of your boat sometime wearing a bandanna and smelling like fish bait, walk into your bank, and attempt to withdraw a couple of thousand dollars in CASH. You might end up needing a gun to complete the transaction, even if the money is actually in your account and you have three forms of valid ID.

Or try this. Hang out on your boat for a few weeks, with only 30 gallons of fresh water (virtually no showers except salt water), then park your boat for engine repairs and attempt to return home by buying a one way airline ticket with cash from Key West to Atlanta.

You’re very likely to hear “you can put your pants back on when we’re through with the body cavity search and the X-ray exam…Mr. Rogers.” I really felt sorry for the TSA employee that had to hand inspect the suitcase containing my dirty clothes on that trip—they had better have been wearing two sets of latex gloves.

Then there was the first time I ever got a bonus check from a company I worked for back in the 1980’s. The guy that ran the business paid us a minimum salary and car allowance, but then he kicked ass with bonus checks if we did a good job and we had a good year.

My first bonus check was for $10,000. To say that I was elated would be an extreme understatement…

I was in my mid-twenty’s “pre-balding” long hair stage and was quite crushed when I walked into my company’s bank and attempted to CASH my $10,000 check. I wasn’t about to wait for my bank to hold my funds for a week or ten days while they waited for the check to clear.

I wanted to actually hold $10,000 in $100 bills.

Those b*tches at the bank treated me like total crap. I had on jeans that day because I had been doing a shop inspection on one of my projects and evidently I didn’t look like someone that should legitimately have any money. Everyone in the branch from the janitor to the “branch manager” had to handle the check, hold it up to the light, taste it, and then rudely look me over from top to bottom.

They called my office and asked for the owner, who was not in at the time, and they would not accept the secretary’s word that the check was good. After an hour of sitting around the bank lobby, while I was preparing to retrieve my check and deposit it in my own bank, my boss (the owner) called and threatened to close his six figure account(s) if they didn’t apologize to me and get me out the door immediately with my money.

They did, and I still managed to be polite because I was still so happy with my windfall, but I learned a sad lesson that day.

“You can’t judge a book by its cover…”

I have a good idea how this guy felt when Wal-Mart called the cops on him:

Wal-Mart has apologized to a black man who was accused of trying to pass a bad check as he was buying thousands of dollars in holiday gift cards to distribute to his company's employees.

Employees of a Wal-Mart Supercenter called deputies last week to apprehend Reginald Pitts after he handed over a $13,600 check to pay for 520 gift cards that were to be given to employees at GAF Materials Corp., a roofing materials manufacturer where Pitts is a human resources manager.

The company, which had $1.6 billion in revenue last year, had been spending about $50,000 a year on Wal-Mart gift cards and never had a problem when it sent a white employee to pick them up.

"I keep going over and over the incident in my mind," Pitts told the St. Petersburg Times. "I cannot come up with any possible reason why I was treated like this except that I am black."
Wal-Mart, based in Bentonville, Ark., has launched an internal investigation of the incident and apologized to Pitts.

…

Pitts said that when he went to the store last week to pick up the already printed cards, store managers stalled for about two hours after he handed over the check while he stood waiting by the customer service desk. He had handed over his GAF business card, his driver's license and the toll-free numbers to GAF's bank. His accounting supervisor assured them over the phone that GAF was good for the check.

Later, two Hillsborough County sheriff's deputies appeared. One grabbed Pitts by the arm. He objected to the rough handling and asked if he was being arrested.

"We need to talk with you about this forged check that you brought in here," Pitts recalled one deputy saying. The deputy said later Wal-Mart had called and reported that Pitts had committed a felony.

A short time later deputies determined there were no grounds for a criminal charge and that Wal-Mart would not press the issue further.

Pitts' company has lodged a formal complaint with Wal-Mart.

You’re damn right someone should complain, even if the guy was white.

Been there, done that, got the T-shirt…