Disliking Someone Based On Stories You Hear

Have you ever been in that position where you hear a story from someone you know who says negative things about another person you’ve never met or interacted with yet?  You try to keep your opinions as objective as possible but the more you hear things about that person the more you get susceptible to dislike that person.

I have experienced this countless of times most especially at work. Usually when I am just starting out.  I’m the new kid so people will try to get me to trust them and not the other group or person.

Common things I hear are:

“Beware of this person, they’re this and that”

“Don’t do this when you’re near this person, they’ll do this to you.”

“She’s a real pain-in-the-ass”

“She will always make you look bad in front of everyone.”

While it’s good to be careful about dealing with people that you work with, I feel like it isn’t necessary that people would say bad things about a person. I mean, thanks for warning me but let me observe them firsthand and let me have an opinion for myself. Because the more they try to indulge you with stories and their own opinions and observations the more you become wary and the more you EXPECT that person to mess up or do those negative things you hear that you will fail to notice other things that really matter. Maybe they’re not as bad as some people say they are. Isn’t it better to let other people observe and gain opinion from that?

Another example is this one:

A friend or mine and I were talking the other day about this person that just has this terrible bad blood over someone. For things to be easier let’s call them Android and iOS (because it’s relatable).  Android starts getting into a heated discussion with iOS over something work-related that Android is starting to become disrespectful. iOS doesn’t like arguments and treats Android like anyone else: a colleague. Since Android has this hatred over iOS, Android feels like everything iOS does is against him/her. That hatred made Android act negatively towards iOS. This negative thinking affects how we feel and act towards a person. It doesn’t do anyone good. People will create groups within your group and that isn’t good for camaraderie and it doesn’t make the workflow easier. It creates this negative cloud in the workplace.

It’s difficult to be objective when you have formed this hatred and dislike over someone you barely know. It will make you roll your eyes inwardly whenever you try and interact with this person. It will make your toes curl at the very sight of them. It will give you that feeling of “I don’t like them but I don’t know why”.

I try my best not to judge people by what I hear. I try hard not to. I’ll admit that I can be susceptible to harbor negative thoughts about someone but as much as possible I do not want to let my feelings and thoughts get clouded by what I hear from other people. I am not perfect and I fail to do this sometimes. An outlier in my everyday self-control. Also, just because someone did something that isn’t nice doesn’t make them completely a bad person. It also doesn’t define who they are as a person. Unless they do it all the time then that is a different topic to be discussed then. 

But from what I’ve learned: Every day is a chance to change.