Reputations often reflect the perceptions others have of us as a result of primary or secondary sources. Depending on the level of interpretation another person or persons has of another's skill, character, personality, etc. may result in that person not "living up to their reputation". Reputations often come with expectations of how a person will perform or act given a situation and other people aware of said reputations may prepare or respond accordingly. While reputations can often be used in positive lights such as companies having good reputations for quality and long lasting products, they may also be a root source of disappointment.
I have stories of not living up to the reputation people had of me. One time in particular was with regards to my athletic ability. I was a part of the Track and Field team for the entirety of my high school career participating in both the winter indoor seasons as well as the spring outdoor seasons. Naturally I began to grow in popularity as well as stature among the coaches and my fellow teammates. Everyone on the team knew of me come my senior year except the new Freshman, who would soon learn of who I was as a result of my leadership position as an upperclassman on the team. Despite being one of the older and more "experienced" members on the team, I was far from the most athletic.
In Track and Field it's very easy to compare members on a team because of the fact that race results are so concrete. For example, if one racer could run a 200 meter race in 29 seconds and another could do it in 23 seconds, it's without question that the person who ran it in the shorter time span was faster and "better" at this particular race. Of course there are other factors that may play into account such as different rates of growth and potential of the runners, but in a given moment one person is strictly faster than the other. While this may be a rather controversial statement, Track and Field to my high school was all about results. Of course there were people on the team that weren't fast enough to win races, yet stuck around for the community and cheered on the ones that did have the chance to win events. However, like with any sports team, it's discouraging to continuously lose.
It's not unreasonable to say upperclassmen in high school generally were better in Track and Field events than underclassmen overall (of course there are many exceptions to this statement). As a result, the underclassmen developed expectations of the older kids. For me in particular, I was one of the few upperclassmen that participated in the triple jump event for the school. Although I wasn't very good, I was very experienced with participating in the event because I had done so for many years prior. In addition, I could do the triple jump event better than anyone on the team. This was partly because the triple jump event takes a very long time to get the hang of and as a result not many students wanted to participate in this particular event. During the preseason as well as the time period before our first major competition, I continued to perform better than anyone on the team and because of this my teammates often referred to me as a "genius" in the triple jump event. Through word by mouth, my reputation as a talented triple jumper began to spread throughout the team and it stuck until our first track meet.
My high school track team wasn't very good, but we would win events here and there which would boost our team's moral. As a result of the hype my teammates had given me, many people expected me to do very well in the triple jump event and score points for our school. However, I knew that I wasn't good enough to win the event. Although I was the best triple jumper on the team, I was pale in comparison to other schools. In fact, track meet after track meet I would fail to place in the event and my reputation as a "genius" triple jumper faded as I was unable to meet expectations.
This reputation wasn't something I ever wanted for myself. In fact, from the start I knew I wasn't that great at the event which I had tried to explain to my underclassmen. My reputation was only developed because my teammates didn't know any better and didn't realize the sample size of our team isn't an accurate representation of the competitors in the triple jump event from other schools. My reputation stayed intact and continued to grow because my teammates would spread the word about me without being properly informed of my ability in relative comparison. If I wanted to enhance it I would have had to performed very well in competitions to validate and grow the \ expectations of me.
Personally, there are many occasions when I wish I didn't have the reputation that I did. With my reputation came many expectations from both the coaching staff and fellow team members that I struggled and/or failed to meet altogether. For example my coaches would be extra hard on me to set an example for my team members. In addition, it was a lot of pressure when my team members were counting on me to individually win points for the team and sometimes I got very disappointed in myself for not being able to meet expectations. While I never wanted the reputation I was given, there were definitely beneficial effects of it that were used to help grow the team. I always gave my best effort and did my best to encourage my teammates. I believe by having such a heavy reputation, people were more willing to listen to me. Although I would've still tried to assume the same position regardless of whether I had this reputation or not. From the start I never connected the value of my reputation with the ability my reputation said I should have so I didn't act too differently and therefore never had the chance to voluntarily "abandon" my reputation nor did I ever fill like I "cashed in". My reputation did, however, disappear on its own over time as I was unable to meet the expectations that came with it.
Tuesday, November 29, 2016
Friday, November 11, 2016
Triangular Principal Model
Many economic models often only incorporate the demand and level of value of the buyers and the supply and cost of the sellers. This may be because it makes economic theories easier to understand on a more general level as well as allows these simpler models to be flexible to fit many situations. In the real world there are many examples in which a bilateral model wouldn't be the best fit to a situation.
During my sophomore year in college at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, I worked as a student patrol officer and our system was definitely of a triangular nature. One of the most important and staple tasks we performed was "SafeWalks" which was a service provided by the University of Illinois Police Department in an effort to ensure that students got home safe at night. SafeWalks works by students calling a phone number, found online, on the back of student ID cards, and advertised around campus, which would direct their call to the University Police Department. From there, the University Police Department would call student patrol and redirect the call to us. Once we're on the phone with the student we're able to get their name and location so that we can find them and escort them to wherever they're trying to get to. Due to the nature of the job and our status as students, SafeWalks were only offered between the hours of approximately 9PM to 3AM.
Clearly this is a triangular model. The student requesting the service has to go through a "third party" before being able to communicate to us. Objectively, the student desiring an escort isn't requesting anything from the University Police Department, however the calls must first be directed to the police before the police redirects them to us (the ones actually providing the service). This begs the question, "Why can't the calls just be sent directly to student patrol instead of having to be redirected by a third party?". Personally I don't know the original intentions when the system was first created. However, I can understand the benefits of having this triangular system that is seemingly inefficient.
One of the major reasons for having the calls directed to the police department first may simply be because the police department wants to make sure the caller is getting the appropriate course of action on a circumstantial basis. When someone calls the SafeWalks number, we initially don't know why they're calling. While we assume that a student is just calling because they need an escort home late at night, that may not always be the case. In an event in which a trained and licensed police officer is necessary instead of a student patrol the police department may deem it necessary for them to respond to the call instead of us. It's a common misconception that student patrol officers are police officers. Although we are equipped by the Division of Public Safety, we definitely are no police officers and have no real authority and relatively limited training. If a student calls SafeWalks under the assumption that they're calling the police, it's safer to go through the trouble of making sure they're not in any real danger by having someone respond who has the capability to act appropriately first. Situations like these, those that require a police officer's attention, have a high probability of needing immediate course of action while situations where a student can wait to go home aren't as pressing.
Student patrol officers are agents of both the student requesting the SafeWalk and the University Police Department. Although not incredibly often, students will have a different view of how we should perform other than how the University Police Department believes we should act. On a few occasions students that we have escorted have expressed discomfort around us. Naturally, especially for first time callers, students don't know who is going to physically respond to their request. The stereotype students have of student patrol officers is that we're all tall, big, and muscular, but in reality only a handful of student patrol officers fit all three of those categories. However, all student patrols are equipped with a radio that has direct line to the police department as well as extensive training making us capable of handling a wide range of situations. While many students may view us as physically beefy officers that owe them this service, the University Police Department views us simply as extra eyes and ears on the street to help take the load off their nights as best as we are capable. The police understands that we are students as well and aren't trained professionals. This gap in expectations may create a clash in views between both parties of how we should perform, however in the end student patrol officers are able to handle the tasks given to them and execute the promise of our job.
In the end I don't think there's an easy way for student patrol officers to shatter preconceptions of callers. While many students expect us to be professional police officers, that simply isn't something we can give them. Our performance relative to our service offered is adequate and the University Police Department agrees. The Division of Public Safety expects us to perform our job to the description and act professionally. Our job is to make sure students are safe, not necessarily comfortable. We always choose to satisfy the University Police Department and the Division of Public Safety because we know that by satisfying them we are doing what we're supposed to. Callers that expect anything far more than what the police department expects of us may just need to lower their expectations to resolve conflict. Of course, I talked on the small minority of students that had expectations too far. The vast majority of students are very grateful to us and the service we provide.
During my sophomore year in college at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, I worked as a student patrol officer and our system was definitely of a triangular nature. One of the most important and staple tasks we performed was "SafeWalks" which was a service provided by the University of Illinois Police Department in an effort to ensure that students got home safe at night. SafeWalks works by students calling a phone number, found online, on the back of student ID cards, and advertised around campus, which would direct their call to the University Police Department. From there, the University Police Department would call student patrol and redirect the call to us. Once we're on the phone with the student we're able to get their name and location so that we can find them and escort them to wherever they're trying to get to. Due to the nature of the job and our status as students, SafeWalks were only offered between the hours of approximately 9PM to 3AM.
Clearly this is a triangular model. The student requesting the service has to go through a "third party" before being able to communicate to us. Objectively, the student desiring an escort isn't requesting anything from the University Police Department, however the calls must first be directed to the police before the police redirects them to us (the ones actually providing the service). This begs the question, "Why can't the calls just be sent directly to student patrol instead of having to be redirected by a third party?". Personally I don't know the original intentions when the system was first created. However, I can understand the benefits of having this triangular system that is seemingly inefficient.
One of the major reasons for having the calls directed to the police department first may simply be because the police department wants to make sure the caller is getting the appropriate course of action on a circumstantial basis. When someone calls the SafeWalks number, we initially don't know why they're calling. While we assume that a student is just calling because they need an escort home late at night, that may not always be the case. In an event in which a trained and licensed police officer is necessary instead of a student patrol the police department may deem it necessary for them to respond to the call instead of us. It's a common misconception that student patrol officers are police officers. Although we are equipped by the Division of Public Safety, we definitely are no police officers and have no real authority and relatively limited training. If a student calls SafeWalks under the assumption that they're calling the police, it's safer to go through the trouble of making sure they're not in any real danger by having someone respond who has the capability to act appropriately first. Situations like these, those that require a police officer's attention, have a high probability of needing immediate course of action while situations where a student can wait to go home aren't as pressing.
Student patrol officers are agents of both the student requesting the SafeWalk and the University Police Department. Although not incredibly often, students will have a different view of how we should perform other than how the University Police Department believes we should act. On a few occasions students that we have escorted have expressed discomfort around us. Naturally, especially for first time callers, students don't know who is going to physically respond to their request. The stereotype students have of student patrol officers is that we're all tall, big, and muscular, but in reality only a handful of student patrol officers fit all three of those categories. However, all student patrols are equipped with a radio that has direct line to the police department as well as extensive training making us capable of handling a wide range of situations. While many students may view us as physically beefy officers that owe them this service, the University Police Department views us simply as extra eyes and ears on the street to help take the load off their nights as best as we are capable. The police understands that we are students as well and aren't trained professionals. This gap in expectations may create a clash in views between both parties of how we should perform, however in the end student patrol officers are able to handle the tasks given to them and execute the promise of our job.
In the end I don't think there's an easy way for student patrol officers to shatter preconceptions of callers. While many students expect us to be professional police officers, that simply isn't something we can give them. Our performance relative to our service offered is adequate and the University Police Department agrees. The Division of Public Safety expects us to perform our job to the description and act professionally. Our job is to make sure students are safe, not necessarily comfortable. We always choose to satisfy the University Police Department and the Division of Public Safety because we know that by satisfying them we are doing what we're supposed to. Callers that expect anything far more than what the police department expects of us may just need to lower their expectations to resolve conflict. Of course, I talked on the small minority of students that had expectations too far. The vast majority of students are very grateful to us and the service we provide.
Friday, November 4, 2016
Group Dynamics and Conflict
In my summer preceding my senior year in high school, I was one out of 20 other students from my school that was selected to participate in a Habitat for Humanity project. Our mission was to work with a local construction company to build homes for financially unstable families in the area of South Bend, Indiana. While many of the students applied to participate out of interest and a genuine desire to help, others applied in order to fulfill volunteer hours and get school credit. People's incentives for participating in the project, whether intrinsic or extrinsic, definitely showed in some more than others. Students that genuinely wanted to help out definitely put in more effort while students that clearly only came for the extrinsic rewards put in minimal effort.
For the most part, my group seemed to care very much about the quality of work we put out. We were constantly reminded that a family was going to live in the house we were building and our craftsmanship will correlate with how long the house will last for that family as well as how positively it will impact their lives. The main goal was to build the house to a high quality as if we were normal construction workers so that the families wouldn't have to pay any money to repair or tune any mishaps that we may create as a result of our limited knowledge and abilities. Of course, we were supervised and taught by our teachers as well as onsite professionals when dealing with more technical tasks such as tasks that required the usage of power tools.
I applied to participate in the program because it was going to be one of my last summers before I go off to college and I wanted to see and assist a community that may be less fortunate financially than the one I was born into to gain a little more perspective on life outside of my bubble. Unfortunately, not everyone participating felt as enthusiastic as me. One boy in particular, John Doe, was constantly complaining about how early we had to wake up, slacking off onsite, and not putting very much effort into his building tasks. Personally, I really dislike when people shirk in group activities when their input is necessary. At the time the most experience I had with working in groups was group projects, which I severely disliked, but in group projects everyone in the group will get a grade which is mostly enough incentive even for lazy students to participate. However, for volunteer work, such as this Habitat for Humanity project, students aren't promised anything extrinsic for participating. Even the credits offered were simply granted to us students for just being there. John Doe realized there was no extra reward for putting in extra effort so he put in the bare minimum amount of effort that still deemed him as participating.
As I continued to see the poor work John Doe was putting out, I started to get frustrated. If his craftsmanship was simply poor as a result of his lack of knowledge and skills I would understand because many of us, including me, made plenty of mistakes. However, even in simple tasks such as digging dirt or planting flowers John's work was always only partially finished to par. Hoping that he would change his outlook, I took the opportunity when we were alone to talk to him about putting in a bit more effort. I explained to him that our work here, even if it seems small, insignificant, or unrewarding, could mean the world to someone else. We grew up in a neighborhood where most people were relatively financially stable and I wanted him to understand not everyone was as privileged as us so that he might find meaning in the mundane tasks we were performing.
My perspective was that we were there to give and not to gain. It occurred to me after our conversation that he was there to gain and less to give. He explained that he was only participating because he needed the credits to graduate high school. While me and John were not hostile towards one another, it was evident to other people in our group that we had different internal goals. Other students began to realize this and even our teaching supervisors did as well. What ended up happening was we were generally placed at different tasks each day. The last thing that we needed in a service project was hostility between members so it made sense to keep us away from each other.
I can't say that it ultimately resolved "well", but we both didn't reach a "breaking point" either. After we were separated day after day we didn't have to interact with each other and entered an "out of sight out of mind" season. I still didn't like his lack of effort, but I began to let it go. I'm not so ignorant as to say "I couldn't have done anything to solve the conflict" because I know that there must have been something I could've done or said that would've resulted in less tension between us. For instance, while I thought I was being sensitive about calling him out on his work when I made sure no one was around to hear our talk, perhaps I could've phrased my concerns differently. At the time I was just frustrated because I felt bad for the people that would have to suffer because of his lack of effort and I may have projected that onto him. In retrospect, I could've been kinder when confronting him or I could've addressed my concerns directly to a supervisor. In many aspects of life we are required to work concordant with other people so learning how to handle conflicts is very valuable.
For the most part, my group seemed to care very much about the quality of work we put out. We were constantly reminded that a family was going to live in the house we were building and our craftsmanship will correlate with how long the house will last for that family as well as how positively it will impact their lives. The main goal was to build the house to a high quality as if we were normal construction workers so that the families wouldn't have to pay any money to repair or tune any mishaps that we may create as a result of our limited knowledge and abilities. Of course, we were supervised and taught by our teachers as well as onsite professionals when dealing with more technical tasks such as tasks that required the usage of power tools.
I applied to participate in the program because it was going to be one of my last summers before I go off to college and I wanted to see and assist a community that may be less fortunate financially than the one I was born into to gain a little more perspective on life outside of my bubble. Unfortunately, not everyone participating felt as enthusiastic as me. One boy in particular, John Doe, was constantly complaining about how early we had to wake up, slacking off onsite, and not putting very much effort into his building tasks. Personally, I really dislike when people shirk in group activities when their input is necessary. At the time the most experience I had with working in groups was group projects, which I severely disliked, but in group projects everyone in the group will get a grade which is mostly enough incentive even for lazy students to participate. However, for volunteer work, such as this Habitat for Humanity project, students aren't promised anything extrinsic for participating. Even the credits offered were simply granted to us students for just being there. John Doe realized there was no extra reward for putting in extra effort so he put in the bare minimum amount of effort that still deemed him as participating.
As I continued to see the poor work John Doe was putting out, I started to get frustrated. If his craftsmanship was simply poor as a result of his lack of knowledge and skills I would understand because many of us, including me, made plenty of mistakes. However, even in simple tasks such as digging dirt or planting flowers John's work was always only partially finished to par. Hoping that he would change his outlook, I took the opportunity when we were alone to talk to him about putting in a bit more effort. I explained to him that our work here, even if it seems small, insignificant, or unrewarding, could mean the world to someone else. We grew up in a neighborhood where most people were relatively financially stable and I wanted him to understand not everyone was as privileged as us so that he might find meaning in the mundane tasks we were performing.
My perspective was that we were there to give and not to gain. It occurred to me after our conversation that he was there to gain and less to give. He explained that he was only participating because he needed the credits to graduate high school. While me and John were not hostile towards one another, it was evident to other people in our group that we had different internal goals. Other students began to realize this and even our teaching supervisors did as well. What ended up happening was we were generally placed at different tasks each day. The last thing that we needed in a service project was hostility between members so it made sense to keep us away from each other.
I can't say that it ultimately resolved "well", but we both didn't reach a "breaking point" either. After we were separated day after day we didn't have to interact with each other and entered an "out of sight out of mind" season. I still didn't like his lack of effort, but I began to let it go. I'm not so ignorant as to say "I couldn't have done anything to solve the conflict" because I know that there must have been something I could've done or said that would've resulted in less tension between us. For instance, while I thought I was being sensitive about calling him out on his work when I made sure no one was around to hear our talk, perhaps I could've phrased my concerns differently. At the time I was just frustrated because I felt bad for the people that would have to suffer because of his lack of effort and I may have projected that onto him. In retrospect, I could've been kinder when confronting him or I could've addressed my concerns directly to a supervisor. In many aspects of life we are required to work concordant with other people so learning how to handle conflicts is very valuable.
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