One person’s duck is another person’s bunny

Let me explain. I was just shy of 21, going to university, and working at a local home improvement store. I worked a desk in the centre of the floor of the hardware, flooring and electrical departments helping customers with all sorts of home improvement needs. I loved it – it was busy, challenging and each customer came with their own home improvement puzzle to solve. As a bonus it gave me the know-how to DIY little projects at home.

This particular day was a Saturday and one of the busiest Saturdays we’d had. The customers came non-stop, lined up one behind the other at the desk. No sooner did I finish with one customer than another would stop me to help them on my way back to the desk. It was chaotic.

One customer approached me as I was searching for a special order item on our computer system for another customer. The approaching customer needed help with a light fixture in the electrical department. I told them I would be with them as soon as I finished with the other customer. It took some time to complete the special order and by then I had five more customers lined up at the desk asking me questions. The customer who had initially approached me had wandered back into the electrical department, waiting for me. But it was so busy that day, it slipped my mind.

About 10 minutes later, that customer returned to the desk. As soon as I saw her, the fact that I had forgotten struck me and I apologized. But she thought I had forgotten her on purpose. She suggested it was because of her race. I was taken aback, even a little hurt and offended, that someone could think I would do such a thing. I felt horrible about it and almost 30 years later, I still vividly remember that experience.

But 30 years later I have a far different perspective than I did that day. I now understand the customer’s perception of why I had forgotten to help her was shaped by her own lived experience of being mistreated and “forgotten” by others. That she had no doubt been discriminated against, perhaps even harassed because of her race, colour, ethnic origin, or place of origin. Looking back on that experience, I am not hurt and offended for me, but for her. I feel sad that I, although inadvertently, contributed to her feeling she was experiencing yet another incident of the mistreatment she had endured at other times in her life. And that her family had perhaps endured too.

That experience helps me understand the perceptions I hear from parties as a workplace investigator, which can be objectively inaccurate yet are very real and honestly held by the party. That their perception does not prove to be true on the facts, based on all the evidence we as investigators are privy to, does not mean they made up their complaint or complained maliciously. They were 100% right based on their perception.

Different people can live the same experience or look at the same set of facts and see them completely differently. Take this for example: what do you see?

Some people see a bunny. Some see a duck. Some see both right away. And some see both eventually.

Although there are many psychological biases, in investigations and workplace relationships gone awry, we most commonly see perceptions influenced by two of them: confirmation bias and fundamental attribution error.

• Fundamental attribution error is the tendency to attribute internal motives or character to explain someone’s behaviour. Often the assumption is that their motive is hostile or self-serving. Evidence to the contrary is often minimized or ignored.
• Confirmation bias is the tendency to interpret and prefer information in a way that confirms preexisting beliefs. For example, if someone has made a mistake or behaved badly and another person makes an overarching conclusion about that person’s competence or conduct, they will look for ongoing evidence to support that belief.

The next time you find someone’s perception does not align with the facts, remember my story and think about the duck and the bunny. Misperception does not equate to fabrication or being “wrong”. Our perceptions are entirely honest and “right” based on our lived experiences and the lenses we are each looking through.

1. [1] Kaninchen und Ente (Rabbit and Duck) from the October 23, 1892 issue of Fliegende Blätter. ↩︎