Tag Archives: judge

The girl with the green lips

My husband and I went out to dinner for his birthday last night. The girl that greeted us at the door had purplish hair and green lipstick.

As a future business owner in a service industry field, my knee-jerk thought was, “Note to self, make sure employees know nothing like this will be allowed. This isn’t the look I want to portray to my customers.”  As a customer of the restaurant I found myself going, “Oh… kay…” but not really have an opinion other than that. I wasn’t turned off as much as caught off guard.

Our waitress came over, and in our chit chatting explained she’s the only “normal” employee at the restaurant, and my husband noticed another waiter had green hair. She said she doesn’t wear weird colors or have tattoos or piercings. I joked that if that was the case she was actually the weird one, and she thought about it and went, “Yeah, I guess you’re right!”

We were after awhile the only customers in the restaurant, and we’d built up a fun back and forth with our waitress. At one point she came over and she had on the green lipstick. She point blank asked us what we thought. I went, “Well. It’s… different. Interesting.” She explained she’d agreed to step out of her comfort zone and tried it, but she didn’t think she could pull it off. I tilted my head and went, “Its just… different.” Deep down I was having a moment of, “No! Green lips are not okay! Stay your unique ‘normal’ self.”

I ordered dessert to celebrate my husband’s birthday, and the other waitress — the one that had greeted us — brought it over. She took a deep breath and said, “This is going to be terrible.” and proceeded to do a fake trump blast sound effect while putting down the dessert. “That was a trump blast. Okay so it was more like a coronet. But it was SUPPOSED to be a trumpet.”

Suddenly I saw past the green lipstick. Suddenly I saw this fantastically confident and delightful young woman.

When I went to pay our check, I was confronted once again with what I thought of the green lipstick. I took a deep breath and said very honestly and with admiration (okay, at least I hope it was with admiration), “I think it takes a very confident person to pull that off.”

Over the course of about an hour, some crawfish ravioli and loaded beignet, I got an amazing lesson I’m thankful for getting.  I walked in that restaurant feeling a little weirded out by the employees, and I left it filled with deep admiration for them all.

Before they even know me

Don’t judge a book by its cover.

Brilliant little line there. I suspect its been used to open countless other blog posts or even books. I suspect we’ve all reminded ourselves of this saying at some point, or we’ve pleaded with someone to be careful of this as well.

Don’t judge me before you know me.

The other day, my husband asked me if I had talked to a fellow music-industry person while we were out for the evening. I told him I hadn’t, but I’d seen them there. He asked why I hadn’t stopped to talk to them, since I’d been making the rounds to make sure I spoke to everyone while I am in town.

I told him it was because I’d gotten the vibe through other encounters that this person didn’t really like me. I said this person usually either clammed up or, often times, left all together when I’d make an extra effort to come say hello. So I opted, this time, to keep a wide berth of them as the night passed.

My husband was surprised. I can (generally) get along with anyone. I wasn’t going to lie and say it didn’t sting a little to have that distinct impression of dislike being sent my way. However, I was going to respect that fact and not make anyone uncomfortable.

I told my husband, “I have a suspicion that its the ‘musician’s wife’ thing. Maybe they’ve had bad experiences with wives and girlfriends on the road, and now they’re not going to give me even half a chance.” After a moment, my husband agreed that that might be the case.

Oh, I’m not going to throw stones nor pat myself on the back. I have my own moments when I find myself being THAT road wife… the one that is a little higher maintenance that normal. Its rare, but it does happen on occasion. Some wives, however, are just generally a little more high maintenance. Others you hardly know exist, they are so independent. I try to walk the line between the two… a little closer to independent, but not too close.

Anyway, I’m only making wild guesses, of course. But the end of the night, no matter what, I felt myself being judged for the cover title, versus for the content. And it stinks when that happens! We all do it, but hopefully we strive not to.

Do you have a time when you’ve felt yourself being judged before someone got to know you?