Lessons in empathy

I'll be the 1st to admit that empathy is a hard thing to learn. It has taken me years to develop into who I am and I still have problems sometimes wanting to judge other people at 1st sight. It is really difficult to want to draw conclusions when I haven't even met someone just by what they look like. I am sure we are all at fault for this to some degree, but it doesn't make it right. What is it that makes us so judgemental or put off right away?

I was at work tonight and I had the perfect opportunity to right, a wrong for someone else. Not that it was my place, but because I just couldn't let it go for what it was. There was a table that came in tonight and admittedly, it 1st glance it was a bit shocking. The woman/girl had something physically wrong with her head. She had long hair pulled back into a ponytail, but on one side of her head, she was completelt bald. It was clearly obvious, that it was something that she had not done to herself, but likely something medically wrong with her.

Her waiter, a guy that I work with, is just a kid (he's 20) and not the most PC. He came back and kept on saying how disgusting this poor woman was. Now disgusting isn't the word that I would have chosen. And the more I thought about it, I didn't think that it was the word he should have used either. So I took the opportunity to tell him what I thought.

I decided to give him a lesson in empathy. I said Roman (the guys name), I am going to give you a lesson in empathy. He was like "empathy...I am guy I don't have that". I said, well guy or not, you could use a lesson. I explained to him how it bothered me that he used the word disgusting to describe the woman at his table. Also, that it was obvious that she didn't choose to look that way. For me, it might have been more appropriate to say...unfortunate, but NEVER disgusting. I went on further to encourage him to think about what he says and hope that it isn't him who has some disfigurement or problem that is visually obvious. Plus the fact that he was riled about the way she looked and pointed it out to everyone made it even worse.

I explained that the girl probably gets stares all of the time just by going out in public and his pointing it out to EVERYONE we work with didn't make it any easier for her. It is sad that we point out the obvious and make it more of spectical than it needs to be. Hopefully I changed his mind just a little and he'll think about it next time some else comes in.