Donan's back...and she has thoughts to share!

Cultural intimidation at the Yard Waste disposal

I was hauling yard waste on Saturday when I had a realization: I have a fear of looking stupid at Yard Waste. I’ve found that there are specific rules that must be followed:

- Back in. This just makes practical sense since the branches/bags/etc are in the back of the car.

- Wear work gloves. I have ladylike garden gloves but they fake people out.

- Drive a pick-up. Can’t do that one but I like the Matrix!

- Be a man. Seriously, 95% of the people I see are men. Do only men work in the yard? I do turn on sports radio loudly so I appear man-friendly.

Conclusion: I will always look stupid dropping off yard waste because I can only meet 50% of the rules. Does this mean I should stop going to yard waste? I guess I could but that would work very well in terms of disposing my waste (i.e. it would sit in the shed until next spring when I would either ask Jeremiah to take it OR go at a time when I didn’t think anyone else would be there…)

This conclusion got me thinking about the dozens of situations we encounter where we feel out of place. We feel there is an expected rule of behavior and we don’t know it. To come clean, I realize very few people dropping of their yard waste care about me and how I appear dropping off mine. However, this potential fear of looking stupid is a powerful motivator for me. I will avoid looking stupid at all costs.

How many things that might be beneficial to me do I avoid because I fear I’ll look stupid? How many things do I avoid because I assume I don’t know the operating procedure so I just want to avoid altogether?

The more powerful question for me professionally, what situations do I create/participate in that have expected rules of behavior? Church is a perfect example! We stand up and sit down at certain times. How do you know when to do this? Does someone prompt you or does everything do it automatically? We sing songs out of an old blue book. How loud do you sing? What if you can’t read music? Do you just open the hymnal and pretend that you are singing? Why would someone walk into that?

So, my new question: how do I translate culture so people feel alright walking in? How do I say that it’s ok to not know the rules? How do I help people enter cultures I care about?