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## <center>Welcome to Working Wednesday</center>
<center><sub>Part 2</sub></center>

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Working Wednesday is a compilation of stories from various working environments. We tend to spend a large portion of our lives doing it and we can learn a lot from each other's experiences, good and bad alike. 

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##### This is a story of learning about people, whether you like who they are or not...everyone has a history and often times your assumptions are completely incorrect. 

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About two decades ago while I was studying at University, I was enrolled in a class with two classmates that had to repeat the subject as they previously hadn't made the desired grade. 

One of these people was a girl younger than me, of seriously over the top bubbly personality and because she had done the module before, she irritated me by being a little know-it-all, interrupting the lecturer, answering questions from fellow students that weren't directed at her and just generally being annoying. To put it in a nutshell, I couldn't stand her. Of course, I never let her know this but I gave her a wide berth during the lunch breaks and didn't engage in conversation with her. 

This went on through the year and to be honest, at the end of it, I felt glad to have completed the course and I put her in the back of my memory - ~~hopeful~~ grateful that I wouldn't have to deal with her overly bubbliness ever again. 

The universe however thought otherwise. 

The following year I wanted to get some experience under my belt so that I could hit the job market not looking entirely inexperienced so I applied to volunteer at a well known business in the industry. I went and met with the manager and we had a discussion as they were known for letting people volunteer for experience so it seemed like a good place to start. 

I remember the manager saying to me that perhaps I knew the other volunteer there, but I drew a blank when they mentioned the name. I think my mind had built a big box around it and left it in the far corner never to be retrieved again. They accepted me as a volunteer and we signed the necessary paperwork. I felt great about the prospect of going into the work front afterwards not being completely green. 

The day I started, I was greeted at reception and shown to the waiting room and out waltzed Miss Bubbly Goody Two Shoes. My face probably dropped to the floor as the realisation dawned on me who the name they mentioned had belonged to. 

I pulled myself together knowing I had made a commitment for the weeks that I had signed up for and decided I would have to grin and bare it for the greater good - my future in the industry depended on it. 

The worst part was that she was essentially assigned as my supervisor even though we were both volunteers, she had been there previously so they granted her some additional responsibility. 

We worked alongside and with each other on various projects and through the days working with her I learned that she had actually come from a life fraught with hardship and she had just lost her father to cancer only weeks earlier. Her sunny disposition would never had lead me to believe it and I found myself feeling guilty for misjudging her as I had thought she was an entitled little brat who wanted to one-up everyone around her when in actuality I think she was very insecure, was putting on a very brave face and trying to prove something to herself, if not everyone around her - that she was worthy. 

Look 20 years ago I was a really different person and I'm sure that I rubbed plenty of people the wrong way too. 

One day we were working together on a particularly tricky job and she started doing and saying things that I could tell were leading into a downward spiral. I wasn't about to let her commit professional suicide so I jumped in and literally saved her ass! We both came out of that session a little shaken and jittery but we had a chat about it in the car after we left and she acknowledged that she didn't know what she was thinking. She thanked me for my efforts and our entire relationship in that moment changed. Not because I saved her, but because I realised that she was just like me - human, prone to errors, sometimes needing help and not afraid to admit when she had done something stupid. The pre-conceived idea I had had of her simply fell away and even though there were times where she still annoyed me, I came to appreciate her for her resilience, tenacity and ability to simply get up, brush herself off, put on a smile and keep pushing forward. 

I think whatever the universe was trying to teach me I grasped that day because once we had finished our volunteering, we parted ways not just as colleagues, but as friends and I now, looking back can appreciate her for so much more than my initial impression...it taught me a lot about people, being able to breach what seemed like an insurmountable range of difference between her and I and also about working with different personality types. I was too quick to judge her before I got to know her, but now I don't judge nearly as critically as I did and I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt. 

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###### Have you misjudged someone that you work with before? Did it lead to conflict? How did you manage it? 

Feel free to tell me in the comments.</div>

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<sub>All writing is by me</sub>

<sub>The image belongs to me</sub>