Being Judgemental Part One: You never know what someone else is going thorugh

Judging is bad.
Judging is bad.
Judging is bad.

They say if you repeat stuff, it'll make it permanently engraved into your brain forever. So, just to make sure I understand this...

Judging is bad.
Judging is bad.
Judging is bad.

Well, you've probably guessed by now what I'm fixing to talk about. Yup, that's absolutely right: PONIES!!!

Just kidding. =)

Seriously though, I'm awful about judging people. 

I didn't really realize it until this past week, but I judge people ALOT. It's definitely something I struggle with.

An example from the past week:
I went on the 5.6 grade trip Monday through Friday. It was AWESOME!!! Oh my goodness, I could tell you a million and one stories and jokes all relating to the trip. But, that would get off subject...
Anyway, at one point my girls had 2 hair dryers, the microwave, and a straightening iron running. (That's what I get for leaving the room for 15 minutes...) Needless to say the power to our room went out. So, I walk down to the lobby and this lady was sitting at the desk.

"Hi, I'm in room 12097 and our power is out."

And in an AWFUL "oh my gosh teenagers are so dumb" tone she says "Did you hit the reset button?"

confused I replied "On the hair dryer?"

"Well yeah"

"Ummm the lights won't turn on. The power for the whole room is out"

"Did you flip the switch from off to on?"

"The light switch? Yes..."

The next part of the conversation I kind of regret because I was being a smarty pants, but I won't lie. It felt REALLY good to say in the moment. Looking back, I wasn't setting a very good example...

"I'm from Memphis, haha I definitely know what a power outage is considering all the storms we've had recently."

Yeah I know....not my finest moment. I was being kind of a butt. *cough cough she kind of was too cough cough*

So she looks at me with this "Oh my gosh I hate my job, you're an idiot look" and says "Well I guess I better send maintenance up then. I'm sure it's just a outage short."

So naturally, I go back to the room complaining to almost all the adults that went on the trip about how rude this lady was saying things like "She's such a little snooty snot face!" (I was annoyed...)

Later that week one of my girls ran off (I promise we really didn't have that many problems! LOL these are just the examples) and I told her "Ok, you can hold my hand all the way back to the hotel room"

We're halfway back and she says "Ms. Melissa, this isn't embarressing. I kind of like holding your hand."
So I see a family of four (2 kids and their parents) and because they looked like people in a good mood I say "Excuse me, this little girl ran away from our group so she gets to hold my hand all the way back to our room" and the dad laughs and says something like "That's awesome! Kids, if you run off I'm going to do the same thing."

So we're walking and I continue to do this. Loudly talking obnoxiously saying things like "You just thought this wasn't embaressing. Now you're holding my hand because you ran off AND all these people are looking at us because I'm being loud. Is this embaressing now?!?" It was HILARIOUS all these people were looking at our group and laughing.

So we go down a hallway that just has one older lady walking down the hallway. You know how sometimes people just look grumpy? They're frowning and look like they smelled something sour? Giving you disaproving looks even though you aren't really doing anything wrong? Well, this lady fits that description perfectly. I was planning on laying low and not saying anything to her, just walk by and fly under her radar.

What does my little hand-holding friend do? Talks unesacarily loud like I've been doing to embaress her and says "Hi! I got in trouble and now Ms. Melissa gets to hold my hand! Isn't that great! She thinks it's embaressing, but now I'm embaressing her!"
It was quite funny, so my five other girls and I start busting out laughing. Until the lady gives us an icy cold glare and says to me "Control your children." In a grumpy, mean, wicked witch of the west voice.

Talk about your mood being ruined. We were just goofing off, and my "little friend" was being cute and funny, when the grumpy lady says something grumpy like that.

Now, of course I had a few things to say about her attitude as well... when we were safely back to her room where only a few people could hear me.

My point is, in both cases I got mad about a few grumpy women. I was insulting them behind their backs, and setting a really bad example if any of the kids had heard me...thankfully I don't THINK any of them did.

Both women could have just been having really bad days, or had something else going on in their lives. I won't ever know of course, but it makes me feel bad that I would jump at the chance of being able to talk about them and complain about how they were treating me or my group.

I guess my point is that you never know what someone is going through. I've said that before, but I'm going to keep saying it until I get it through my stubborn head and stop assuming the worst about people.

A Little Piece of Me!