Beyond Outward Appearances

I learnt an important lesson about looking beyond outward appearances in 1992. At that time, I was undergoing an industrial attachment program at AT&T Microelectronics as a chip testing operator. At one of the early morning shifts, I was working alongside Mary, a short middle-aged-like lady with a weird cup-like hairstyle. I thought to myself that I was quite unlucky considering that there were many other young and pretty female operators around!

Then I encountered a machine problem that I couldn't solve. I was frustrated and nervous because I was testing a batch of chips that urgently needed to be shipped out. Mary noticed my predicament and helped me out without being asked. She was friendly, patient and had a most assuring and sweet voice.

I was touched as well as ashamed of how I had judged her unfavourably. In fact, none of the young pretty female operators came close to her gracious and dignified demeanor! She was the only person I remembered in the huge factory till this very day. Thank you Mary for teaching me that beauty is but skin deep!

Comments

Passerby A said…
What about the view from the "opposite side of the fence"? I mean, because someone looks handsome or pretty, other people have preconceived stereotypical ideas about them too? I'm not saying that I'm very good looking, but I know that I'm not getting the kind of respect I deserve based solely on my intelligence because my looks had something to do with it. Ok, most of the time it's just harmless fun and jokes, but I wished that these people knew that I mean business.
2:19 pm
David Woon said…
I understand your frustration... Indeed, any ideas formed based solely on outward appearance are most probably prejudiced and incorrect. Unfortunately, we do not have control over how others perceive us - what we can do is avoid being affected by what others think and focus on doing our very best! Respect will surely come with time and consistent results:o)
5:20 pm
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Spiritual Autopsy

Image
Today is the 100th-day death anniversary of my Dad, Vincent Woon . I'm close to my Dad. In fact, among my siblings (2 brothers and 1 sister), I believe I'm the closest to him, being the youngest as well as having the same Catholic faith with him. I miss him... but the busyness of life (yes even during my 2-week-long holiday!) doesn't give me the luxury of time to reminisce our wonderful times together - perhaps our modern society is moving too fast and we risk losing our humanity and becoming more like unfeeling machines if we don't slow down... This afternoon, our family "visited" my Dad at the columbarium to say a short prayer. It was a short session with little verbal exchanges but it was a nice feeling to be together as a family, remembering someone so close to our hearts. And at 3pm, our close church friends gathered at my Mom's place for a short memorial service. Their presence meant a lot to us and spoke volumes of how my Dad had touched t...
Read more

OREDY: One Message A Day...

Image
One message a day... this is how I hope to change the world. Hence, I have started a free messaging service called OREDY ( O ne R efreshing & E mpowering message D ail Y ) for anyone on WhatsApp . Rest assured that your personal information will not be shared with anyone else. This is purely my personal endeavour to make a difference in the world; I will be choosing the messages daily which are categorized into various lists. Here're the List Codes of my service: QUOTES : Daily inspirational quotations from great men and women throughout history, eg. "Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow." Albert Einstein (1879-1955) Physicist BIBLE : Daily inspirational Bible verses, eg. "My Grace is sufficient for you, for My Power is made perfect in weakness." 2 Corinthians 12:9 JOKES : Daily hilarious jokes to keep the wrinkles away, eg. A sandwich walks into a bar. The barman says, "Sorry we don't serve food in here!...
Read more

Seeding Racial Harmony

Image
Last Friday, my wife and I volunteered at the " Racial Harmony Day " annual event at Montfort Junior School . It was a real fun and memorable event with yummy traditional and multicultural food and interesting activities like rickshaw rides and whacky photo booths. Many other parent volunteers put in their heart and soul to make the event a most meaningful one for their children by recreating a " kampung " environment where Singaporeans from the four main ethnic groups used to live together and interact freely; nobody locked their doors in those days because everyone viewed one another as part of the same big family! The following photo touched me deeply and conjured up feelings of pride, security and peace because it represented Singapore 's dedication to continued racial harmony in the generations to come: Photo by Andrew Teoh @ Montfort Junior School on 25 July 2014
Read more