I’m very fortunate to have my stature.
I think I take this for granted regularly, though, so now is the time to offer some insight to short people.
One aspect of tallness is the intimidation factor. This can be both a positive and a negative.
The positive aspect of unintentionally intimidating people is that NOBODY wants to mess with you. When I’m walking down a city street and see a man/woman handing out fliers to every pedestrian walking by, I watch with pure amusement as the flier-distributor clutches the papers close to his/her chest just as I pass by. Of course, I don’t want a flier, much like virtually everybody else around me. The difference here is that while the flier-distributor interrupts everybody else’s day, if only for half a second, he/she has no impact on my day simply because of the deep-seated fear in the subconscious memory that my Viking ancestors likely pillaged his/her ancestor’s village. Wild stuff, right?
The negative aspect of unintentionally intimidating people is that EVERYBODY is afraid of you, which can be rather upsetting. The other day, I was walking through the subway station and a child jumped out from behind one of the yellow stanchions supporting the ceiling, essentially blocking my path. I’m not going to shoulder-check a 5-year old, because I’m not a shmuck, so I chuckled at him and changed my course slightly to walk around him and his mother. His mother, I swear, shot me the dirtiest, most scornful look, followed by putting her hands on her sons shoulders forcefully to turn him away from me, as if I was going to try to abduct him. What did I do wrong?! Your son was being a shmuck, not me, and I handled the situation with aplomb. Believe me, if I wanted to shoulder-check your young son, I could’ve done that instead. I’m the one who changed course to accommodate your son’s unpredictability. I understand that children are children and will act like children, so I obviously don’t blame your son, or even you, for his surprising entrance into my intended path—there’s no way to keep tabs on your children 100% of the time; you’re only human. To blame me, however, is an entirely different phenomenon. Nobody was to blame for this misunderstanding, until someone assigns blame where it doesn’t belong.
Yep, that’s it.
Until next time,
Michael J. Erickson, CEO & Co-Founder
