When I Grow Up…

I think I stopped growing when I was 12 years old. I’m not talking about physically or mentally. It’s my personality.

About a week ago, I went to my vendor’s office to pick up some documents on my way to lunch. I hadn’t been to that office in quite a long time… so all the new people have never met me. They have however spoken to me on the phone on numerous occasions. So, I walk in and the first person I met had this look on her face. It was as if she was dying to ask me ‘are you lost?’… I think she was about to ask me when her manager called out to me…

Everybody in the office (who didn’t know how I looked like) was just standing there, wondering who I was… because I actually looked like a fresh graduate, looking for a job (this was what they told the manager). Now, what made me look like a fresh graduate was my ‘young’ looking face, but also the way I acted. I was joking around with some of the managers, went for a quick smoke with the director (smoking is bad for you – TAK NAK! *this has been a public service announcement by the great people at ‘Yet Another Decade’) and generally acting like a small kid.

When they later found out from the manager who I was, they couldn’t believe it. They know I joke around a lot on the phone, but it seems that I have this ‘air of maturity and authority’ when I’m talking about work. So they expected somebody who ‘looked’ older…

Over the last few months, I’ve started to realize that I do have a ‘childish’ personality. I laugh a lot, joke around, and I’m generally easy going. It’s a good thing and bad thing. First, the bad part… I’m afraid people won’t take me seriously… heck, I don’t even take myself seriously… simplest example are credit card sales people in shopping malls. They will approach pretty much everybody who walks past their booth. They even follow people around. But yet, if I’m not in office attire, they don’t give me a second glance… I look like a kid and I act like a kid… that’s including when I walk around with MY kid… of course, to most people (including me) that’s a good thing. So people don’t bother you… but what if this ‘childish’ outlook affects people’s perception of me during business meetings…??

The bad part seems really bad… need the good part to cheer myself up…

Now the good thing about being a bit on the childish side is that people let their guard down… to them, there is no longer a need to be firm, serious and guarded if they are dealing with ‘a child’… never, ever underestimate a child (I actually learned that from dealing with my son… but that’s a different story).

I find that the easiest way to get somebody to agree with you is to push the idea forward in a very light, joke laden way… oh yeah, also with a nice child like smile (not the dishonest ‘I’m gonna cheat you’ creepy kind of smile). People respond better to child like innocence…

Now don’t get me wrong… I don’t manipulate people in order to get what I want… I just deal with people in a way that I’m comfortable with… and thank goodness, my way makes people comfortable as well.

Well, almost everybody… some people confuse the happiness with being gay… I’ve actually been asked if I was gay several times… but that, of course, is a different story.

How I act was not learned in self help books… it comes naturally… I guess it’s because I was raised in a very loving environment in terms of family… I guess the more you were loved as a child, the happier you are as an adult. And that translates into a more cheerful personality which may be perceived as childish behavior. You guys should see what it’s like when I’m around my sisters… it’s like a bunch of 12-year olds hanging out together, with the laughing and joking around.

I wonder how many kids say ‘when I grow up, I want to be a kid’…