Don't you dare apologising for your face
As workers, we all have a ‘urgh Monday' and ‘finally Friday’ face, and some jobs spare no soul. Such is the nature of my job. In case you did not notice, I took on this new task where I am often video-calling people during their shift and I started noticing a trend.
A disappointing trend, I must say.
In the healthcare sector, one would come in contact with women more often than men, and a staggering majority of them has the same reaction to seeing their own webcam reflection:
“Oh! That’s my ugly face, I’m sorry.”
First of all, I have no other benchmark since it's the first time I see you.
"This must be your lucky day! That's an automatic pass for me!"
Although, I do understand the exclamation of surprise, one is never ready to see oneself from a different angle, especially under fluorescent lights.
Now, you live a very busy life, I’m sure you wish you had more time to do things you love and things you don’t love but wish you could do. I am also sure if you knew someone was coming for dinner you would make sure to have something to plate and that you looked your best.
This is not a dinner date. I literally just called you halfway through the day and told you to get on video no matter the lighting.
This makes my job sound extremely bad. I promise there’s nothing dodgy here!
The important message I am trying to get across is that you should never apologise for the way you look at work! Especially if your work involves improving someone's life.
Then I had this thought.
We interact with so many people each day, from people on our commute to and from work, co-workers, random passers-by, staff at the grocery store, people on TV…
Perhaps one-way interaction with the TV is a single child thing, but I digress.
I honestly can’t remember anyone I see in a day, unless they did or say something specific to me that begs to be turned into a topic of conversation.
Heck, I barely remember the names of people that just introduced themselves to me!
Could you imagine if, suddenly, all of those strangers apologised to you for the way they looked?
You get on the tram and the driver goes: “Good morning, sorry about my eye bags.”
At work: “Thank you for your help, also sorry about this pimple.”
Random stranger: “Sorry, don’t mind the messy hair.” “I sneezed and now my eyes are a bit red.” “I apologise for looking tired.” “Disregard the state of my unironed shirt.”…
Are we kidding?
I honestly don’t understand how I could possibly have any right to complain about the way you look. Sure, I can notice the fact that you may look tired, but that has nothing to do with me claiming to somehow stand on higher ground and demand you to kneel before me and admit your aesthetic defeat.
Why are you apologising?
I was ready to start a hyper feminist article about the gender gap and whatnot, when a male specimen of doctoribus novus, on the verge of his first telemedicine consultation, turned to me and asked:
“Will they see me? With this hair? Gosh I haven’t even…”
And proceeded to comb down his hair using forceful hand swipes and made sure his shirt was tucked in, before turning on his camera.
This made me smirk and forget the gender bias. I wish more things did.
Also, I just turned the shallow physical insecurities of a doctor that saves lives into a conversational topic. If he never mentioned his hair I would have never thought twice about him looking as he did doing what he does on a random day.
Image: via
A disappointing trend, I must say.
In the healthcare sector, one would come in contact with women more often than men, and a staggering majority of them has the same reaction to seeing their own webcam reflection:
“Oh! That’s my ugly face, I’m sorry.”
First of all, I have no other benchmark since it's the first time I see you.
"This must be your lucky day! That's an automatic pass for me!"
Although, I do understand the exclamation of surprise, one is never ready to see oneself from a different angle, especially under fluorescent lights.
Now, you live a very busy life, I’m sure you wish you had more time to do things you love and things you don’t love but wish you could do. I am also sure if you knew someone was coming for dinner you would make sure to have something to plate and that you looked your best.
This is not a dinner date. I literally just called you halfway through the day and told you to get on video no matter the lighting.
This makes my job sound extremely bad. I promise there’s nothing dodgy here!
The important message I am trying to get across is that you should never apologise for the way you look at work! Especially if your work involves improving someone's life.
Then I had this thought.
We interact with so many people each day, from people on our commute to and from work, co-workers, random passers-by, staff at the grocery store, people on TV…
Perhaps one-way interaction with the TV is a single child thing, but I digress.
I honestly can’t remember anyone I see in a day, unless they did or say something specific to me that begs to be turned into a topic of conversation.
Heck, I barely remember the names of people that just introduced themselves to me!
Could you imagine if, suddenly, all of those strangers apologised to you for the way they looked?
You get on the tram and the driver goes: “Good morning, sorry about my eye bags.”
At work: “Thank you for your help, also sorry about this pimple.”
Random stranger: “Sorry, don’t mind the messy hair.” “I sneezed and now my eyes are a bit red.” “I apologise for looking tired.” “Disregard the state of my unironed shirt.”…
Are we kidding?
I honestly don’t understand how I could possibly have any right to complain about the way you look. Sure, I can notice the fact that you may look tired, but that has nothing to do with me claiming to somehow stand on higher ground and demand you to kneel before me and admit your aesthetic defeat.
Why are you apologising?
I was ready to start a hyper feminist article about the gender gap and whatnot, when a male specimen of doctoribus novus, on the verge of his first telemedicine consultation, turned to me and asked:
“Will they see me? With this hair? Gosh I haven’t even…”
And proceeded to comb down his hair using forceful hand swipes and made sure his shirt was tucked in, before turning on his camera.
This made me smirk and forget the gender bias. I wish more things did.
Also, I just turned the shallow physical insecurities of a doctor that saves lives into a conversational topic. If he never mentioned his hair I would have never thought twice about him looking as he did doing what he does on a random day.
Image: via
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