Judging People

FairyFeller

I've been looking into Buddhism for a while now. This is my first post and it's something that's had me wondering for a while.

I work in a busy Emergency Department and I am supposed to make judgements about people. Whether they are genuinely in pain or trying to get a fix of certain meds, I'm supposed to notice how dirty/scruffy they are because it could be a sign that they may not be coping. I know that I can judge their situation without making a judgement about them but sometimes I have to see the worse in people to protect them from themselves.

poptart

Sounds more like assessing people than judging them, since judging has more of a moral angle to it. And if you do your job with compassion I don't see any harm in that.

And welcome, by the way!

RebeccaS

I totally agree. Trying to assess someone's circumstances to find out the best way to help them isn't judging them.

Because you're a human and you're not perfect you're going to judge them as well as assess, but as long as you keep your intention and focus on doing your best for them then these are just silly thoughts (that we all have) that are not worth paying attention to.

jessie70

I am new here too, and I'm not a Buddhism expert or anything... But I think that your job requires you to *discern* whether someone meets certain requirements for medication for pain relief or if they don't is very different from judging.

I think the "judgement" that one wants to avoid comparison oriented. For instance, if you feel that you or the other person are more or less "worthy". If you discern that someone is addicted to something, and they don't qualify by your employer's criteria for a specific medication, that doesn't mean you are judging them as people.

That being said, as the prior poster pointed out- we're human and we all probably have moments of judgement... but the goal, I think, is to catch ourselves, and understand that we are all the same, that we are all on a path, and to feel compassion for yourself and the other person, rather than superiority or inferiority, or anything in terms of relative worth... we are all connected, and we are all potentially and essentially good.

andyrobyn

I have worked as a registered nurse for over 25 years now and agree with the comments about this type of work involving assessment rather than judgement. I knew it was time for leave my position in ED when I thought to myself why are screaming you only have a broken leg when a young guy came in with an open wound on his lower leg and visible bone sticking out. The only importance that our judgements have are in showing us what is going on with us.

federica

I have to judge people all the time. I have to remember that they're behaving like a jerk, rather than they actually ARE a jerk...

footiam

See the worst in people then, just be compassionate.

Telly03

federica said:

I have to judge people all the time. I have to remember that they're behaving like a jerk, rather than they actually ARE a jerk...

You talking about your Mod job here?

federica

Yes.

DairyLama

FairyFeller said:

I've been looking into Buddhism for a while now. This is my first post and it's something that's had me wondering for a while.

I work in a busy Emergency Department and I am supposed to make judgements about people. Whether they are genuinely in pain or trying to get a fix of certain meds, I'm supposed to notice how dirty/scruffy they are because it could be a sign that they may not be coping. I know that I can judge their situation without making a judgement about them but sometimes I have to see the worse in people to protect them from themselves.

Judgement or assessment is neutral, it all depends on the intention behind it. Clearly you have good intentions.

PrairieGhost

Hi FairyFeller:

I'm supposed to notice how dirty/scruffy they are because it could be a sign that they may not be coping.

I think that's interesting, because as far as I know, there aren't any peer reviewed studies on how scruffiness relates to coping. Don't get me wrong, I'm not criticising, just using your experience as an example; I expect there is a correlation between scruffiness and coping, but I do think that sometimes important judgements are based on prejudice.

Because it's very easy to judge someone and make decisions about their life based on misreadings of data; I've read accounts, and also seen this trope used as a plotline in films, of persons being in a position where the data they provide to say, a mental health worker, while being merely idiosyncratic or incidental, is interpreted as pathological.

e.g. At a job interview a normally calm person who bought a coffee, not expecting it to be particularly strong, taps their fingers on a table and is thus thought to have a nervous disposition. Asked if they are on edge, the person may become defensive, thus cementing the way they are seen by the interviewer.

Now, a job is important, sure, and interviewers have to be savvy, but to an even greater degree, I think that people in public positions who are called upon to make important judgements about people need to be incredibly, painstakingly careful not to jump to conclusions which could alter the course of a life entirely.

There are also cultural differences. There was a time when a woman bearing a child out of wedlock could be seen as weak minded and placed in a sanitarium. Given that most of society at that time looked down on single mothers, and given that becoming a single parent put a woman in a very difficult situation, was this judgement, in the sense of a self-fulfilling prophecy, correct? Of course not. We should never mistake courage, or simply being stuck in a difficult situation, for craziness. It's not crazy to choose to defy a crazy society, or to accidentally be put in that position.

I don't drink alcohol, and I am forever having to explain and excuse myself for not conforming, even though in this case, conformity is madness.

I think it's worth cultivating fluidity in our judgements of others, a willingness to see how ideas like 'coping' or 'functional' are defined in lives whose challenges and value systems are different from our own.

There are very broad categories of behaviour relating to dysfunction; most of that behaviour is also displayed by well adjusted people, and sometimes all it takes is a penstroke from an official to call which box a person is going to be cast into, perhaps for the rest of their lives.

RebeccaS

I think you're over complicating it a bit. If you walk past me in the street and you haven't washed your hair and you smell like you've been sleeping in your own piss I'm going to assume you're not coping and I think that would be a perfectly reasonable assumption, and a correct one.

PrairieGhost

Yes, if its a case of someone clearly in a bad way. But sometimes the line is finer than that.

vinlyn

PrairieGhost said:

...

Now, a job is important, sure, and interviewers have to be savvy, but to an even greater degree, I think that people in public positions who are called upon to make important judgements about people need to be incredibly, painstakingly careful not to jump to conclusions which could alter the course of a life entirely.

...

Actually, when it comes to job interviews, the person who really needs to be savvy is the interviewee. As a principal, I received as many as 700 (or some years far more) letters of application with resume per year, usually for 8-12 open teaching positions. Not to mention custodial, cafeteria, and secretarial positions. It was not my responsibility to have any concern for whether or not I was going to alter an applicant's life by choosing or not choosing them. Because, guess what...if I had 100 applications from potential English teachers for one vacancy, I was going to alter 99 applicants lives negatively and 1 positively, no matter who I chose. My responsibility was to select the candidate that most closely fit the needs of my school.

PrairieGhost

Oh, absolutely.

But if you were deciding whether or not to exclude a child, that would indeed be your responsibility.

vinlyn

PrairieGhost said:

Oh, absolutely.

But if you were deciding whether or not to exclude a child, that would indeed be your responsibility.

Of course.

PrairieGhost

And in the past, children have been excluded for things like, oh, I don't know, being partially deaf and thus talking loudly and seeming aggressive. Or for ethnically specific hairstyles. At any rate, for behaviour that has been casually misinterpreted.

So being almost oversensitive to possible misreadings is, in my view, really essential for public officials.

vinlyn

PrairieGhost said:

And in the past, children have been excluded for things like, oh, I don't know, being partially deaf and thus talking loudly and seeming aggressive. Or for ethnically specific hairstyles. At any rate, for behaviour that has been casually misinterpreted.

So being almost oversensitive to possible misreadings is, in my view, really essential for public officials.

PG, I was responding only to your comments about job interviewers.

PrairieGhost

I think you misread. I meant that job interviewers DON'T need to be quite so fine in their readings. I said they

have to be savvy, but to an even greater degree I think that people in public positions

...

It was bad writing on my part - I didn't make the distinction between a job interviewer as a private person, and a public official, very clear, and you got confused because your job involved being both interviewer and official.

FairyFeller

PrairieGhost said:

I think that's interesting, because as far as I know, there aren't any peer reviewed studies on how scruffiness relates to coping. Don't get me wrong, I'm not criticising, just using your experience as an example; I expect there is a correlation between scruffiness and coping, but I do think that sometimes important judgements are based on prejudice.

Because it's very easy to judge someone and make decisions about their life based on misreadings of data; I've read accounts, and also seen this trope used as a plotline in films, of persons being in a position where the data they provide to say, a mental health worker, while being merely idiosyncratic or incidental, is interpreted as pathological.

e.g. At a job interview a normally calm person who bought a coffee, not expecting it to be particularly strong, taps their fingers on a table and is thus thought to have a nervous disposition. Asked if they are on edge, the person may become defensive, thus cementing the way they are seen by the interviewer.

Now, a job is important, sure, and interviewers have to be savvy, but to an even greater degree, I think that people in public positions who are called upon to make important judgements about people need to be incredibly, painstakingly careful not to jump to conclusions which could alter the course of a life entirely.

There are also cultural differences. There was a time when a woman bearing a child out of wedlock could be seen as weak minded and placed in a sanitarium. Given that most of society at that time looked down on single mothers, and given that becoming a single parent put a woman in a very difficult situation, was this judgement, in the sense of a self-fulfilling prophecy, correct? Of course not. We should never mistake courage, or simply being stuck in a difficult situation, for craziness. It's not crazy to choose to defy a crazy society, or to accidentally be put in that position.

I don't drink alcohol, and I am forever having to explain and excuse myself for not conforming, even though in this case, conformity is madness.

I think it's worth cultivating fluidity in our judgements of others, a willingness to see how ideas like 'coping' or 'functional' are defined in lives whose challenges and value systems are different from our own.

There are very broad categories of behaviour relating to dysfunction; most of that behaviour is also displayed by well adjusted people, and sometimes all it takes is a penstroke from an official to call which box a person is going to be cast into, perhaps for the rest of their lives.

I live in a town with a particularly large population of elderly residents and they make up an even larger proportion of ED users. If they look unwashed and/or smell strongly of body odour or urine then there is a good chance that they are having troubles with taking basic care if themselves. If the are wearing ill fitting clothes it could indicate malnutrition or substantial weight loss meaning they could be having financial difficulties or having problems with getting out to buy food, they may be unable to stand long enough to prepare food. The list goes on.

I wouldn't be doing my job properly if I just put their arm in plaster and sent them home for them to come back the following week because they'd collapsed again when I could gave had a chat with them about how they're coping and put some support in place if they felt they'd like or needed it.

PrairieGhost

No absolutely. I was making observations in general, not about you specifically. I think I explain this at the start of the post.

andyrobyn

The type of discernment you describe being utilized in assessing your patients FF is not judgement and whilst some may be defensive and reject the help and reality being offered them, you are responding to their needs.

charirama

As in any situation, if you ask yourself what is the most loving thing that you can do you will probably arrive at the right "assessment".

federica said it so well: "I have to remember that they're behaving like a jerk, rather than they actually ARE a jerk..."

Any one of us may behave the same way if we were in that situation.

Captain_America

I was thinking about this earlier today. I work in retail, and as a retail employee you eventually try to size people up before and after you encounter them to get an idea of what you're dealing with or have just dealt with. I've gone as far as to think "Oh boy here comes a douchebag" or "Wow, that guy was a real a hole". Most of the time it's nothing that extreme, usually whether or not I thought that was a pleasant customer but yeah, I can understand judging someone based on their situation rather than who they are in cases where someone might need to bend the return policy a little bit. Definitely not as difficult as trying to figure out if a person is too scruffy looking but I figured I'd offer my scatter brained 2 cents.

Wisdom23

i would advise to stick with what your job requires of you but still greet each patient with a sense of love and compassion i guess. hope this helps.

music

Discernment is not judgment. Jesus=discernment, Pharisees=judgment.