Perception Analysis
...employee than most of us. Our company had just won an award as being one of the top Information Technology (IT) departments in the country based on a write-up Jane had written, now management was going to love her even more! Jane was even invited to the private Christmas party held at the home of our company’s president. I took all of this to mean that Jane was a more valued employee than me. Instead of looking at the big picture I chose to practice selective abstraction (Kirby, Goodpaster, and Levine, n.d.). I focused on one small detail; I equated being invited to management meetings and parties to being important and valued. I didn’t stop to remind myself of all the positive things that were happening to me. I may not have been invited to the president’s Christmas party, but I did win the President’s Award for outstanding performance; Jane wasn’t even nominated. I also received very good reviews and was awarded several stock options as incentives to remain with the company. My boss was always very positive and when he heard a false rumor that I was leaving the company he came and offered me great incentives to stay, unfortunately I made the mistake of telling him the rumor was false prior to accepting any of his offers! Even with all of the good things that were happening to me, I felt inferior because Jane was getting to do things I wasn’t. I couldn’t understand how management could find Jane more valuable than me; I obviously must be doing something wrong. Recently I arrived at work to find Jane’s office empty. The decision had been made to let her go. No reason was given for this decision at the time. We later learned that there had been several official complaints to Human Resources regarding Jane’s behavior towards other employees. Management had been working with her trying to get her to improve her performance. Jane had also made several large errors that had serious impacts on other parts of the organization. I realized at this point that I had really been misguided in my perception of the situation. Looking back it seemed silly to have believed that Jane was valued more than me, or to have even cared if she really had been. I stopped and asked myself many questions trying to figure out why I had felt so threatened by Jane. Why should I have cared if she was invited to a party that I wasn’t? Would I really...