Charles (Chuck) Kensinger

One employee is sitting at the computer working on what they were told to do three hours before. The boss is pleased because they are still on the task they were given. He does not know this job will only take them thirty minutes to perform, because he does not know how to do it.

The same official passes another employee who is in a breakroom getting a cup of coffee. He is there with two others who have been drinking coffee for fifteen minutes, and they all go back to their respective desks. “How long have they been in the break room?” he asks his secretary. “Fifteen minutes,” is the reply.

Later that day, the man who was pouring a cup of coffee is reprimanded. He is confused since he had gotten up from his workstation for the first time in three hours and is told he was drinking coffee for fifteen minutes. It is never mentioned to those who were the ones his secretary was talking about.

Perception is the problem in this case. Or, if you have my attitude, the misconceptions of an inefficient supervisor. I hope this has never happened to you. It has been done to thousands of associates at offices and plants all over the world. I know because I’ve seen it here in the U.S., and I believe that people are the same everywhere.

I’ll give you a couple of personal examples. I walked up on the line at a restaurant where I was a manager and saw three people correcting a problem with a customer order. One was out of his workstation. I jumped on him to get back where he belonged.

Once the problem was worked out, the other two informed me that the error was theirs and the young man just came over to help sort things out. I immediately went to him and apologized for my error and thanked him for his efforts.

A few days later, a tray of food flies over his head and hits a wall. The manager who threw it, my boss, storms out of the building. The situation was the same; an order was filled incorrectly.  I took this as a sign that I needed to find employment elsewhere and did so. This was my last food service position, and I continued in other industries.

The problem of perception overruling truth is all around us. We often must look beyond what seems to be obvious to us to determine what the reality is. Many companies die because their managers and owners accept perceptions as truth and fail to see the forest for the trees.

I left an employer early on, expecting his business to file Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and then it took place a few months later. I was a purchasing agent and was constantly having to ask accounting to pay bills that were overdue to clear our accounts to ship new orders. My perception was that our bills should be paid on time.

There are those who have a perception that if they do not pay their bills promptly, nothing will happen. It may take a foreclosure or threat of some catastrophe to correct this erroneous thinking. In business, I’ve made those calls to clients asking for a past-due invoice to be paid. I always considered it a truth that they could pay, if they wanted to. What are your perceptions of the truth, and are you sure you are correct?

©Copyright 2026 by Charles Kensinger