“Perception Assignment”
Scenario & Perception
As a student nurse, I was working in a student assignment group, where we were to make a project for a presentation on “Breast Cancer”. We had four persons in our group. On our meeting day, one of our group members did not come to our group meeting and she also did phone none of us. We were not able to finish our group work because we were missing her part of the project. We did not even know whether she had started her part of the work or not. Our meeting without her part of the work was not productive and we decided to set up another meeting on another day. On next day I met her and asked if everything is fine with her and her family. She confirmed that everything was fine. My expectation was that she would give some explanations or would try to talk about what had happened. She did not show any interest in a further communication. Her behavior was surprising and the same time frustrating for me. I perceived that she was not a responsible person, because before our meeting she did not call us. I also perceived that she did not value and respect other people time. I felt that she even ignored the importance of the group project and the work that she was spouse to complete. The conflict arose in our work group about her part of the work, and we were undecided whether we were to keep on being silent or to start an open discussion about our concerns. Eventually, we did not do very well on our group project and then our group was disbanded when for the next project we had to choose new partners for the group.
2. Communication
Despite my perceptions about her, I decided to ask her if everything was fine with her family. She confirmed that her family was fine and then I kept a distance from her because I decided that she did not have a legitimate reason not come to the meeting and in fact this validated my perception that she was not responsible person and she did not value other people time.