"I'm trying to sell these bus tickets for some children's tylenol..."

So on the way home from our PHA exec meeting tonight, Sam, Julie, and I were stopped by a woman who look frazzled and worried. This woman said she lived somewhere close to Summit and 4th, wasn't recieving her social security money until next week, had a brain injury which makes her disabled, and works two days a week. She was explaining how her 4 yr old was at home for the past two days suffering from a 104.9 fever and she simply was trying to trade in her bus tickets for some money to buy children's tylenol...

I am going to be a nurse in the near future. This broke my heart and messed with my conscience that I chose not to help her. I didn't have really any money to give her, but I could have given her what I did have. However, I suggested that she call 911 and have the paramedics bring her son to the hospital..she responded that she didn't have enough money and that this would ruin her credit. So, we walked away and she went onto the next people she could find.

These kinds of situations happen all the time. Homeless people approach us for change, we tend to ignore them. But this lady looked like she was about to cry and seemed very worried about her son, despite not utilizing the necessary resources to get help for her son ASAP. So, upon talking with this woman, my first instinct was that this poor woman really does need help..then about 3 seconds later, my instincts tell me that she is lying to get money. But as I walk away, I kept thinking to myself...what if she wasn't lying? What if she really did need help? What if she really didn't have any money and was genuninely worried about her son's situation and how she would handle it? What if this woman's "homeless" appearance is what is stopping me, and everyone she runs into, from helping her?

So, in the midst of interviewing a gazillion people for Greek Week exec board, this got me thinking...so many people seem qualified for these positions, but how do I know from these 20 minute interactions that these people are who they say they are? First impressions mean so much...how do I know these people aren't just good at interviewing? How do we know they are going to actually doing the jobs they say they will? Or, how do I know that the quiet, more reserved people who aren't as enthsuiastic in their interviews are less qualified that everyone else? I hate that we have to judge so much off first impressions and guage how capable someone is based off a 20 minute interview. I hate that I judged in 20 seconds that the woman begging for help was homeless and lying.

It's the same for exec..how do we know that we are all going to do what we say? Yes, we are responsible for holding eachother accountable but in the end, it's up to us as individual leaders to live up to what we said we are capable of during our interview process? What is it that even makes us more willing do put in so much more effort than everyone else? And how do we automatically just trust that everyone is going to do their job to the best of their ability, just because those may be our own personal intentions?