On Sunday, I visited a hospital. I was at 5:00 pm when there was less commotion in the elevators. In this elevator, there were five adults. There was one American, and the rest were Hispanic people. Among them, three were female while the other 2 were male. From their codes of dressing, they seemed like the hospital's executives. The mood was generally quiet.
At the back of my mind, I knew it was wrong. I was the last person to enter the lift and stood directly facing the other people. For the first time in the first elevator, it was ambiguous to the point that I wanted to face the same direction as always. However, the second and the third elevators I had gathered enough courage. It was personally frightening since I was the only person facing the rest in the elevator.
When I first I heard about this assignment, I was happy to try it. However, when I went to try it out, I was ready for people’s reaction or criticism. Before this offense, I was anxious as it was the first time I would try such a thing which I have never seen anybody does. However, as soon as I entered the elevator, for a moment, I was unable to maintain eye contact. In my mind, I had several questions about whether it was the right thing to do and other people’s perceptions of my behavior. All the time I was breaking the norm, I was terrified by myself, and my heart was beating rapidly. I probably felt this way because it was the first time to break such a norm. I thought I was making the other people uncomfortable since I was facing them in an elevator, something they have possibly never witnessed.
While in the elevator, there were different reactions from the people I faced. For the women I encountered, the experience was great as they seemed to smile back each time I maintained eye contact. This made me feel comfortable. However, men just stared at me blankly. From there faces I could read they were surprised at what I was doing. One American stared intensely into my eyes as a way to show me I was breaking some norm. He was standing right in front of me but moved away to avoid my eye contact. Besides, they entered the elevator while chatting, but immediately, I stood in front of them, they stopped their discussions. Surprisingly, some women held steady to their handbags. The message was quite clear for some time that I was doing the contrary.
I had no difficulty breaking this norm. It was mainly because there is no established custom which is against standing and facing people in an elevator. The concern would be that it has become a folkway that whenever people are in a lift, they face towards the same direction. Breaking certain norms does not leave one guilty. This is because some are regarded as general practices. Besides, breaking such a norm was not difficult since there was no violation of any rule. This makes some norms to be easy to break since there is no significant influence and impacts they create. Only in cases where breaking a norm would result in adverse outcomes, then it would be difficult to break them.
