What's in the bag?!

As I communicate and interact with more people, particularly as part of my job, I seek out and absorb a lot of information.  At the moment, I'm in a situation where I have to reach out to collect information, but at the same time, am faced with a reluctance on the other side to provide it.  This is a situation sometimes found at clients, but is a bit of a different scenario here.

To explain the scenario, the person I was talking to at the time mentioned a Jamaican phrase that goes something like "don't buy a pus in a bag".  Meaning, if someone tries to sell you a bag saying there's a cat, you don't just buy the bag trusting that there's a cat inside.  So you don't think I'm making it up, I present: http://wisejamaican.financiallysmartonline.com/2009/03/nuh-buy-puss-eena-bag/

His premise was that Jamaicans who go by this phrase are skeptical.  Therefore, if someone's going to be asking for something, he should be able to demonstrate why he's asking for it, and what the impact or result will be.  This sort of concept is fairly standard in my typical line of work, but it's something people might forget as we selfishly run through our duties to try and get our own work done.

Being a CUSO-VSO volunteer, there's advantages and disadvantages.  For one, we get an objective view point and can be perceived as unbiased.  This can be great, especially if we have to deal with two sides that don't meet eye-to-eye.  On the other hand, we are interacting with people with whom we have no prior experiences with.  This in itself also has its advantages and disadvantages.  However, in this case that I'm mentioning, it highlights the importance of building up the trust, credibility, and relationship.  Of course, adding cultural differences, and age differences (this one's for me specifically, as I'm the youngest one by far of the volunteers), serves to compound the importance of and effort required for developing said relationships.  Once you build that trust, credibility and proper working relationship, it makes progress and interaction that much easier.

I have a tendency to think of the most efficient way to complete a task.  The quickest path from point A to B.  I suppose all in all, more than anything else, this is a bit of a reminder for myself:  before taking on any project or work, get to know who you're dealing with.