My Tyrst with design thinking - Empathy map

Ron Parker.  He is one of the first few Americans I got to know once I got here to the United States after my wedding. He is a colleague of my husband. He is about 45 years old, average height and build.  He is single and has never been married.  He lives a couple of blocks away from our house with two pet cats Rick and Janet. Ron works as an Analyst in a big tech firm in Austin.

I met him for the first time in his town home. He had invited my husband and I for Tea. It came to me as a big surprise when I entered his house. This was no bachelor’s house. I expected a not so tidy place. But the place was very well organised, clean and everything in its place almost as if it were a museum. I have heard from my husband that Ron is very well organised, a planner and very systematic. But it’s after chatting with him for a while that I realized that he takes “planning and being organised” to a whole new level.

To give you an example, he has been working on improving his bathroom for over several months now. Here is what he is doing. There is a particular color of tile he loved, he thought it would be perfect for his shower room but he couldn't find it at the right size. Someone like me would compromise and go for a different color. Not him! He got the tiles in his favorite color and have been trimming and cutting them to make it to perfect size. He said it took him close to two hours to complete work on one single tile. That’s him! A perfectionist. He will not choose anything that is less than perfect. He is someone who knows what he exactly wants. Nothing less and nothing more.

He talked passionately about DIY home projects. He loved working on these projects. He loved showing us around all the home projects he had worked on. He also showed us some sophisticated tools which helps him to be precise.

He is simple; he is not the one to go after big names and big brands. He lives a rather simple life. He loves his number crunching job. He looks forward to his weekend to spend some quality time with his friends ( a barbeque at backyard, no fancy restaurants) and work on his home projects. It almost seemed to me that he planned his life around this schedule. It seemed to me that his home projects were much more than a hobby. It felt to me that he involved in these projects for comfort and solace. He rides an SUV Nissan Xterra – the reason he has a big car is that it would help him bring big items from Lowe’s or Home Depot. When the gas price is high, he takes the Metro bus to commute to office. I don’t think he is not big on travelling or expensive vacations. He occasionally travels to Oklahoma to visit his mom. He likes routine, he likes predictability. He is very comfortable letting his life revolve around his job, his selective list of friends, his two cats for his company, his DIY home improvement projects to relax his mind.

In my opinion, his biggest fear seems to be when things do not happen as per schedule. He is a planner. He would hate to see things to happen the way he didn't see it.

In one of the recent events, I learnt to appreciate and like him even more. A couple of weeks ago, my husband had an accident and ended up injuring his backbone. Ron was very helpful at the time. He was genuinely concerned; he stopped by the hospital a couple of times. He even bought a “get well soon” card signed by my husband’s colleagues, boss and friends from work.  He called almost every day to check on my husband. It was a very kind gesture. I knew it cheered up my husband who was under a lot of pain and medication. This is when I started respecting him at a new level and appreciating him more. He is now a close family friend.