It's all relative

It's snowing AGAIN. Enough said.

But it allowed me to recognize an interesting phenomenon today. It's happened a lot, but today I just picked up on it and analyzed it. I'm pretty sure it doesn't have a name, so I'll call it Road Condition Relativity for now. This is the conversation that lead to my discovery.

Coworker who just got to work: "Wow...the roads out there are getting bad. Even the sidewalks are slick."

Me: "Great. It was a bit slick when I drove in today too, but I was hoping it'd get better."

Coworker: "Yeah, it was pretty horrible on some of the curves I took. I thought I'd wipe out."

Me: "Hm. Maybe I should rethink my appointment this morning. I have to drive to my doctor and she's in NorthSuburb (20 minutes away)."

Coworker: "Nah. You'll be fine."

This is where I noted the Road Condition Relativity. It was clearly bad for him. It was horrible even. But for me he thought it wasn't so bad. So road conditions are seemingly correlated directly to those driving them. The "self" driver being more important than the "other" driver. What's horrible and dangerous for one's self is deemed not so bad for a coworker. Interesting. Has anybody else ever noticed this?