Saturday, August 21, 2010

Unsettled routine

Sidewalks express embellishments of stories that have already taken place.  My eyes have traced the sidewalk as I've walked mile after mile, recording fragments and forgotten details.  Discarded food containers, dropped reminder notes, store receipts, cash, broken glass, candy wrappers, leaves, fallen fruit, crushed flower petals.  Used dog waste bags left for someone else to deal with.  Cigarettes in every variety, some still in the pack.  Lost homework pages scribbled on wildly by little hands still learning how to write.  Trash escaped from the transfer to the collection truck.  Gardening equipment.  Broken sprinklers.  Screws, bolts and springs.  Business cards, shopping bags, coupons and dirty rags.  Jackets and underwear.  Expired squirrels and birds.  Uncollected yard sale signs.  Unwanted furniture and appliances waiting to be free-cycled.  Ruined couches and chairs.  Faded messages drawn in sidewalk chalk, paint, marker.  Inscriptions and paw prints left before the concrete had set.  Survey marks and the shorthand used to mark places for repair of the unseen, underground network.

Remnants of ordinary, daily life.

I've walked past a particular block on almost every route I've taken.  The routine of it is comforting.  The same dogs that regard me with sleepy eyes and casually alert ears.  They are bored with my regularity and stopped barking at me long ago.  Regular.  Routine.  Unchanging.


Today, the sidewalks showed evidence of a different story. An exception to the routine.  An event that unsettled the comfort of ordinary.

I noticed two officers, taking notes in a yard across the street from me, shiny badges on dark uniforms catching the morning sun out of the corner of my eye.  It seemed odd not to see a police cruiser close by.  Half a block later, I realized I was walking on more than dropped, dried fruit from the trees along the street.  I was walking on someone else's blood, a trail of burst droplets growing more urgent and leading all the way around the corner.  It was fresh and heavy enough here to be accompanied by more officers and a line up of police cars, but old enough not to smudge or take an impression of my footprints.  A spattered, wavering line ran from the public sidewalk up to a front porch.  Pools of blood on the porch and over the threshold of the open front door.  Something dramatic had happened to someone here.  An accident, maybe.  A crime.  A misunderstanding escalated to the point of being unrecoverable.  Latex gloves sat left behind from an investigator trying to piece it together.  A stillness hung in the neighborhood punctuated by the mumble of police radios and my footfalls as I continued home.

The sidewalk knows the story.  It was there the whole time.  But it's not telling any more than it already has.

-Andrea



Friday, August 20, 2010

Needy is needy for a good antonym

A local headline helped me find a puzzling burr in my bonnet this evening:

Needy children get ready for school at Santa Anita Park

"Needy" is defined as being in want or lacking.  "Less fortunate" or "underprivileged" are also similarly used.

You and I have become accustomed to hearing these words and understanding their context .  Reading them just now probably evoked an image in your head.  Don't worry.  I'm not going to ask you about the image.

But I am going to ask for your help.

"Needy," "less fortunate" and "underprivileged" have something in common.  They are descriptions framed in negative perception. It's easy to depict a situation by hitting the negative items first. Think about what you notice when you walk into a room or meet someone.  Think about the last time you were in traffic. We are trained to diagnose, to identify weakness, to solve problems.  We're good at it, too.  So good that noticing a defect is more natural than noticing a strength.

This is exactly why it is so difficult to describe situations from a positive reference point, to use strengths as an index over weakness.
Is it possible for the headline to adequately capture the story from a positive reference point?  Would we understand the events that took place if the headline read "School supplies donated to community students" or "Volunteers give time to prepare children for school"?  I believe so. But I don't believe it is automatic for us to hit that perspective first, especially if the intent is to grab attention.  

Does it feel more appropriate to focus on the act of giving or the act of receiving?  Help me explore this, my friends, by sharing your thoughts.

-Andrea


Tuesday, August 10, 2010

The peril of easy money

The nuggets: 
  • You can reap fresh-fallen fruit or even low-hanging fruit just by walking up to the tree, but so can everybody else.  You can win by always being first to the tree, but you're just doing something anyone else can do.  
  • For a bit more effort, there's much more fruit to be had.
Ever have a bit of luck and hope it happens again?  How far do you go with that hope? Are people losing money for your benefit or are you delivering something of value?

During a recent evening walk I found a receipt folded up with some cash on the sidewalk.  A few steps farther was more cash.  By the end of that block I had picked up $41.

Last night I walked past that same place. I knew another find was improbable, but I slowed my pace and looked around more closely that whole block.  Of course I didn't find any more cash.  But that didn't stop me from looking.

By the time I reached the next block I felt silly.  I had fallen into the trap of doing something again, knowing it probably wouldn't work, but giving it a shot anyway just in case.  I could walk miles all over town and never find more than a penny.  If I really wanted to make sure I found more money on the sidewalk, I would have to focus on getting cash thrown about in public than random treasure hunting. Doesn't sound like an attractive business model, especially the part where people lose money purely for my benefit.

What is the result you're hoping for, and how can you let go of what you're doing now in order to try something different?

Are you going for a long-lasting result, or just a quick windfall?  Are you betting that if you do what worked once before enough times, eventually something will happen?

-Andrea

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Resentment and customer service robotics: It's all about you

The nuggets:
  • Resenting a task doesn't make it faster or more pleasant.  Choose to accept.
  • Don't treat the humans that help you do a task like robots.  Choose to be human.

Grocery shopping.  Pick up from the dry cleaners.  Mail a package.  Deposit a check.  Get gas before you have to push your car home.  Typical errands, right?  Ugh.  

Want to know something about all those errands, all those mundane tasks you have to do as part of, well, life?  They take as long as they take, whether you resent them or not.  Resentment doesn't feel very good to hold on to, so there's not much risk in simply accepting the things that need to be done.

What about all those times you've waited in line, growing more irritated at how unprepared the people ahead of you are, at how much small talk is being exchanged?  How many times have you reached the counter or cashier and been so focused on getting done that you completely ignored the person on the other side?  If you treat these interactions as if they were disposable, that's exactly the kind of experience you're going to get.  As emotional beings, we don't like feeling disposable.

Think I'm wrong?  Next time you go to the grocery store, smile, even just a little, as you walk up to the line.  The person in front of you may not acknowledge you as you walk up, but if they do, give them your smile and I bet they'll smile back

Give the cashier a smile, too, and the most sincere greeting you can muster.  Can you imagine what it must be like to deal with customers that treat you like a robot, as a purveyor of inconvenience?  Chances are you shop at the same grocery store with the same cashiers every time you shop.  Find a favorite and be happy to see them again.  

The opportunities for human interaction as we go about our routine business are less than before.  We have automated phone menus, ATMs, pay at the pump gas stations, even self-checkout lines at some stores.  It is possible (and dreadful) that we can go through a series of errands without ever being acknowledged by another person, without having our questions answered, without any emotional involvement other than what we bring to the situation.  If by chance there is an actual human waiting there to help you, be human. Because being acknowledged is so much better than being ignored, right?  And is there anything more enriching than sharing a smile with someone?

It's your choice.

-Andrea