The Old Coot knows when to
speak.
By Merlin Lessler
I’ve been involved in a
bunch of “Zoom” sessions this year. A pandemic phenomenon for many of us. It’s
usually a mess. Everyone talks at once, stopping when they realize they don’t
have the floor, then starting up again. And again. This start-stop, multi-talker
process reminds me of when I was in kindergarten, before we learned to raise
our hand when we wanted to say something. And, then waited for the teacher to give
us the go-ahead. It took that whole first year for Mrs. Shopper (in my case) to
keep us from blurting out something whenever we felt like it. Ah, Mrs. Shopper!
Do we ever forget that first teacher, that 2nd mother figure in our
lives?
Anyhow, that early
childhood training would serve us well in a “Zoom” session. We need someone to
be “Mrs. Shopper” and the rest of us to be the kids in kindergarten. To learn
to raise our hands when we want to speak. It will take some getting used to; we
are an impatient lot; we don’t like to wait. For anything! But, if we don’t,
these virtual meetings will continue to be a disaster.
Us old coot are trainable.
We had to wait for everything growing up. We learned patience. We grew up in an
era when the adage, “Children should be seen but not heard,” was in play. Even
at home, we had to wait before blurting out what was pushing our buttons. We
even had to wait to make a phone call. Not, because someone in the family was
using the phone, because someone in another household was using their phone, and
shared a telephone circuit with us. Two, three or more, families sharing the
same party line. A private line was expensive, which is why most families were
on a party line.
When you picked up the
phone to make a call on a multi-party line, it made a click sound that the
person using the line could hear. If you “clicked” enough times, the person
“hogging” the circuit might say, “Good bye,” and hang up. Not always. Sometimes,
you had to claim you had an emergency and needed the line. Telephone wars were
not uncommon. The best tactic was to leave your phone off the hook so your
party-line family couldn’t make a call. If you picked up the phone very
carefully it wouldn’t produce a click. Then, you could listen in on their
conversation. A popular pastime in those days. That’s what a Zoom session is, a
bunch of people sharing a party line. So,
raise your hand, or click in and your Zoom session will go much smoother.
Comments? Complaints? Send
to - mlessler7@gmail.com
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