Hi. Can I get the number
for the poison control centre, please?
Silence. Then more silence. I wait, pen poised, wondering what the delay is. I’d already called the telephone company’s directory-assistance service for other numbers in Saskatoon, our new home in this January of 1980, and usually they’d rattled them off pretty quickly. Finally, a voice speaks, hesitantly, as if afraid of the answer.
Is this an emergency?
No. Oh, no! Yikes! Ack! I stumble over myself trying to reassure the operator that there is no emergency–no child who has just ingested some dreadful household cleaning agent or some carelessly stored medication–that I have just moved to town and am setting up an emergency phone list for us and for eventual babysitters. I get the number, apologize again, and hang up in disgrace, reflecting that the delay was her trying to reconcile the urgent content of my request with my relaxed manner in making it.
Fast forward–oh my goodness–45 years, and I find myself responding to casual questions from neighbours and acquaintances about my recent absence from my usual haunts. “Well, he’s OK now,” I start, before explaining about a few weeks consumed by a cardiac emergency and its aftermath. Despite my care, some people miss that sensitive-to-their-feelings lead-in and come back almost in a panic with some version of, “OMG, is he OK?”
So. After several such encounters, I draw a few conclusions.
Communication is complicated. To discern meaning, we all take in cues that go well beyond the actual words we hear to encompass body language, tone of voice or apparent affect, and the intensity of delivery. It’s not surprising that it goes wrong so much of the time. What is surprising is that it goes so right, much of the time.
Communication is not completely under our control. We can learn from our failures, mistakes, and missteps. We can improve our skills–I like to think I’ve done that, moving (in just under a half-century!) from a thoughtless question about an emergency number to a decently sensitive presentation of an admittedly difficult situation that is, nonetheless, now largely resolved–but we can’t control what others pay attention to, or how they react or over-react.
Communication with strangers can be easier than with friends. Strangers bring fewer preconceptions and much less emotional investment to the interaction. Counter-intuitively (perhaps) and frustratingly (no perhaps about it), that sometimes makes them better listeners (or even just hearers) than those closer to us.
I decide to test my conclusions on the unknown-to-me cashier helping shoppers sort out the inevitable glitches with the self-checkout kiosks at the nearby grocery store, choosing a moment when things are quiet.
Hi.
(I pause, to be sure I have his attention)
I don’t need one right now,
(I pause, to let this register)
but I’m wondering
whether the store has
an emergency defibrillator installed.
The young man shows no signs of panic, nor even of concern. He responds as matter-of-factly as my calm question warrants.
Well, if we have one,
it will be on the wall down by the first-aid kit.
Bingo! Well, a half bingo, if there is such a thing. My local grocery store doesn’t have an AED, but the staff member and I communicated successfully, incurring/causing no emotional trauma incidental to the process.
In a world where there is contention for attention, where faster seems better by definition, it’s a hard thing to slow down in conversations and interactions. To predict probable points of miscommunication or emotional triggering and to take preemptive action against them (while recognizing that much of this effort will be futile, dagnab it). To provide context to bring someone else to my starting point, which otherwise exists only in my head. Above all, to give the other person the time they need to assimilate that thing I just said before I say the next thing.
Emergency communication must happen fast. Communication outside that context happens only if it’s slow.
I have found initiating any conversation with strangers catches them off-guard and you need to give them a few seconds’ grace to get their attention, if they’re not on the phone in their Silo world.
Barbara – A fair point. I also find that Canadians are caught more off-guard than are Americans, as a general rule.
Is it the first words we speak, or the speed at which we speak, or our manner, that sends a signal as to whether we’re asking a general question or it’s an emergency?
Tom
Tom – Any or all of the above, I expect. But I’ve about decided that if what I say could be interpreted as an emergency, I’m better off to work into it with at least one reassurance – maybe more! We’re not great listeners.
I once bumped into an old friend who said something along the lines of “You probably heard that X and I split up?”, to which she speedily proceeded to add “Oh, I’m okay”, before I even had a chance to respond — it felt like she was pre-empting my “condolences”, but the truth is that I wasn’t about to offer condolences!! I was not at all surprised they had split up (and was secretly happy for her because I had seen the dysfunction all along!). Communication is, indeed, a curious thing, especially when emotions are involved. A fun question to consider is: are emotions ever NOT involved? Big hugs to you both Isabel — I hope you have a relaxing and rejuvenating summer. When are you coming Kelowna way???
Carla – 🙂 Yeah, that ends up being awkward, doesn’t it? I expect you’re right – she was trying to forestall condolences, or bad feelings on your part, anyway. We would all do well just to slow down and let it unfold. (Of course, she could have bundled the communication at the outset: “We’re separated and I’ve never been happier.” But maybe that would have felt tacky.) Hugs back.
Apparently there is a dial or something on YouTube videos that lets the viewer slow down the rate of presentation enough that the viewer can actually understand the words being spewed out. Without, I would add, sending a woman’s voice into basement of the bass section. Instructional videos especially seem committed to jamming as many words as possible into a 4- or 5-minute piece. Slowing down definitely helps.
Jim T – I think that’s right. Most video lessons that I watch have an option to change the rate of presentation. When it’s something I’ve seen before I can review it at a multiple of its recorded speed – but on a first pass, it’s good to go slow.
Isabel – perhaps the problem is that everybody is in a hurry and that’s what makes hearing and understanding difficult.
When you don’t hear what you expected and are conditioned to hear at the start of a conversation, confusion often then reigns.
John – I think that’s right. We need some time to adjust. As an extreme example, I still remember a conversation overheard at the ball park.
Q: “How was your winter?”
A: “The winter was fine, but my wife died last Tuesday. We buried her yesterday.”
There was a long silence. Happily, most of the things we deal with aren’t quite that awful.