Recently, my observations have eased the tension of normal life. From moments at doctor’s offices to observing human nature: it’s all been very entertaining lately.
I was at my doctor’s office yesterday, and it’s in a pretty affluent part of town. A stand-alone building with such welcoming and beautiful fixtures, very modern and new. I was done with my visit and went to use the restroom, as one does, then, there it was: the square peg in the round hole. The one thing that simply did not belong… the toilet paper. I mean, this is a new, stylish, clean, beautifully decorated doctor’s office; why, for the love of all that is good and holy would they need to provide single-ply toilet paper?
That got me thinking, do businesses really save THAT much on toilet paper? Is the thought process, “well, share holders, we did not make budget last year, we really do need to trim the fat… let’s get single-ply toilet paper”… Is that how that goes down? I mean, I know businesses have struggled lately, but have they been single-ply-toilet-paper struggling?
Then, my recent adventures have carried me to CarMax, for those of you living under rocks, CarMax is a car dealership. I’m not purchasing anything, I was accompanying one of my kids. While sitting, waiting for them to get their business taken care of, I got to look around at the other patrons. Every ‘waiting’ situation I’ve been in recently, there is one common component to how we, as humans wait… we all, play on our phones.
I was sitting in the waiting area at the car dealership and everyone was looking down. Swiping, typing, reading… but not one person looked up. No one acknowledged the other human sitting near them, no one said, “good morning” or “good afternoon” or “this is some weather we’re having”, no one even did the smile/look away (which has always been my personal, signature move). And so… I did what any not-so-normal person does, I chose to not be on my phone, at all. What I observed is that little by little, those around me glanced up. They made eye contact, they smiled, they rolled their eyes because we were all waiting… together. When employee’s kept walking around, not attending anyone who was waiting there, there were collective sighs, chuckles at the acknowledgement that whatever was happening was taking way too long, it was a common experience, that when we looked up, we were having together.
Now, their initial glances up, might have been motivated by my 11 year-old who was incessantly complaining because he wasn’t allowed to play on an electronic device either, but so what… people looked up! Eventually, we (my son and I) began playing, “I spy” and then it happened. The strangers, not only started to look up, they started to look around. As if also trying to guess what we were “spying”. Even my older child, got in on the action. But what did it take for a group of strangers to have a friendly interaction? We had to look up and away from our phones.
Our choice to disconnect from one another and to connect with our devices is everywhere, it’s blatant, and it is contagious. As adults we not only shut out other adults, we ignore the children with us, the children around us. We allow our kids to entertain themselves, not with thumb wrestling or I spy or reading books, but with electronic devices. We play candy-crush and they watch YouTube. I want to be clear, I’m not judging… I don’t like to make small talk, so I too play on my phone while I’m waiting, while I fly, anytime I have some downtime. But… at what cost? What am I missing out on? Do you ever wonder that? If we remain so busy looking down and never look around, are we missing something?
And then, what of our kids? Do we ever just let them be bored? I did some pretty cool stuff when I used to get bored as a kid.
Just my observations from really cheap seats.