Today was nothing less than a total disaster. It was one of those days that 15 minutes after starting work all you can think about was finishing. If I think about it this day to forget actually started yesterday. I made one of those rookie errors…you know the one, you are in a negative frame of mind and you get an email which you just have to respond to. Well I did and hit “send” before realising I had chosen “Reply All” instead of “Reply”. You can imagine my surprise when this flaming, raging email comes back. Oops! Then came my frantic apology to “All” with a follow up phone call that was sent to voicemail. So my day started with having to face some fall out from yesterday’s debacle and went rapidly downhill from there. Finally my last meeting of the day arrives and it is a meeting where I should not need to think too much, more of a listening encounter for me. I thought “ah this one should be easy”. As soon as the thought entered my head I tried to banish it, I knew it was analogous to walking into an Emergency Communication centre and saying ” wow, it’s quiet in here”.
The web conference began and this voice from the end of the phone said “shall we start?” Off he went, showing slides that whizzed by at a rate of knots. I couldn’t read more than 3 words and the next slide appeared. He was talking so fast and slides slid by in a blur. After 10 minutes I thought to myself, “if this guy doesn’t take a breath he is going to pass out from oxygen deprivation.” All I can say is that he must free dive in his spare time. This man went non stop for 40 minutes before I had to break in. Not so much because I had a comment or question I just felt it was my duty of care to allow the man to inhale. The meeting mercifully ended (only because the hour was up), I think the gentleman could still be talking otherwise. I took my headset off, laid it on my desk and took a deep breath…I felt as if I had been put through some kind of psychological torture. Can your ears bruise? Mine felt like they were.
That was it, the day to forget was over. I thought maybe it was my punishment for my error the previous day. Oh, tomorrow has to be better. Oh wait, I have to go to the dentist to have two teeth extracted…maybe not then!
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