Two ‘Frazzled’ Scenes

Posted on June 11, 2006
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At a McDonald’s in Maryland on a Sunday mid-morning, the two associates behind the counter had a weary, frazzled look – as though they were barely getting through a long day. How about the customers who wanted milkshakes? Two clutches of us stood on a long line, only to be told when our turns came and we asked for milkshakes that the milkshake machine wasn’t working. Yet they had just rolled down slick new color graphics of the daytime (vs. breakfast) meals with all their prices, something I didn’t realize they could do. Couldn’t they simply have posted a sign (even hand-lettered) that “We regret that milkshakes aren’t available today?” Where was management in that frazzled scene?

At a Lebanon, PA, medical office on a Friday afternoon a nurse, or whomever it was, called a patient to advise on preparations he needed to make for his cardiac stress test the following Monday. Unfortunately, he wasn’t home to receive the call and had to experience it on his answering machine after the 5 p.m. closing time. The “nurse” must have given this “spiel” many times, and been frazzled on a Friday afternoon to boot, because the “instructions” weren’t fully decipherable even after three or four replays. But I think they contained an advisory that it would be necessary to return a second time for a couple of hours Monday afternoon, after lying absolutely still for 20 minutes on the first visit. Which rules out taking the test on Monday because that kind of time isn’t available that day. Couldn’t somebody have asked how much time I had available to spend before scheduling the test in the first place? Doesn’t the medical profession need to communicate relationally, if anybody does? Don’t instructions to patients require clarity and proper pacing regardless of when and how they are given?

One hates to suggest it, but if a real person isn’t up to giving answering machine instructions on a Friday afternoon, couldn’t they be recorded for broadcast with the appropriate pacing and clarity? Does anybody in medicine care about such “fine points”?

Learning Responsible Speech

Posted on June 7, 2006
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It was gratifying that President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair acknowledged making mistakes in Iraq. But one has to wonder why learning about good relational communication needs to occur on-the-job in the White House.

The Associated Press reported President Bush as saying, in a joint news conference with Prime Minister Blair, “I learned some lessons about expressing myself maybe in a little more sophisticated manner, you know.” Examples of the President’s “tough talk” style, the AP noted, include saying Osama bin Laden was wanted “dead or alive” and challenging America’s enemies to “bring it on.”

It’s reassuring that the President can reflect and learn to the degree he has acknowledged. But what in our system should be preparing candidates for office to recognize, very early in the game, what’s a responsible, effective style of expression and what is not? How can voters be attuned to recognize the difference themselves? The nation is victimized when, after harmful utterances on a world stage, elemental learning has to occur in the White House.

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