Anybody Listening?

Although I could be writing about several computer related topics right now, I chose to bring up something else; something far more important ~ COMMUNICATION and more importantly: LISTENING.

A very close friend of mine suffered a heart attack recently and while on the phone with someone I mentioned I was at the hospital that evening due to my friend who HAD A HEART ATTACK to which I immediately replied "he's doing better now". The person I was speaking with said something like "oh" and then continued on with what was on their mind. I then said "did you hear me? my_friend_had_a_heart_attack?!" with the following reply "he died?". In exasperation I repeated what I said earlier and felt confounded that such an important topic was so quickly lost in the other person's thoughts as their conversation went straight to the next topic in their mind. I expressed something to that effect, and was told "well, I guess I wasn't really paying attention". No, I guess not.

Paying attention, something most of us are really skilled at doing; not. For me it began in my early high school days, feeling bored out of my mind watching the old black and white reel movies of war. While the guys appeared engrossed, I was writing a note to my best friend to pass in the hallway on the next break or trying to remember how to fold a paper football to fling across the room when no one was looking. Unfortunately, this particular skill (or lack thereof) follows a pattern of becoming embedded carrying through well into adulthood...and remains.

The Challenge: "Is this to go or for here?" I can't count the number of times I have had a cashier ask me this while placing a food order to which I typically reply "to go" and then after they've rung everything up, 98% of the time they'll ask me again. I can't help but wonder if you really can't remember, why don't you just save that question for the end? Or how many times are you asked "onion rings or fries?" and you reply "fries" and then prior to being told the total of your order and to drive through to the second window, you're asked this question again? Watch how many times you have to repeat yourself in daily conversation after you've initially provided whatever information you've given. Preparation is everything, so it has been said. Apparently most of us aren't prepared; and that includes being prepared to listen.

I don't believe humans inherently wish to not pay attention or to blatantly display a lack of concern about someone else's "stuff" when they're being spoken to. It is simply human nature, that we are indeed, very selfish beings. The "me factor" takes over and well, the rest goes out the window. In conversation when you're trying to tell someone something you're excited about, notice how you'll barely finish your sentence and the other person is instantly going into a diatribe about what is going on in their world. I had a conversation with a co-worker a long time ago and began to tell her something I actually thought she'd relate to, managed to get out two-thirds of my opening sentence and she jumped right in, cutting me off, going on a tangent about her day. So, I patiently waited until there was dead silence. I began my sentence again...same thing happened. I patiently waited and purposely began my sentence the exact same way three times before she finally realized she was totally interrupting me and and not paying one bit of attention. Hmmm, now why is that so important to me? Human nature again? This time me wanting to be heard perhaps?

I see this error of human nature creep up in the patients I take care of in the emergency room. Never mind that they can hear someone a few rooms down complaining of chest pain, they are pissed you didn't bring them that glass of water they asked for ten minutes ago...or the little scratch on their finger that only needs antibiotic ointment (really soap and water would be fine) covered by a band-aid takes immediate priority while you have become a visual blur dripping beads of sweat attending to the patient truly in pain, short of breath, or the rescue patient EMS is trying to give you report on.

The flip side of this little glitch in our genetic cognizance is it makes for a great ice breaker. Consider being on a date, feeling a bit nervous, you're really attracted to the person, and like most people, begin fumbling over your words (or if you're like me fumbling with any object in sight and usually dropping it on the floor) or suddenly find the English language has completely escaped your grasp. This is what will save you; ask the other person something *about them*. Yep, it's that easy. As a matter of fact, prepare to sit back and relax, because guaranteed they'll go on. Do try to pay attention though as you might get caught off guard when they feel they've provided a sufficient monologue. It will now be your turn to fill in the pregnant pause.

Now, although it irks me when I don't feel I'm being heard, this writing is not emanating from my own personal annoyance. Actually, I have been up early and trying to get a lot of things accomplished before pulling night shift at the hospital several hours from now. I have been so flabbergasted that words as dire as a friend who had a heart attack could actually have fallen on somewhat deaf ears. Of course not everyone I told this to exhibited ADHD (being facetious here), but those who did, well, it bothered me enough; enough to take the time from my very busy day and sit down in front of the computer and blog on this. Perhaps it is because I care about this person very much and it really scared me, and that I am so thankful my friend is alive ~ thanks to the incredible people that were there when he lost a pulse. Life is so short. Learn to give someone a rare and not oft given gift; your time, your ears, LISTEN. Really, it won't kill you, it won't even hurt. It might cost you a few more seconds of your time to really listen, but it will be worth it. The person you've listened to will feel heard, believe you care, and that will only strengthen the trust they have for you. Only good things can come from it. :-)

I Could Scream...

...and it wouldn't be for a good reason, either. I have an iPad and it was jailbroken, operative word here "was". I had a problem with my wifi connecting and thought it all stemmed from a glossy keyboard I was attempting to download from Cydia. So, I Googled and read everything I could from anyone who had something similar happen. I was getting pretty frustrated so I decided to restore the iOS. Problem is, I inadvertently upgraded to the latest version of iTunes, which royally messed me up in not being able to bypass the upgrade to iPad 4.2.1 ~ and well, you know the dilemma at this point. Apparently there is a jailbreak from Green Poison, but I will wait until Spirit is up to speed with theirs. I really liked the previous Spirit jailbreak. It was flawless, very fast and perfect.

So, I ended up restoring my iPad to my previous settings, and still - no wifi. Huh? wtf? So, now even more frustrated, I restored it to the factory settings and the wifi still wouldn't work. I couldn't believe it. Then, I did one of the most no-brainer things anyone could do. I walked over to my router, unplugged the thing, waited for less than a minute, plugged it back in, and Voila! wifi now working on iPad; and I bet I never needed to get rid of the jailbreak and restore it after all.

So, as I sit here and type this, I'm in the processing of restoring my iPad to my previous settings, and if yours is loaded to the gills like mine is, then you know how long *that* can take.

I should've figured out the router thing actually. A few days ago I was using VMware Fusion to run Windows XP on my iMac. It wasn't as easy as you'd think to set up the printer to work in XP on VMware, so after more Googling, I figured it out. Well, when I returned to the Leopard end of things, my printer wouldn't work. It would queue the documents, but wouldn't print anything. Don't 'cha know when I unplugged and plugged my router back in that all those pending documents started to print (and they're still printing). And that's all I had to do this entire time --> UNPLUG THE ROUTER AND THEN PLUG IT BACK IN!!!

So, I'm okay for now with the 4.2.1 on my iPad, but what I don't like is that I can no longer password protect individual apps or folders. There are just some things that are not for anyone else's eyes other than mine. Apple, go figure, hasn't come out with an app for this. I recently saw an app in one of my Mac mags that mentioned an app that allows you to sync wirelessly with iTunes. That's a good one, too. Although "Folders" is alright, I still really like Cydia's "Categories". Folders is problematic on the iPhone in that you are restricted to I believe, 12 apps per folder. I have many apps in some categories that go beyond 12 apps; for instance in the "Games" and "Relaxation" categories. I enjoy those apps you download where it sounds like a thunderstorm, etc. and have a lot of them. It's annoying to have "Relaxation 1" and "Relaxation 2". Then I have 3 "Medical" app folders. Yeah, it's annoying. The iPad might prove to be better than the iPhone since there is more screen real estate, in that I'll probably get all of my desired apps into each folder category. We'll see.

Restore Still In Progress...

It's been awhile since I last blogged so I'm going to try to stay a bit more current. I read a good article online that showed a job posting for Apple. Wow, was that tempting to think about, to work at Apple - Gadget Heaven. Then after some more Googling (I luv that word) I found how slack the pay is for someone at the Genius level. Should be much more in my opinion. I kinda think Apple can afford it. What say you?

(right about now you're probably thinking, well, it would've been nice if she included the links. So here they are; the links:

This one is discussing the job posting:

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11/02/02/apple_seeks_digital_photography_expert_for_ipad_development_team.html

This one describes the potential salary; taken from an actual letter for offer of employment:

http://www.macblogz.com/2008/09/26/leaked-apple-genius-position-hiring-documents/

I have also come to the conclusion that just like medical terminology add-on's for word processors, there should be a geek terminology add-on. I can't tell you how many times I've right clicked and selected "Add to Dictionary" while composing this.

Restore Still In Progress... still ... until the next post ~ stay well and stay informed. :-)