Monday Morning Random Takes

We were out to dinner last night and, for some reasons, the four booths in my line of sight were all occupied by pairs of young women. All seemed to be friends out enjoying dinner. Except for the fact that about half of them spent a significant amount of time staring at their phones and tapping away there and ignoring the live person sitting right across from them.

One of the pairs did have a nice conversation. Remember they were in my line of sight and I have ears so I noticed this. But, at one point, it was like a silent alarm went off and they both pulled out their phones to see what else was going on. Not that my wife and I are always engaged in sparkling conversation but we are at least the only ones at the table.

I’m certainly old enough to remember life before cell phones. I don’t want to go back there. But there were definitely things that were better. I guess this is just such an accepted practice that neither party in the various pairs cared that the other person was, at times, more interested in what has happening outside the restaurant. I’m just old enough to think that seems kind of rude but what do I know.

It reminds me of when I used to be a manager in work world and email showed up. Another great tool but, like all tools, it can be dangerous if used improperly. Had a couple of people who kept the email app open all day and every time they’d get the little ding, they’d stop what they were doing to see what the mail was.

One of them would always tell me about how hard is was to finish things because she kept getting distracted. I would always tell her that emails don’t need to be answered right away. If something was truly important, the other person would call. I would check email at the beginning of the day and then close the app and check back periodically through the day when I had a bit of free time. Sometimes, I would miss a meeting that someone tried to set up that day but that never resulted in any real issues because most meetings are also a giant waste of time.

We like to think we can effectively multi task but we really can’t. If you are in the middle of a project and stop to deal with email, it takes time for your brain to switch back into project mode again. This morning, I just got hit with this idea to write about yesterday and I’m now sitting here banging this out while my mind is focused on it. Was going to exercise first but decided that you strike while the iron is hot and I can workout later.

I’ll just leave with something completely different. The last two days have been a little cold for this time in May. The low last night was right around 50 and we aren’t going to go higher than 67 today. If this was back in March or even April, I’d have the heat on. But I’m resisting now because it is late May and we should be done with needing heat!

The funny thing is I don’t have a similar thing about using the air conditioning off season. We get hot days in October and I’ll turn the thing on without a second thought. But turning on the heat seems like letting the cold win and I just can’t do that. It is also why I went for a walk yesterday in my shorts and t-shirt without a jacket. Could I have used a wind breaker at least? Well, yes, that would have made things more comfortable. Wasn’t going to do though. Jackets are retired until September. I don’t care what the temperature is – the weather is supposed to be warm and I’m going to act like it is.

So I picked out the quote above for a reason. Like many people, I used to dread Mondays. Maybe not all the time but certainly towards the end when it was a struggle to drag myself back into work. Now, Monday is just like all the other days and it is fantastic. Well it could be warmer but it is still great.

Happy Monday. Hope you have a great week!