It is one of the biggest ironies of modern life that there are so many more ways to communicate, and yet the road to misunderstanding is more riddled with pitfalls than ever before.
In the not-so-olden days, face-to-face communication was the most common and effective form of interaction: the over-the-fence chat with the neighbor, dropping in on the boss in his office, the family roundtable at dinnertime. Now you can phone, text, E-mail, I-M, Skype, Facebook, and so much more. But because people have different levels of comfort with any one of these methods, this is where the potential for miscommunication abounds.
Contrary to the rest of my family, who are early adopters of everything, I am probably one of the last holdouts who does not have a smart phone with a keyboard. So when I text, I have to push one key three times to get the letter “C” and four times to get the letter “S.” Texting, therefore, is painstakingly slow for me and my least favorite way to communicate. Forget about punctuation or capitalization!
On the other hand, some people practically text me “Gone with the Wind” and they probably think I’m being rude when I respond with a terse “OK” or “Thx.” Never mind LOL or GTG. In self defense, I have developed my own texting language.
“R u rdy” means “I am sitting in the car in front of the school waiting for you to finish socializing with your friends so you come out the door and we can go home.”
“Gd” might say “That’s an awesome grade and I am so proud that you have worked so hard.”
“Y” could mean “Why do you need more money in your bank account when I just put some in there or why do you need that new dress anyway?”
“Lv u” is the most important: “I love you so much, lots of hugs and kisses; be safe.”
One of the greatest problems with texting is timing. More often than not, my cell phone is buried deep in my purse, and if I’m home upstairs and my purse is downstairs, I don’t hear the little “beep” that tells me a text has arrived. Sometimes 24, even 48 hours will pass before I realize I have a text waiting for me.
Even something that used to be as simple as leaving a telephone message is fraught with potential misunderstanding, as evidenced by a recent situation that should have been resolved with a face-to-face conversation. Instead, both parties felt the call was in the other person’s court. The call was dropped and so was the relationship.
She said, “I called you and you never returned my calls.”
He said, “I never received a single phone call.”
She said, “I called your home phone AND your cell.”
He said, “I wasn’t home and my cell phone must have been turned off. There were no messages left on either.”
She said, “I felt funny about leaving a message so I didn’t. But I know you check caller ID. You should have known that I had called since you check caller ID.”
He said, “I never check caller ID. I would have dozens of missed calls from telemarketers and banks offering me loans I don’t want. I check for messages. If it was important enough, you should have left me a message. There was no message, so how could I have known you called?”
One of my biggest pet peeves is a missed call on my cell and no message. My own family is guilty of this. They’ll say, oh, what I had to say wasn’t important enough to leave one. Then how about adding a sweet note and a smile to my day, with words like the ones from that Stevie Wonder song, “I just called to say I love you.”
Another pet peeve is that my husband seems to have radar for knowing exactly the moment I’m on the phone. I might not have a single phone call all day, but the minute I jump on for a call, that’s the exact moment he’ll dial in. “Beep” goes my phone and there’s a dropped word in my conversation; “beep” again and there’s another dropped syllable. Then I get off my call and check for a message and there isn’t one! How irritating is that?
E-mail is the most reliable way to communicate with me because I check it several times a day. I can type fast and say what I want to say and know that I’m not barging in on anyone’s conversation. With an E-mail, I know my recipient will open it and respond when convenient. How very civilized.
But even E-mail comes with its perils. I have two E-mail addresses — one that I check all the time, a second that I log in to occasionally. Recently, I found an important E-mail that had been sent to me weeks ago, camouflaged inside lots of junk mail in that secondary E-mail.
These are all very real irritants to me because they illustrate how technologies that are supposed to improve communication can backfire. The phrase “the road to hell is paved with good intentions” keeps popping into my head. It’s not exactly the quote I’m looking for. But you know what I mean. If not, call me and I’ll explain. If I don’t answer, leave a message and I’ll get back to you. Better yet, shoot me an E-mail.
