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The Tea Maker
I don’t know what’s happening to me but it’s happening more often. It might happen with a member of my family or with a work colleague or in any one of a hundred other situations.
I suggest to people that there are three options. That’s where I make my mistake. Because I can never remember the third one. Here’s an example from yesterday when I was discussing what we could do for the weekend with my wife.
“Ok, we have three choices. 1. We can take a trip to the city and go shopping. 2. We can stay at home and fix some of the things that need fixed in the house. 3. ???”
I just couldn’t remember what the fuck No.3 was. In the time it took to blurt out the first two, the third one had disappeared from my little brain cells.
Last week I was with a client. She explained one of her company’s problems to me and was obviously looking for a solution. I thought about it for a few moments and managed to reduce the number of potential solutions to three. Feeling quite proud of this, I said to her, “Ok, it seems as if there are three distinct ways to handle this problem. Then I did it again. I explained the first two but, even if my life had depended on it, I couldn’t remember the third one.
Everyone agrees that my approach has to change. So, instead of telling people they have three options, I’m now going to say, “Ok, there are a few options available here.” That way, I can stop when my memory cells let me down and I won’t look as if I’ve forgotten what I was talking about.
Do you think this will work? Or do have any better ideas?
The Tea Maker
PS: You can comment on this story by emailing me at [email protected] and I’ll respond to your emails in next week’s column. Your email address will never be published.
