Just the Facts

Today, I was sitting in a lobby. Waiting my turn, all cool, like, we’re each going to get our turn at the thing. So we’re each waiting our turn, and it’s going very … calmly.

Then a lady, maybe 70 years old or so, sitting at the other end of the lobby from me pulls out her phone, and, being a modern cell phone, we can all hear the ringing as it waits to connect to wherever she’s calling. Then the robovoice, which we can also all hear, identifies the name of the place where we all are. But we’re at a place with several branches, so whatever. We’re all going to get our turn. Then things go silent, but we’re all sort of watching her pushing icons on her phone. Not the office staff. They’re solving technology problems which appear to be contributing to the fact that we’re all calmly waiting our turns, rather than already being on our way. They’re pretty calm, too. I’m impressed by that.

Then the woman at the far end of the lobby hangs up.

We’re all sitting there, waiting our turn. Then we hear beeping from the office, a different beeping than previously heard. Paper shlides out of a machine, and an office person grabs it.

Silence. Calm waiting. Calm problem solving.

The woman at the far end of the waiting room calls out, “did you get my fax?”

The office workers call back, “yes, thank you!”

The problems got resolved. We all got our turn, and everyone was calm.

And an elderly woman used her up to the minute cell phone to fax her paperwork to the office about twelve feet away from where she was sitting.