Strangers on a Plane: Adventures in Communication

Recently, I was flying home from Los Angeles to Victoria (via Vancouver–that is relevant to the story), after a Family Vacay in Disneyland. Several missteps had occurred before I actually got settled in my seat– including not having pre-selected our seats the day before, being dropped off at LAX’s Terminal 2 instead of Terminal 7 (Thanks Air Canada for not telling me the Air Canada flight I was booked on was actually NOT on an Air Canada plane!  Sweet!), figuring out how to use the self-registration scanning/baggage drop off system at United Airlines, the usual fun and games in customs, and a weird pre-boarding boarding pre-view at the gate.  Side note: I wonder if it’s purposeful that microphones and loud speakers are given to the employees with the least intelligible speech?  Because of some of the set-backs, it turned out we 4 were scattered throughout the plane.  Now, this would have been unappealing had this 3 hour flight been on a plane comparable to the one we flew down on– but it was untenable on the 50-seater commuter we found ourselves in, with no movies, no hot meals, no diversions. However, the kindly flight attendant got 2 people to shift so that my kids could sit together, and I had already established a rapport with the lady next to me, so I anticipated a relaxing flight homewards.

Of course, knowing the nature of karma and the instances of foreshadowing, dear reader, you know there are twists ahead.

The older I get, the more I trust both my own intuition, and the power of the universe. Had I been able to pre-select our seats, I would not have connected with somebody I call a “Messenger” (more on that in a minute), the kids would not have had their own story to tell of the adventure of sitting together apart from me, and who knows what other turn of events might have presented themselves, especially in light of the medical emergency (oh yes, one more thing to add to the tally). For an hour and a half prior to the excrement hitting the wind machine, I enjoyed an interesting and varied conversation with my seatmate, whom I came to realize had a Message for me.  I believe the universe sends these people to you (and yes, I know that is a highly illogical position for an IT person to take, but programming and logic boards aren’t all I think about). These people have a message that you need to hear. If you don’t heed the message, it will be delivered to you again until you get it. I try to be open to these messages, and usually I recognize them.

After chatting for some time about schools (“I’m a teacher, actually”) and art (“Funny you say you attract artists to your life, I’m an art historian”) and traveling abroad (in tandem: “Oh the Full English breakfast!”), we became aware of a flurry of activity just a few rows behind us. When the flight attendant hurried past with the oxygen tank, we knew there was trouble, even before the loudspeaker call for “Anyone with medical training”.  I peeked backwards and recognised the family in peril.  I had spoken to them briefly at the gate, and noticed that the littlest child–a tyke of about 4 or 5–had a barky-sounding cough. I said to my seatmate that I feared the little guy might be asthmatic, because I had heard him coughing earlier.  She asked if it was that I knew the sound, and I said that it was more just a feeling I got–and energy I picked up on, “If you believe that sort of thing”.  And that was her invitation to deliver her message to me–a lengthy and detailed chat about energy work, therapies and therapists she recommends, and the exchange of email addresses. I needed to be reminded that I had work to do, and these were the tools I might need.  Throughout the rest of our talk, we kept watch on the family.  As it happened, it was not the son but the teenage daughter who had fainted and was proving difficult to revive, but in the end was able to leave the plane under her own steam.

Parting words from my seatmate that confirmed we were meant to sit together and share our stories: “You know, I NEVER talk to people on a plane. I board, say hello, and read my magazine (indicates unopened ‘New Yorker’ on her lap).  I have never talked to a stranger for 3 hours on a flight…. really, never”.  I thanked her for all she had shared, promised to email, and we shared one last sigh of relief that our fellow passenger was ok.

Despite–or, maybe, because–of all of this whirling about in my head, as we made our way into the airport to change planes for the final leg of our journey home, I had a little quibble of doubt, a niggling little tickle of unease, and looked through my paperwork for the luggage tag that had been created at LAX. Sure enough, the bag had not been checked all the way through, and while it meant we had to collect it, leave the secure area, re-check in, re-pass-through-security and re-trace our steps to the next gate, it also meant that all of our luggage arrived at our final destination, when we did. Why did I pause at the only spot that would have allowed us to collect the bag and carry on? What made me even doubt how it was tagged? *shrug*. So while we enjoyed the miracle of human flight, benefited from a myriad of high tech communication devices, relied on computers to keep us safe, get us home and provide our care givers potentially life-saving information, I was reminded– and rewarded–to use my intuition–the oldest form of communication there is.

As we made our way for the last time through baggage check, and security, and to our final gate, the kids regaled us with their own stories of how the flight attendant asked two people to shift so they could sit together; how they wanted a can of Pringles, but only had cash and no credit card, so they decided just to share the sandwich they had brought on; how they both asked for ginger ale, and so ended up with a full can to share; and their own version of what they saw when the attendants were trying to revive the young passenger. I was struck that while we had all been on the same plane, we each of us had had a much different flight. And isn’t that the way we all bumble along in this universe, traveling together, but on our own distinct path….

Get a job! Just as soon as it’s invented, that is….

The lifespan of the average human– let’s say 75 years in North America–has traditionally been enough time to experience vast change.  My grandmother, for example, was born in the late 1800′s, and lived to the astounding age of 102, passing away in the early 1990′s.  She was born in Arkansas and her family traveled by covered wagon to Oklahoma and Texas around the turn of the 19th Century. She and her husband, my grandpa, emigrated to Canada before the second world war, living life in the North, hunting, trapping and homesteading.  Grandma progressed with the times, and experienced jet travel, colour television, and instant photographs.  Could she, as a little girl in that dusty wagon trek across the American Southwest have pictured what her future would hold?

It doesn’t seem like we see that kind of sweeping change and innovation in our lifetimes anymore (though it could be that we are jaded to it).  But here is question that demands even more vision and creativity in its answer than ever before: “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

In my youth, that question was still loaded with a bit more gender bias than now, female police officers and male nurses were still the rarity, but there was definitely a feeling that a girl – or a boy – could do any job out there, if they wanted to.It was just a matter of figuring out what you wanted to do, and getting the required education, skills or experience.

While that is as true now as ever, there is one hitch for the upcoming generations: All the options are still open…. unfortunately, no one actually knows what those options are.

Take a look at “Shift Happens“  (now up to its 5th version).  You think it was tough plotting a post-secondary path in the ’80s or ’90s?  You have no idea what today’s youth is up against.  Worse, they don’t even know.

On the plus side, what if you didn’t have to chose from the available “What will you be when you grow up?” costumes and could design your own…..?

Of Bullying and Bystanders–Live Theatre meets Live Theatre

*Disclaimer: this post has nothing to do with Information Technology in any way. It has everything to do with communication, however.

Bullying, Anti-Bullying, Acts of Kindness campaigns are everywhere recently.  There are a myriad of messages that accompany these campaigns, some of them mixed: stand up to bullies, just walk away from bullies, don’t be a bystander, don’t be provocative, don’t shame people who are provocative. This maelstrom of advice and adult-good-intentions swirls around kids throughout their K to 12 years.  And then, magically, it would appear that bullying is something one simply grows out of. Like acne. And your prom dress.

I’m going to share a recent example from my life, which was upsetting, annoying, and, as I tumbled it over and debriefed it on FaceBook, rapidly become an obvious example of Adult bullying. Do I have some culpability?  Sure.  Was I the Provocative victim in this case?  You can only trust that I tell the story without bias, but of course, I don’t know if that’s fully possible. However, as free of judgment-laden language as I can, here is my Night at the Theatre.

*************************************(Lights dim)****************************************

I purchased live theatre tickets for my family and the girl-child’s boyfriend to go to a live performance of “The Buddy Holly Story” at a local theatre. It’s a nice venue, seats only about 200, and has never been a disappointment. I try to take the kids to live theatre once in awhile, because I enjoy it, and I want them to as well.

We 5 settled into our seats, four rows up on stage right. The show started on time, just a few minutes after the row behind us filled with a group of boisterous middle aged friends. Boisterous in that happy to be going out, looking forward to having a good time, might have had a few drinks at the bar before they came in way, but not obnoxious. Besides the 3 couples sitting together in the row directly behind us, there was one younger couple sitting the row behind them, also part of the party.

The trouble began the minute the first Buddy Holly song played and two of the women began rather tunelessly and with a lack of rhythm singing along. It was tolerable, because I could still hear the performer, and, after all, they were enjoying the show.

But then…. the talking started. Oh, it was sotto voice, and it was about the show, the songs, the costumes, the theatre, but it was relentless. One of the women started to argue with her male companion about the origin of one song in particular, and finally my patience was at an end. Although both The Husband and I had turned around in that “Oh, I thought there was a problem, but I see you were just talking during a performance” pseudo-polite thing that patrons do– usually in the direction of a toddler– the talking did not cease. In exasperation– and this is my first moment of culpability–I turned around and let loose a Not Subtle “SHHH!!!”.

So, step #1, use words to tell the bully you don’t like what was happening. How could I know the man was a bully?  By what happened next….

The lights came up for the Intermission shortly after, and The Man and one of his companions started having, for lack of a better description, a “Shhh!!!” war, taking turns loudly and mockingly telling each other to Shush!  Here is my second moment of culpability. I turned in my seat, and said “Look! I paid good money for our tickets to watch a performance, not listen to you talk!”.   Here is where it gets kind of interesting, from a sociological point of view, at least. The younger woman sitting behind The Man leans forward to say “You”  (meaning me) “are the one making a scene right now!”.  The Man kept blustering about how I had no right to shush anyone, and I indicated the three teenagers I had brought with me to the show and said (culpable moment #3) “My 3 teenagers are behaving better than you are!”

Now, up until this point, I can certainly cop to a certain level of fault– yes, I was defending myself, but, I could have done a number of other things, before ever having engaged, things we tell kids all the time:  Walk away (in this case, ask to be moved to other seats), Ignore (we could have tried, but I fear the rest of the show would have been ruined for me), Told someone (got the attention of an usher and asked her to monitor The Man and his Talkative companions).

Not having the luxury of reverse time travel or prescient sight, I found myself now in the middle of a conflict. You (dear reader) may still be wondering how it is I can call The Man a Bully? His next action will confirm my diagnosis.

As I turned back away, in an effort to disengage and calm down, he loudly and clearly said:  “Bitch”.

Well. That was the tipping point. As The Husband was coming up out of his seat to my defense with an equally hostile “Hey!”, I was already re-engaged:  “Really!?  REALLY!??  You are going to call me that in front of my KIDS!?” The Man’s wife, realizing things had escalated to a Bad Place, put her hand out to me and said “No! No he isn’t!”   While he is shouting over her saying “Yes I AM”.  Despite a couple more pleas from his wife, he refused to dial down his hostility.  It was at that moment an Usher arrived and asked if there was a problem.  The Man said “No, no problem at all”  and he and most of his party got up to go to the lobby for Intermission.

The rest of the story unfolds rather anticlimactically. I went to speak to another usher about getting moved, and she and the original usher found us 5 seats together, and we elected to move, thoroughly and peacefully enjoying the rest of the show.

Here are my closing comments and connections about pack mentality, bullies and bystanders.

No one around us, who had to have been equally annoyed, stood up to say anything.  (I have been in that situation, and being afraid to make a situation worse, I haven’t waded in.  I may need to rethink that).  When The Man and the rest of the party returned, the one woman who stayed behind and witnessed our move pointed to us across the theatre, obviously telling her friends we had shifted. The Man responded to this news by looking over and making the “boo-boo wah baby crying and rubbing eyes with fists” motion. And finally, as the house lights dimmed for the second act, the whole theatre heard The Man and his friends repeating their mocking “SHHH!”   “Shhhh!!!!” game.

To fill in the picture you may have in your head, there was nothing in the appearance of these people that would have led me to believe they were anything other than nice, decently dressed grandparents. They looked like people who should know how to respect performers, and to not behave like a pack of school-yard bullies.

There is only one anecdote to complete the tale, and while it isn’t really a resolution, it made a victim of bullying feel better–leaving the theatre, the house manager stopped me to say he was sorry I had had to put up with that, and that he hoped it didn’t ruin the rest of the show for me.  I assured him we loved the show, and expressed gratitude to the staff for helping.  “Besides”, I said as we moved towards the door, “you have to understand….I’m a school teacher”.

The house manager’s words follow us out into the night with grins and a sense of victory: “Oh! So you are used to dealing with children, then!”.

*************************************(curtain down)****************************************

Of Hoaxes and Snopes’es and Practical Jokes

I had been an email/internet user for about 5 minutes when I got tired of the fwd fwd fwd fwd email, subject line: “YOU MUST READ THIS! SEND TO ALL YOUR SINGLE WOMEN FRIENDS/PARENTS OF TODDLERS/ COLLEGE STUDENTS!!!!”.  Right around the same time I discovered “Snopes“.  Then I started sending the Snopes link that debunked the “Urban Legend” back to the sender.  Eventually I just started deleting them, recognizing fakes more and more easily as time passed, becoming more and more jaded as Photoshops got better and the whole meme culture exploded.

Recently I was thinking about Pranks and Practical Jokes.  Kids in the current generation will never know the joy of dialing a random number and saying something stupid to a complete stranger while all your friends giggled and snorted behind you.

(Courtesy: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/List_of_Simpsons_Prank_Calls)

But with caller ID and blocking, and legislation with teeth about harassment and stalking, that innocent rite of passage has gone the way of Twinkies and Tamagachis.  A recent news story made me think twice about the “innocence” of these pranks. It was all over the news in early December 2012– the Duchess of Cambridge had been hospitalized due to severe morning sickness, and the “news” had been leaked thanks to the antics of 2 Aussie DJs and a prank call.

I got to thinking that I was uncomfortable about pranks and practical jokes, because they are so often mean spirited. In that case, it’s the prankster who must take responsibility for collateral damage. But in the case of hoaxes, I think the responsibility falls more in line with “Fool me twice, shame on me”.

Just like the emails that warn of perfume samples that are actually chloroform, I’ve noticed I’ve become jaded, and usually I can spot a photoshop even before I study the lines and shadows.  Like this one: Sharks in a Mall. Something in the wording and the “just too incredible to be true”, I knew it was a fake. This one made me hesitate, though: Waterslide.

But the one that tricked me thoroughly was this one: Eagle Snatches Baby. So much so that I posted it on Facebook, and emailed it to a couple of friends.  There were, in retrospect, a few clues. And again, it wasn’t in the technical, it was in the communication.  The profanity, the shaky camera, the way the cameraman runs to the scene, all seemed legit.  The slo-mo and the music at the end really should have tipped me off– just too cheesy. But I was already buying it.

In a way, I suppose I’m not so jaded that I don’t sometimes want to believe the unbelievable.  And when hoaxes and pop-culture collide, we get amazingly funny memes (Warning–language) Drunk Baby comments on the Eagle

Early Adopter….or Adapter?

I get asked a lot about when or if or why to buy new tech gear.  It’s a hard question to answer, because there is no “one size fits all” solution.  I have a buddy who buys damaged vehicles, fixes them up, sells them, and as part of this paying hobby, has a new vehicle to drive himself every few years. Now, I, myself, need a reliable vehicle, I like to drive, and I have moderate pride in what my ride looks like. However, I tend to drive them at least 10 years, until they have long since out-lived their depreciated-value, and if I’ve been lucky, end up having gotten good value for my money of the years.

Technology is not quite the same. Maintenance, for example, had better be free.  The second you have to take a non-warranty computer into the shop, you’d best think twice. Bench rates are not cheap. And, while the hardware might live 10 years, that is ANCIENT in technology-years, and any software or peripherals that might once have run with that system are no longer supported or available.

You need to figure out what your learning curve is– if you stay out, waiting for the price to drop, waiting for the bugs to get worked out, waiting to see if there is going to be a VHS vs Beta- type war–but aren’t acquiring skills, by the time you enter the market, you won’t have gained comfort with the model before it’s replaced, and then you are playing catch-up. If you buy too soon, though, you do risk being the beta-tester that figures out all the bugs for the gen-2 buyers, who also get a lower price and better features.

But then there is the cool factor… some of us nerds just can’t help whipping out our iPhone5 and making all the other nerds jealous (ps– I do not have an iPhone5).  At some point, you balance the Want and the Value. (Unless you live in Money is No Object Land).  Generally, I have managed it this way:  I never, ever buy the first generation-anything.  Even if I have to grit my teeth.  I think sometimes you get lucky, and sometimes you get the bug-riddled, frustration-invoking, cost more to blow it up than it’s worth POS. But the second gen… ah… there is the potential sweet spot.  You get benefit of the early adopters working out the kinks, you get a few new features (usually smaller, faster, and cheaper), and you are not so far behind in the learning.

Adopting vs Adapting. It’s the difference between being a Pioneer or one of the people who moves in next door.  You get some of the thrill of being there near the beginning, and though you didn’t get to fight off any wolves, you do get to hear the stories, and the there will still be people moving to town who want to hear your stories too.

In this vein, I waited to buy the iPad2.  I could have waited for the 3, but I had a year with my lovely, sleeker than the 1, cheaper than the 3, got-to-learn-about-apps and eBooks little bit of Bright Shiny. However, when I needed a new device for the Girl Child, I decided to do the right thing– gave that old piece of crap to her and got myself an iPad Mini. It’s not EXACTLY an early adopt, since it’s a very close cousin to both the iPad and the iPhone… and it’s only a small adapt, since the only real difference is size.  And yeah, I made some nerds drool.

And speaking of Adapters….I do wish Apple would quit changing the adapter sizes, styles, shapes and names. I have more dongles than any woman ought to….

I mean really….