PANNING FOR A NUGGET OF GOLD IN THE STREAM OF CONCSIOUSNESS

Hoping that an idea for this week’s blog would finally hit me, I was randomly typing whatever wacky stuff popped into my head.  Yeah, I know; the thought of a completely unfiltered Dan is scary. Nonetheless, on weeks that I have no predetermined theme or story, I often try to stimulate inspiration by jotting down all the passing transient thoughts that are hitchhiking through my fontal cortex or squatting like skid-row homeless in the unmonitored dark street corners of my hippocampus.

Sometimes it takes a frustratingly long time, but like a persistent gold-rush 49er using his old dented pan to sift through my muddy stream-of-consciousness, at some point a blog story usually volcanically erupts out of my skull spewing a lava-like slurry of mildly amusing phrases, memories, and themes that I can shape into a cohesive story.

I was knee-deep into this goofy process the other morning, fingers mindlessly dancing across the keyboard with a familiar reckless abandon, when I noticed a little pop-up box in the lower right corner of my still untitled Microsoft Word document.  “What was that” I thought. Maybe it had just appeared or maybe it had been lurking there unnoticed for a while. But now that I knew it was there, I could not unsee it. I tried to continue fishing for story ideas, but my eye kept drifting away from my free-flow words and down to the distracting box.

I stopped to read the pop-up box and it was requesting me to answer two questions about the online version of Word I was using. Normally I treat those things the same way I handle ill-timed door-to-door solicitors, by either completely ignoring their knocks or angrily ripping open the door and curtly growling “what do you want” while flashing the most intimidating ‘don’t fuck with me’ glare I can muster. I’ve often considered keeping a cleaver with fake blood on it nearby, for me to hold when I open the door, but I live in Texas where that could really backfire badly. 

I like writing between 5 and 7 am when the house is quiet and there are few distractions to drag away my focus.  But that morning the unexpected little pop-up box was throwing me off. It quickly became apparent my brain was taking control of the situation and was not going to let me get back to my blog till I clicked the thing open. Damn pushy brain, it’s always poking at Pandora’s box!  I clicked it.

Maybe my brain was just frustrated that after an hour I still had no ‘whack on the side of the head’* brilliant blog idea yet and assumed taking the little two question survey would be just the brief distraction I needed.  Reading the little box, it asked me to rate the program on a scale from 1-5. I picked 4. I really do not have any problems with it, but on the crazy off chance an actual real human ever saw my score, I did not want them to get all cocky and think there was no room for improvements. Then they asked their second question.  “Why did you pick that score?”

I guess I could have just told them the actual reason that I just mentioned, but I was still in ‘write every wacky thought in my head mode’. So instead, I wrote: “DUH…I chose to award your program a 4 because an evil giant lizard with little spastic T-Rex arms, a multicolored tail, and Satya Nadella’s head threatened me vicious bodily harm if I did not choose a number that most East Asian cultures consider unlucky.”  And then I quickly pushed the submit button.

Seconds later I thought, “what did I do?” Is this going to come back to haunt me? Will the bot that reads this flag me as being threatening to the current Microsoft boss? Was this akin to running down the streets of Silicone Valley with an effigy of Bill Gates head on a burning stick? Will they seek revenge by planting viruses in the bazillion Microsoft programs that permeate my daily life? Will the next knock on my door not be a salesman but instead be a couple of jumbo-sized Microsoft goons coming to permanently ‘modify my Outlook’? I chastised myself about yet again, not taking time to think about what I was sending before I clicked the ‘send’ button.

Luckily, I did not have time to dwell on my non-reviewed, gut-reflexively sent comment, because it was time for me to stop playing blog-boy and go to real work.  Once I was on the job, It turned out to be another typical chaotic morning. I spent the first hour reading emails and putting out the fires that arose overnight.  One of my guys was sick and asked if he could take part of the day off to get over the creeping crud flu that had invaded his house. I suggested he hang on a couple of hours till after our late-morning company-wide meeting. Then, like someone had been listening to me (MICROSOFT GOONS?!?!?), a Microsoft calendar invitation suddenly came through, that with no explanation, postponed the meeting I had just mentioned till next week. Just a coincidence?????

A bunch of chat windows suddenly opened on my screen as several folks started questioning me about the unexpected change. I really did not believe Microsoft minions did it just to mess with me, but since no explanation was given, I still thought it best to message our Senior Vice President to confirm his postponement notice was not an error.  It took much longer than usual for him to respond. It turned out that sadly, he had changed the date because he was busy at the hospital dealing with the immanent death of a loved one and obviously did not have time to send details about the rescheduled TEAMS (another Microsoft program) meeting invite. I told him I would take care of it.

While I was sending out a follow-up confirmation of the meeting date change, several more chat conversations popped up on my screen. One of my employees was giving me heads up that he might have to take an unannounced extended trip out of the country next week  and elsewhere an invoice we sent via e-mail (on Microsoft Outlook) suddenly kept bouncing back undeliverable for no apparent reason (hmmmmmmmm???).

While juggling everything going on, I was trying to get back to my sick employee to let him know he could leave, but I remembered I never formally responded to my SVP’s sad news. I wanted to say something consoling, but he was my direct boss, and I was not sure what was appropriate. Obviously, I could not offer condolences, yet it would be grossly inappropriate to give any Get Well Soon wishes. I simply offered him my heartfelt thoughts and said I would take care of things back here in our virtual office.

Finally I clicked back over to the conversation with my sick employee who had been trying to tell me that he was feeling worse.  While I had been dealing with everything else, he had been continuously sending me emojis of the yellow smiley faced guy sneezing, with a thermometer in his mouth, puking green stuff, and turning all pale and shivery. Then he had sent a meme of a zombie, claiming if he did not get off work soon, that would be him. Trying to find the perfect response, I quicky found a gif of an overly cartoonish skull-headed version of an impatiently waiting Grim Reaper holding his scythe while anxiously tapping his foot and repeatedly checking his watch. Without thinking, I hastily sent the goofy little moving cartoon with the message “just watch out for him… now take the rest of the day off to be miserable”.  Then I went right back to the chaos on my desktop.

It was about five minutes later when it hit me, and I sat up in my chair with a jolt. You know my boss and the ill co-worker both have the same first name…  and just like I had done earlier that morning with my mini-Microsoft questionnaire, I did not proof read or review my reply. Without thought I had just reflexively sent my goofy response.   Sooooooooo…  did I accidentally send a cartoon of an impatiently waiting Grim Reaper to my boss in the hospital dealing with the last hours of a terminally ill relative?!?!?!?

There is a lesson here somewhere. Much like how I know not to answer the front door waving a bloody meat cleaver here in a state where everyone caries a concealed handgun, I know I should take the extra moment to think about things before I send them on the computer. Maybe this will be the thing that finally gets me to stop and review stuff before I mindlessly click ‘Send’.  

Oh yeah, and I still have my job, so obviously I sent the cartoon to the right person. And guess what, the whole mess gave me a great idea for a blog story!

GIF

WHACK