Twice this past weekend, I visited Starbucks for post-Christmas-shopping infusions of caffeinated goodness. As I stood in the line snaking its way through the tiny coffeehouse, the background noise of the joint washed over me...A Charlie Brown Christmas playing on the sound system...the furious tock-tock-tock of a laptop keyboard...a child whining for a shortbread cookie. And, of course, the cashier shouting a coffee orders to the barrista, and the barrista repeating the orders back to the cashier.
I placed my order for a ridiculously unhealthy seasonal drink using no fewer than four adjectives, then stood in coffee limbo. The barrista was flipping bottles and pots and cups this way and that, fulfilling the orders, and placing the end results in the customer pick-up area. As the name of each concoction was called out, somehone happily stepped up to the counter, plucked up their coffee, and headed out the door.
Given this high degree of success...shouldn't relationships use this same method of communication? If I say to my husband, "Honey, could you wash the Boy's laundry?" and he says, "Washing the Boy's laundry!" then I KNOW he heard me. Same goes for folks at work. Too often, people absorb information without acknowledging that they heard it. So person #1 assumes she wasn't heard. At best, you're potentially duplicating efforts. At worst, you've got total inaction because one person thinks a chore is being done, and the other person doesn't realize that anything needs to be done.
Hmph. Perhaps too much coffee was consumed before I posted this.
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