"Thank you for thanking me for my business."

The older I get, the more likely I am to return to a store where someone thanks me for my business and means it.  Given the choice between being appreciated and grunted at monosyllabically, there's no contest.

An OK six days of 2017

I said I wouldn't make predictions about 2017, but I'll make this sarcastic one: I would say, based on the way these first six days of the new year have gone for me, it will be a decent year. 

The context behind this prediction?  A former co-worker, usually during the first week of baseball season, would make the same recurring, sarcastic prediction when the Cardinals won.  He'd say, "Based on this one game, I would say they're going to the World Series."

There's nothing like tongue-in-cheek, self-aware tunnel vision.

A linguistic irritant III

I've never understood how people don't see that the expression, "We'll see if we can't do something for you," doesn't make sense.  Has anyone ever come back later and said, "OK, we can't do it?"

No C option? Make it a B, then.

Years ago, I conducted surveys over the phone.  One company required us to ask each caller to rate their satisfaction with a business by saying they were very dissatisfied, somewhat dissatisfied, somewhat satisfied, or very satisfied with their service.  I thought it was sneaky--and kind of smart--not to provide a middle option, such as neutral or neither satisfied nor dissatisfied.  When callers would say their level of satisfaction with the company was "in the middle," and I explained that the survey had no middle option, all but one caller then said they were somewhat satisfied.

It's interesting that the company bet that most callers would round up, so to speak.  This then gave them a higher overall satisfaction than they would have had otherwise.  Betting on human nature was a smart gamble, at least in the short term.  Their somewhat elevated ratings might have masked problems customers had with them, though, so I wonder if they're still in business.

Speech therapy, out of context

I've written on my other blog, musicandradiomusings.blogspot.com, about my battle with dysphonia.  Dysphonia is a central nervous system disorder that affects my ability to speak.  If you heard me speak at this moment, though, you'd never guess that I have it.  Thanks to regular botox injections in my vocal cords, I'm able to sound the way I did when I was a radio announcer.

One of my speech therapy exercises, designed to open up my throat and unlock my voice when it hadn't come back fully, involved pushing my voice as low as it could go and saying, "HMMMMMMMMMM, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5!"  One morning, as I practiced this several times between calls at work, someone came in to restock the vending machines.  For some reason, he left the room rather abruptly.  I wonder if he thought I was trying to prevent myself from exploding in a fit of rage--or auditioning for "Sesame Street," even though all the parts had been filled.  I guess I'll never know.

Sign of a long school year (or semester)

One sign clued me in that I was usually in for a long school year or semester--marks on the floor where desks should be aligned.  If I saw those on the first day of class, I thought, "There's something overly fussy about that.  This teacher probably isn't the biggest fan of free thinkers or students coloring outside the lines, even metaphorically."

Predictions for 2017? No.

Prediction-based articles are some of my least favorite pieces to read or write.  Admittedly, if they draw a big enough audience, it makes business sense to write them.  At the beginning of a new year, it's not unusual for publications to fill space with them.  I don't usually care for them, as they're just bits of conjecture based on the information people know at the moment.  Their shelf life is usually quite short, as a result. 

I remember interviewing coaches one year at a previous job for prognostications about their teams in the new season.  Not surprisingly, almost every coach predicted a winning season for his or her team, due to the talent and potential they claimed was on their roster.  (You hear coaches speak a lot about potential during such interviews, I learned.)  Occasionally, I'd interview a coach who would say, candidly, "We've lost a lot of experienced players, so we have to keep our expectations realistic.  This year, we're in rebuilding mode."  That's about as negative as coaches' predictions ever were during interviews. 

While it's human nature to want to believe that every team will play up to its potential and that a new year will be the best year ever, there's just no way to know that in advance.  Thus, I'm not reading any prediction-based articles today.  Instead, I'll read articles about things that actually happened.  Some of them will be depressing, but at least, they'll be realistic.