*&^%$#@***###!!
Fooled you, eh?? That is not swearing, it’s me whistling a gentle, relaxing, somewhat off – key tune to calm my frantic mind.
Today has gone like this: I am on Facebook responding to someone currently in crisis. The phone rings and it’s an urgent call I have been waiting for so I pick up and deal with both things at once.
Now, two things at once I can handle. Talking to someone by cradling the phone between my ear and shoulder while watching and creating text with my eyes and fingers with someone else, I am fully engaged with both people dealing with completely different subjects. No problem. But then my cellphone tweets to tell me someone has texted me, and the cellphone also starts to ring. It takes time to disengage from the first two people and make the time to check the text and cell voicemail and respond to both. Then I write up all the counselling sheets.
Meanwhile, 23 new emails flood my inbox. Someone has tried to connect with me through LinkedIn, Twitter has tweeted, and the desk phone has rung twice more and gone unanswered. Now there is a message light on the phone winking its playful eye at me. Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you about the real, flesh – and – blood person who came to the door 15 minutes early for a booked appointment right in the middle of it all, and about my boss phoning and needing to talk to someone else because I did not answer the cellphone while I was “talking” online.
Sigh.
Who invented all this social media stuff, anyway? Real people—as unique and difficult as they can be—are way easier to deal with.
About Margaret Mullin
Rev. Dr. Margaret Mullin is executive director of Winnipeg Inner City Missions—wicm.ca.