Reach Out and Touch Someone

My wife and I differ in our communication styles. Pretty common for a married couple, but I’ve been struck by a thought recently that perhaps my personal communication flaws may be more a generational problem. At the risk of further admitting that my wife is right about a lot of things (love you honey!), I’m willing to put one of my flaws out there. My communication style is lazy. 

What do I mean by this? Well, I grew up with instant messaging, text messaging, and email. It’s a really easy way to communicate and can be very convenient. It’s also very easy for someone to hide behind it. Want to break some bad news or say something that might make people uncomfortable? Send them a text. Don’t have to watch or hear their reaction and the message has been delivered. Want to say you “followed up” on something without really caring whether it happens or not? Send a busy person a two line email that will get buried in their inbox. Mission accomplished! I’ve checked a box off my to-do list without really accomplishing anything.

The more years that go by and the longer I work a real job, I’m much more inclined to “reach out and touch somebody” if there’s something I need to communicate. No, I don’t mean physically lay hands on people, but I do mean either talk in person or call. I’ve found that I can not only confirm that my message has been delivered much better, but whatever task needs to be done actually happens at a much higher frequency when there is a real voice on the other end of the line.

Case in point, I needed my student loan servicer to fill out a form for me. They have a lovely chat function on their website where you can get “instant help.” I hopped on and chatted with customer service rep, who assured me this could be done without an issue. I faxed in my form and waited…and waited. Nothing happened. I got on again. They said they never received the form and to fax it again. I did…with no response.

This happened one more time before I finally called in. After explaining that I was not a happy camper, I was transferred to a “resolution specialist” who physically sat by the fax machine, received my form, signed it, and sent it back. The whole process took twenty minutes. I had been waiting for two weeks.

I know my wife is smiling at this point while reading this. She has been saying for years that this culture of sending email for everything and actually talking to no one slowed everyone down. Well honey, here are those words that you love to hear…you were right. As a culture, we tend to rely too much on technology assisted multi-tasking. We check boxes but don’t really accomplish anything. You want to get something substantive accomplished. Talk to someone. You might even enjoy it.