I’m sitting in the dental chair, trying to banish all thoughts of MARATHON MAN from my mind, when my dentist says, “So you teach radio people how to do their jobs better, right?”
“Well,” I reply, “my job is to show them ways of communicating more effectively with their listeners.”
He arches an eyebrow and holds a gleaming, scary metallic tool in front of my nose.
“Right,” I say. “I teach radio people how to do their jobs better. Exactly.”
He nods. “It must be hard to talk to people you can’t see and who can’t answer back.”
I think a moment, then: “Do you ever talk to people on the phone?”
“Yes.”
“But you can’t see them when you’re talking to them, right?”
“Right.”
“Have you ever spoken to someone on the phone for an entire minute, just you talking but without the other person having a chance to speak for that minute while he listened to you?”
“Sure.”
“So if you have something that you think they’ll be interested in hearing and you genuinely try to communicate it to them, it doesn’t really matter that they can’t see you and that, at least for a minute or so, they don’t even speak. Right?”
Long pause.
“Rinse and spit, please.”
(Note To Self: Inasmuch as my health insurance doesn’t include Dental, check with accountant to see if now I can deduct this visit as a business expense.)
Comments on this entry are closed.
Dentists and dental hygienists know something about talking to people who can’t talk back, aside from “uh huh” and “uh uh”.