Ghosts are cowards. All they do is sneak up on people, tease them, scare them, and then vanish into the safety of the darkness never to be seen or heard from again. It’s about time to bring out my Proton Pack and send all these little bitties where they belong – to the Containment Unit.
Read More...Someone, somewhere, has been counting down since mid January to the start of a new college football season. Many people probably. At any given point in a calendar year you can do a quick Internet search to see exactly how many days are left until American football returns. Much the same way you can also easily find out how many days are left until a particular holiday season … or any random date for that matter. Whatever your heart desires, there is something online that will give you a countdown for it.
While I enjoy the college football season more than the average person, I find it ironic that the same people who shamelessly countdown to kickoff day are the same ones who generally like to judge others for knowing, say, the exact number of days left until Christmas. If you can keep a daily countdown for football, I can keep a daily countdown until my favorite holiday. That would be 114 days for all you fellow merry reindeer. But today is the start of one of college sports most exciting weekends. Labor Day.
You love March Madness, I love March Madness, we all love March Madness. No denying that. Not as exciting for the College Football Playoff because, let’s be honest, only having four teams compete is garbage. Mostly because the polls are political and I have yet to see a playoff where the four chosen teams were truly the four who should have been in there. I clearly would like a word with the committee, as would a lot of Texas A&M and Oklahoma fans, I’m sure. You’re telling me a team, nay, TWO teams with two losses on losing streaks make it over another TWO teams with only one loss and on 8 game win streaks?! From stronger conferences?! Collusion.
My favorite part of the anticipation is the calm before the storm. That is this week. All of the experts have spent literally months predicting different scenarios and arguing for their alma maters. Sometimes they just talk – actually most of it is them just blowing smoke. After all of that settles, though, the only thing left to do is wait for tonight. There is nothing else to be said. We’ve waited 7.5 months and it’s finally here. And can we talk about how great it is to have the Thursday night kickoff now? Why wait until Saturday when you can start your long weekend with some football? Because no work gets done the Friday before an official long weekend anyways.
Sure, some of the D1 teams from smaller conferences kicked off this past weekend, but, does that count? Until we get a top 25 ranked team in the lineup, it might as well be pre-season. If you weren’t busy, you probably tuned in for a bit. If you were busy, don’t worry. You’ve got the big boys coming in soon with another deadly lineup of top team matchups every week to get any sports fan pumped up. Despite their shortcomings in the playoff debacle, the college football scheduling committee knows how to keep fans entertained for over four months.
Clearly I’m not passionate about the season starting at all. Football is one of the many reasons that fall is the best season of the year. Tailgates being a close second, but what’s a tailgate without a game to attend? Saturdays, and Sundays if you roll with the pros as well, are booked from now through the end of the year. When someone asks if you can hangout, they better put in a Calendly invite for a workday because I’m going to be busy watching a bunch of unfortunate guys get absolutely raked.
There is no better entertainment in sports than seeing a good, hard, tackle. Or a hail mary play. Or a ridiculous, should have never happened, but it did, kickoff return for a touchdown. Or a last minute impossible pick six for the win. Or your team putting an absolute beatdown on a rival. Or your team, hopefully, hoisting the trophy come January. So many ups. So many potential downs, as well, but the season hasn’t started yet. So there is nothing but hope. T minus 10.5 hours to kickoff.
Alright, jumping off my pedestal for now. If you know someone who would enjoy this post and want to share it with them, that would be awesome. Sharing is caring, after all. Don’t forget to subscribe to get these in your inbox twice weekly and follow TRP on Twitter for frequent musings. Thanks for reading!
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Remember high school? Some people loved it, some people tolerated it, and some people wanted nothing less than to get out. Regardless, one way or another you made it through! For better, or worse, high school happened and now it’s a distant memory for a good portion of us. No matter what your feelings were during the experience, and probably even to this day, can we all agree that it was nothing like high school is in the movies?
I’m not sure if screenwriters skipped high school, went solely to the most expensive private high schools where money can buy you a degree, or if they have the memory of a goldfish and forgot the minute they left, but how they portray the puberty nightmare is very different than what the real world is like. All of the made up drama that goes away just so easily … where everyone is accepting of you and is willing to change overnight … where kids have no chores to do … and money is endless … what planet is this high school scenario on?
Let’s take a journey down memory lane, but reimagine it as if we were movie stars and always had a happy ending. Starting, of course, with freshman year. Day one, specifically. New school year, new school, obviously, have to start with some circumstantial drama or else viewers wouldn’t stay engaged. The most popular kid at school notices you and takes an interest in you. Ergo, overnight you become popular and have successfully quelled the ‘will I get invited to parties’ hurdle.
Your first year goes seamlessly and you enter the summer on top of the world. But alas, everything is about to go horribly, horribly wrong. You get caught in a romantic moment with someone other than your partner. That secret crush of yours that you’ve been eyeing since you first saw them, but was already taken so couldn’t act on it. Instead of having an adult conversation about it, your current partner jumps to a conclusion and starts to act stand-off-ish. Out of revenge, or confusion, you do the same. Rumors start and by the time Sophomore year comes around you’re the jerk who everyone hates. Everyone except your secret crush.
You spend most of year two repairing broken relationships, that, again, could have easily been avoided by not believing everything you hear. In a remarkable twist, by the end of the year you’ve grown into a more mature person and are once again back on top of the food chain. Until it comes out that despite having seemingly endless amounts of money based on your leisure activities, your family lives on the not as wealthy side of town.
Once again you enter the summer, but this time with a solid group of real friends around you. Despite having people in your life who don’t care about how extravagant of a present you’re going to get them, you feel sad. And start to ditch your actual friends to chase the elusive popularity once more. Annoyed, as they should be, your real friends get tired of your nonsense real quick and decide to stop inviting you to things. So you head towards Junior year angry and alone yet again.
If this is all starting to sound like a ridiculous cycle of unnecessary drama and unbelievable forgiveness you would be right! Can you believe that Junior year you eventually apologize to your real friends and start to finally be comfortable with who you are? You stop caring so much about what other people think and start to make decisions for yourself, and not because of how many likes it will get you. You cruise through your last two years like a freaking pro – end of story. You live happily ever after and become a tech entrepreneur, or highly successful author, or a professional chef, or something where you for sure make a lot of money and people want to be you. What possible discrepancies are there between that and how it actually went?
Alright, jumping off my pedestal for now. If you know someone who would enjoy this post and want to share it with them, that would be awesome. Sharing is caring, after all. Don’t forget to subscribe to get these in your inbox twice weekly and follow TRP on Twitter for frequent musings. Thanks for reading!
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Have you ever been in love? Let’s back up, have you ever been in a relationship? Mmm, further back, have you ever liked someone? AKA, been single and ready to mingle? If that’s you, no worries at all! There is still more than enough time and plenty of fish in the sea. Don’t give up hope – your person, or people … not here to judge … is out there. This is the ideal time to live your best freaking life and do all of the things that make you happy. No asking, no schedule arranging, no double booking, no awkward in-law interactions, no trying to conceal your quirkiness. Just pure you.
While I fully support a solid, soul enhancing, single period of your life, most of us, at some point, want to find the peanut butter to our jelly. And I have to say, there is no better feeling than meeting someone who you just vibe with. Who you love spending time with doing absolutely nothing. The person who is your travel buddy, picture taker, food explorer, and best friend. Someone who pushes you to be a better version of yourself and is your biggest cheerleader. That feeling is special.
True love, or infatuation, if you’ve felt it, you know what I’m talking about. If you’re anything like me, however, the longer you’re with your partner, the more comfortable you get with them. And thus, the longer the list becomes of just truly questionable things that you do where you wonder how you aren’t single. How someone would watch you do something so off the wall without batting an eye and move on like nothing happened. If you’re really jamming on the same keyboard with your partner, they might even respond back, matching your weirdness without a second thought.
For my singles peeps, I’m sure you can also think of several reasons keeping you from finding your soulmate. Although I would argue that they aren’t preventing you from meeting that special someone, you just haven’t found the right person who loves that about you. To be honest, sometimes you have to pick through a lot of weeds to find a beautiful flower. Some weeds may look like a catch on the outside, talking to you dandelions, but when you start to dig deep you realize they’re toxic. So don’t beat yourself up! You deserve someone much, much, much better.
Anywho … enough mushy talk. In case you’re embarrassed by your quirks, or are in denial that you’re a weirdo, I’m more than happy to share some of my strange habits to make you feel better about yourself. Starting with the fact that apparently I make dinosaur noises at random points throughout the day. I never really know when it’s going to happen. One minute, I’m a professional, and the next I’m channeling my inner pterodactyl to communicate my hunger to my partner. Who usually just responds with a dinosaur noise as well, so if that isn’t a soulmate I’m not sure what is.
Dinosaur noises may sit at the top of my list, but please enjoy all these other quirks that comprehensively should make me single according to social standards:
Alright, jumping off my pedestal for now. If you know someone who would enjoy this post and want to share it with them, that would be awesome. Sharing is caring, after all. Don’t forget to subscribe to get these in your inbox twice weekly and follow TRP on Twitter for frequent musings. Thanks for reading!
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Sometimes, when I’m outside, I like to watch little bugs take forever to travel the same amount of distance I can travel in a single step. Outside being the key term here. Because I find it fascinating watching all those little legs move so quickly. Working so hard and barely getting anywhere. What a strange life. Your whole goal for the day being to not be in the same place that you started at. Scavenge for some other bugs to eat. Climb some “trees” AKA plants. Fly around somewhere between 6 and 10 feet off the ground if you’ve been gifted by the bug gods. The usual, I suppose.
That’s outside, though. As in outside of the home. The residence. The abode. The lodgings. The main place of living. Do you understand where I’m going with this post? Bugs are fascinating in their natural habitat. Nature. The great outdoors. The environment. Mother Earth. As long as they stay out of my human sized personal bubble. Let me make this statement very clear before moving on any further: I am NOT a bug fan. I don’t like bugs. I think they’re gross. I think they’re pests. I think they’re kind of freaky. I don’t fully understand why we couldn’t have survived with more puppies. I would be fine not interacting with another bug again.
As soon as a bug gets bold, or takes advantage of a literal open door, and enters an indoor space … game over! This is a slightly controversial take in today’s world, but I will kill a bug. I do not kindly put it on a piece of paper and set it free on my patio. I do not open the front door and try to shoo it out with love and kindness. The only kindness I’m showing is that of a quick exit. Into bug heaven. With the sole of my shoe. If that bug wanted to live, either stay outside, or stay out of sight.
I feel like I have digressed quite a bit from the main topic of this post. Which, of course, is what bugs think of how we behave around them. For starters, we have to look like moving mountains to them. Straight up giant dinosaurs. Especially the hills among us – the small children who like to hunt them down to play, or to stomp on their homes. Are they terrified? Are they oblivious? Are they even aware that some of us don’t like to be bothered with their presence? Hard to tell since we can’t communicate with them.
Take this example: you’re driving down the road. Having a great time. Belting out top 40 songs like you’re auditioning for a record label contract. Feeling the sunshine through the windows and rocking your shades. Then BAM! Surprise! A bug has joined you on this journey. And has been with you the whole time peacefully taking a ride, for free might I add, staying in an out of sight place. Why come out? If I can see you, I’m going to freak out. I’m going to do everything in my power to get you out of my car. So my blood pressure can return to normal.
What goes through the bug’s mind, though? When I roll down my window and yeet them back home. Well, I’m assuming back home, but more likely they are in a very unknown territory months of travel away from their families. Honestly, that sounds traumatizing. If that happened to me, I’d be terrified. Why? Because without any sort of technology, how would I even know how to get home? Would anyone come looking for me? Where would they look for me? Do bugs have built-in tracking devices so they can return to their loved ones?
Ok, so maybe I do care about the fate of the bugs. More so, I care about not leaving any orphaned larvae stuck in someone’s backyard forever wondering why one of their parents never came home after trying to hitch an express train to work. No amount of therapy can give them answers. And since we can’t understand the bug noises, we cannot help ease their pain. Even when we’re the ones responsible for breaking up that family. A true travesty.
Alright, jumping off my pedestal for now. If you know someone who would enjoy this post and want to share it with them, that would be awesome. Sharing is caring, after all. Don’t forget to subscribe to get these in your inbox twice weekly and follow TRP on Twitter for frequent musings. Thanks for reading!
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We are all familiar with LinkedIn, right? The social media version of professional networking. A beautiful blend of fun, connection, and the potential for future employment. Supposedly. I think when it first started it was a great way to meet other professionals in your space, or in a space you were hoping to break into. It was easy to use the people you knew to help you reach out to people you were hoping to know. Got it? You got it! Glad we’re all on the same page.
Like most good technology ideas, somewhere over the years it’s turned into the newest way to get spam messages. And I am 100% not here for it. I’m not talking about the recruiters. The recruiters are the foundation of marketing LinkedIn as a rival to Indeed when it comes to landing the next job to help you live your best life. Through the people you already know, obviously. But also probably through a more elaborate version of your resume and cover letter on your profile.
Recruiters are cool, I have no beef with them. They’re trying to help you after all, and if it isn’t the right fit for whatever reason just hit ‘No, Thanks’. Better yet, mark yourself as not actively open to new positions. Literally could not be easier to opt out of those. What I have an issue with is all the other business development representatives, or financial advisors, or anyone in a mildly sales related role. Stop spamming me.
Like most social media platforms, the number of followers you have are loosely connected to your actual status as a person. LinkedIn uses the term connections, but in the Activity section those translate to followers and this was the start of the downfall. Because now everyone wants to make those numbers jump to help themselves stand out from all the other users as a well-connected professional. As a result, any rando will reach out to ask for a connection. Regardless if you know them professionally, personally, or from anywhere in your closest 250 mile radius.
Part of LinkedIn’s charm is that you can message people you aren’t connected with. That confidence to do a cold reach out pays off. Most of the time. Enter the sales world who feels it’s appropriate to reach out to any and everyone. They start so innocently, too, which is now a pretty sure sign there is an ulterior motive. Tell me about how you got to your current position. I’d love to hear about your journey into this career field. How do you like your current job. Then, out of the blue, sales pitch! Ew.
A simple message that you can choose to leave on read is not the end of the world, however. By now, I’ve become quite the expert ghoster on LinkedIn. Zero part of me feels any sort of regret for reading and not responding to a message. The true horror comes in when these scam artists send you a connection, then immediately start guessing at what your company email address might be. And since business tends to stay predictable in certain areas, it’s not that hard for any high school attendee to guess either your first name @ the company, or your first name plus last name @ the company combo.
To this effort, I like to kindly show a certain finger in my mind. This is a step too far. If I look at my phone and see a connection request notification right under an email from you, when I have zero clue who you even are, that is the easiest swerve of my life. For all the sales people reading, this actively makes me want to avoid both you and your business indefinitely. The follow up email making sure I saw your previous one is also unnecessary.
If you want to market your product to myself, and my team, do it the old fashioned way – through an obvious email marketing campaign. Or via any sort of conference. If you have a booth and are giving away shirts, I’ll gladly give you my email address. I have no shame. But this creepy stalk you online and send you an email technique is no bueno and must be halted. After all, if I really wanted to be spammed I’d just answer my phone.
Alright, jumping off my pedestal for now. If you know someone who would enjoy this post and want to share it with them, that would be awesome. Sharing is caring, after all. Don’t forget to subscribe to get these in your inbox twice weekly and follow TRP on Twitter for frequent musings. Thanks for reading!
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The older I get, the more aware I am of all the social stigmas that exist in society. And there’s a lot of them. A lot a lot. An unnecessary amount of things that other people use as some sort of basis for judging your life. You know what I’m talking about, right? By what age you should be married. How old is too old to have children. What is an acceptable job coming out of college. What is an unacceptable job coming out of college. The amount of drinks you should consume at once, and in a week. How often you should use the microwave to make a meal. The list goes on and on.
It seems to me, that one of the biggest categories for these stigmas is the dating world. Especially in today’s society where we have these fun little things known as dating apps. Not all of them are winners, but there are definitely options for everyone. And I do mean everyone. Yet, as with pretty much all things in life, people feel a certain type of way depending on what name you drop when asked how you met your current significant others.
I also think people like to assume that using dating apps means you’re hindered in the personality department. Since meeting someone casually in a random bar and striking up a conversation and falling in love isn’t overly common today. Because we have smartphones. And, thus, no longer have a need to talk to strangers at a bar. We wait for our friends to arrive. Or, more accurately, we play on our phones until we finish our drink and then leave. I don’t know a single person who would go out and just willingly approach other social groups to introduce themselves with zero reason other than to hopefully make a new friend.
Enter technology. You know I love technology. I’m a millennial – technology is practically my middle name, after all. The best thing about technology is that now you no longer have to be socially awkward and approach strangers unless you’re simply that extroverted. But if you’re that extroverted, chances are you’re there to meet your friends anyways. And approaching other groups of people when you are in a group of people is exponentially easier. So, basically, you can meet other humans on your terms and not feel like you’re intruding on a private conversation. How fun!
In this new age, you match with someone, then decide if you like them enough to meet them in person and actually talk to them. If you don’t want to do that, you don’t have to. You no longer have to sit through a dead end conversation with someone who only talks about themselves. Or who only knows how to answer questions with one word. Or who could not be less interested in learning anything about you. Anything at all. Not that dating apps eliminate bad dates, but at least you get some sort of a chance to weed out the duds beforehand.
Anywho, assuming you and your match are super compatible, and you actually like each other *gasp*, then you start going down a more involved path. Whatever that looks like to you. Dating, a relationship, friends with benefits, talking to them once a week … I don’t know you, but I know you know what I mean. If it goes a route where you talk about them to your friends and family, well then they always want to know how you met. Enter our friend, the dating app stigma.
Not all dating apps are created equal. Not all dating apps attract the same types of people. Not all dating apps typically end a date in the same way. Ergo, the stigma around the names. So if you fall in love on Tinder, that’s fantastic! Just know that chances are higher that people will question the long-term validity of your relationship. Much how we question how real the engagements are on the Bachelor and Bachelorette. If, however, you fall in love on eHarmony, more than likely people will be expecting wedding invites at some point in the future.
Alright, jumping off my pedestal for now. If you know someone who would enjoy this post and want to share it with them, that would be awesome. Sharing is caring, after all. Don’t forget to subscribe to get these in your inbox twice weekly and follow TRP on Twitter for frequent musings. Thanks for reading!
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Sports are a way of life. Not for all people, certainly, but for a lot of people. Because who doesn’t love getting overly invested in the performance of your favorite team and favorite players? Probably people who enjoy more stress-free ways of living or low blood pressure. It’s irritating when your team is not playing well, or worse: losing, or even worse: losing to your rival. In those moments you learn a lot about yourself as a person – where your priorities truly lie, how you handle stress, what you’re like under the pressure of trash talk, whether or not you’re a gracious loser, and how competitive you are regarding things that you have less than zero control over.
While sports have a lot of positives, there are some negative aspects that you have to deal with. Rioting, losing friendships, scandals, losing money, cheating, drugs, etc. And then, of course, you have the announcers. Sport announcers are there to say helpful things and aid in the viewing experience of the game. Supposedly. There is a most curious breakdown of things that can, and will, come out of an announcers mouth during the period of play. Ask any sports fan and they have announcers that they like, announcers that they tolerate, and then announcers they cannot stand.
Regardless of how you feel about the announcer, their dialogue can best be summarized as follows. Usually they throw some fun statistics in there and some inspiring story about the team, or a specific player. Constantly they will talk about what can best be described as sport conspiracy theories regarding playoffs based on the team’s performance to date. This includes, but is not limited to, previously played games, the current game being played, upcoming schedule of games, and what both a win and a loss mean going into the next day. It’s great to hear when they’re talking in favor of your team, and it’s the most obnoxious thing in the world when it’s against your team.
Some of the time they will interject with memories about their time participating in said sport, which usually feels more like a backdoor brag than anything. But then, the rest of the time is spent with them saying ridiculous things that anyone else in the whole freaking planet could also say. Sports fan, or not. And it just makes you stop and think about how they landed this cushy, well-paid, gig when you could also easily make broad statements about the nature of a sport. Statements such as:
I could go on, but this feels like an inclusive enough list to make my point. Basically, sports announcers just find different ways to state the obvious. Or to say the wrong mascot for a team. People want to win. People don’t like to lose. Other people are often in charge of making decisions that you may, or may not, agree with. Failing to reach the end goal is never satisfying. And reaching a longtime dream is the best feeling in the world. None of that feels overly exclusive to sports – more of a life thing in general. All I’m saying is change the sport terms into everyday terms and you’ve got a recipe for inspirational sayings. Kind of feels like anyone could do it.
Alright, jumping off my pedestal for now. If you know someone who would enjoy this post and want to share it with them, that would be awesome. Sharing is caring, after all. Don’t forget to subscribe to get these in your inbox twice weekly and follow TRP on Twitter for frequent musings. Thanks for reading!
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Finding real love is hard. Some people don’t ever really find it. Some people find it every other week. Some people find something close enough to what they wanted, so they make it work. Some people get lucky and do find the kind of love they always dreamed about. Wherever you fall along Cupid’s arrow, I think we can all agree that people want to find love. I would argue that most people want to find their soulmate. Whether it’s one of many that will walk into their lives, or the only one, feeling that connection is special.
Feeling that connection with dogs is too easy. Easy enough that I fall in love with every cute little pupper that I see. Why? Because it’s so fluffy, I’m gonna die! Is this a problem? Some people in my life might think so. However, as much as we all know I could talk about dogs for pages and pages, this post is not about falling in love with our pets. It’s about the challenge of finding that strong feeling for human people. Whaaaaaaaaaat?! Indeed. Love between two human beings.
If right now you’re thinking, ‘you got to be kidding me’, totally valid. Hear me out, though, I believe that Pixar has solved all of our issues when it comes to soulmate expectations. Sure, sure, there are plenty of movies out there that do the complete opposite and fill our heads with thoughts of how our love story should look. Realistic, or not, it’s our current reality. Thank you social media and technology and Hollywood. It leaves a lot of us confused. Or worse. But instead of going down that rabbit hole of something awful from the past, let’s instead talk about happier times.
Lightbulb! Enter everyone’s favorite little yellow banana men. Dave, listen up please! I’ve put a lot of thought into this, and I believe that the minions may be the ultimate soulmate created in an animated fashion by an entertainment giant. They’re extremely loyal, for starters. I mean come on. Unless they’ve been injected with some evil liquid that messes with their DNA and literally makes them a different species, they would die for Gru. With zero questions asked. It’s a simple existence, with minimal stress. Get directions, follow directions, look back and laugh at the complete misunderstanding of said directions.
Let’s move past this blind full send mentality of theirs, because that’s not an appealing quality for everyone. The minions are highly adaptable and resilient to everything in life. Do they ever get hurt? Can they even die? Do they ever get sick? Can they even feel pain? Imagine how much money you’ll save on doctor’s bills, lab bills, life insurance bills, etc. You could go on so many nice vacations for that! Or get so much food and beverages of choice!
If that alone isn’t appealing, have you ever had to pay a medical bill before? But fine, ok, moving onwards and upwards to more exciting things. Let’s talk about the instant number of new followers you’ll get … I mean, there’s hundreds of them and they’re all best friends. So if you nail down one, by the nature of the minion loyalty pact, you are in with all of them. Imagine Thanksgiving dinners. Wow! So much entertainment. So many shared dishes brought. Although, let’s be honest, the majority will probably be bananas but those are good to prevent leg cramps so you can stretch to your heart’s content.
For all the banana haters of the world, never fear! Think about all the challenges you have with communication. Imagine a world where that would not be an issue. Nobody knows what they’re saying. And they don’t really understand you. So it would be this fun world where you just had to interpret, to the best of your ability, what they told you. Lots of siren sounds would for sure be in play, which could be good or bad, but who’s to say which way.
Like with all soulmates, though, there are downfalls. Nobody’s perfect after all. They have the maturity of a toddler. They light things on fire. They’re tiny so there would have to be appliances of different sizes in the home. Might have you yelling ‘curse you tiny toilet’! Trying to get them away from Gru, Agnes, Edith, and Margo is pretty much impossible. We don’t know what human food does to their digestive system. They have a lot of combat skills, one would assume, given the nature of the work they do. And to wrap it all up, they’re technically villains.
Alright, jumping off my pedestal for now. If you know someone who would enjoy this post and want to share it with them, that would be awesome. Sharing is caring, after all. Don’t forget to subscribe to get these in your inbox twice weekly and follow TRP on Twitter for frequent musings. Thanks for reading!
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Communicating with people can be a challenge. Let’s not lie to ourselves. Especially when it’s done in any form that isn’t face to face. Which is pretty much the only thing we do now-a-days. Send text based messages to friends, family, co-workers, clients, significant others, love interests, enemies, random people on the Internet, etc. There’s so many ways to relay a message where the recipient is left to interpret the tone and delivery all by themselves. What could possibly go wrong with that? So. Many. Things.
Before going further, I think we need to take a quick rest stop and think about the different kinds of communicators that exist. Because there are several and they are not the same. At all. In fact, the range from direct to detailed is huge and all of them leave so much room for interpretation. Here are my 6 main categories, but many people flow between several depending on their mood:
Great! A fun starting guideline to how we communicate with each other has been established. And, as you probably have experienced in your own life, the same message from all of these people will be interpreted very differently. For example, let’s say they were all giving you a lunch order:
Steve: Chicken salad sandwich on a croissant. Apple on the side. Hold the lettuce.
Nancy: For lunch, I would like a personal hawaiian pizza.
Owen: Cheesesteak
Meredith: Oh, I had the best salad from that new deli the other day. I can’t remember the owner’s name, but they were certainly lovely. We had the nicest talk about our dogs!
Ethan: Yes 🙂 lunch! Sushi 😛
Wanda: Perfect! I’m so hungry 😛 can I please have a kale smoothie for lunch, if you don’t mind? What are your plans for dinner, btw? Maybe we could cook a chicken dish 🙂
See? Which one of those would you rather receive? Personally, I use emojis to relay my own tone and delivery. I also use them to gauge the other person’s tone and delivery. It may just be me, but Ethan and Wanda would be my preference over the other four. How else would I let them know that saying ‘I hate you’ is simply a joke unless I put the cry laughing emoji next to it? Or used a GIF of an unimpressed child’s side eye? They would actually think I hated them. Which, I have to believe, would cause some big problems. How did everyone communicate pre-emoji? What a nightmare.
Alright, jumping off my pedestal for now. If you know someone who would enjoy this post and want to share it with them, that would be awesome. Sharing is caring, after all. Don’t forget to subscribe to get these in your inbox twice weekly and follow TRP on Twitter for frequent musings. Thanks for reading!
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The Restless Professional 
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