Sitting at my desk after the tubes had been run through the plating line for the day, I was writing a quick report on my thoughts of how to do a part of this process in a larger scale setting. Check out my post last week about Little Boat, Whale of a Fish to understand the process or read my first post called Learn by not doing to connect with another entry about George T.

Suddenly there was a charge trumpet call of a children’s toy followed by the “Level 1, spell yes” command in a poor quality computer generated man’s voice. Y. E. S. came the sound of the pressed responses to the command. “That’s correct!” cried the computer voice.

By this time I was turning around to look towards the sound, but George T. was out of my view behind his library size bookshelves of which there were maybe two useful books. I saw Rikki look at me from her desk so I pointed to the book wall and whispered, “What’s he doing?” Her quiet response was that he was playing a ‘Speak and Spell’ game. As George continued firing through the 3-letter words of level 1, Rikki and I smiled, shook our heads and returned to our work. The magic started when George received the next charge call of the trumpet followed by, “Level 2, spell could. C.”

After his single letter response there was a pregnant pause. My listening intensified like I was in the woods trying to hear if there were footsteps of a mysterious beast tracking me. “U. D. That’s incorrect,” burst through the silence. My eyebrows raised in time to hear attempt number 2, “Try again, spell could. C.” I spun around in my chair during the second pause out of curiosity to see if Rikki was listening from her desk. “U. D. That’s incorrect.” My jaw dropped and Rikki made an ouch face. He did not even try a new spelling in his second attempt. To prevent laughter at seeing the surprise on on each other’s face, we both collapsed onto our own desks. Baffled as to why would he not try to spell it a different way if it wasn’t right the first time, I was unable to focus on anything else. When level 2 ended the Speak and Spell announced that George had scored a 7 out 10 on the level and that it would not allow him to advance to the third grade level of spelling words.

It has occurred to me that this unique event could not happen today. Headphones alone would have prevented it. I also think that lots of people play their activities in ways to avoid being seen at work, with hiding in the restroom for 30 minutes being a popular choice. People play while they walk around thus not being seen consistently by anyone located atone desk. The favorite is probably the phone below the level of the desk.

What I am getting at is how a person does not recognize that to everyone else it is observed to be a poor or even a ridiculous choice.

Saw a person holding her phone in one hand, a cigarette in the other driving her car with only a pinky finger left for steering.

Come on, let’s think.

Have a Happy Friday.