Recently, I decided to test my own
advice,"You always find what you're looking
for." If you look for a way to delight the
customer, reduce waste, improve communication
or market your business, you'll find it. If
you look for three, you'll find them. Get
everyone on the team looking for the same
thing, and what you'll find is amazing. That
advice. Don't get me wrong; I wasn't doubting
myself. I know it works and have a boatload
of on-the-job and off-the-job examples to
prove it in my presentations.
I'm talking about consciously walking my talk
under pressure. Looking for one the hardest
things to find--humor--in one of the worst
settings I could think of--an airport. Instead
of approaching business travel with dread and
dismay, instead of telling myself "I hate
airports," I decided to look for laughs. Not
in an open-mike, stand-up comedian kind of
way. (I wanted to find the funny, not
be the funny.)
I put on my comic vision goggles (they're
invisible, of course) and found myself
laughing not once, but three times, before I
even got to my gate. I was standing in line
to enter security. . . .
1. A father was holding his family's
place in line while Mom pushed their toddler
in a stroller on the outside edges of the
queue. At one point the little guy was
restless and bored, so he climbed out and
tried to take control of his own stroller.
"Oh, you want to push the stroller instead of
ride?!" the mom said in a loud, high-pitched,
self-esteem-building, people-are-watching-me
voice. Then, in her weary, worn out,
whatever-it-takes-to-keep-him-happy voice
that only a few of us could hear, she
muttered, "Fine. Just don't aim for anybody."
Aim? Just don't aim for
anybody? It's OK if he hits someone, just so
long as he wasn't aiming for them? I'm a
mom. I had to laugh. (And reposition my
suitcase to shield my shins.)
2. As I got to the front of the line,
to the place where the TSA agent checks your
boarding pass and ID, a frazzled woman
approached the agent from the side, obviously
poised to make a pitch to cut the line.
Without looking up from the driver's license
she held in her hand (mine), the agent raised
her left hand ala Diana Ross doing "STOP In
the Name of Love" and said, "Don't tell me,
tell them," and then pointed to the crowded
line. The frazzled woman dropped her purse
and one piece of carry-on to the ground,
faced the throng, raised her hands in
surrender and said, "I'm late, and I'm sorry.
I would have been on time, could have been on
time . . . (wait for it) . . . if I had left
home earlier." Dead silence. Then a snicker,
a few chuckles, a snort here and there, and
within seconds we were smiling and nodding or
shaking our heads in honor of her candor and
lack of excuses. Judging the verdict and mood
of the mob, I felt safe inviting her to go
ahead of me, which started a spontaneous
round of applause. Go figure.
3. So, I finally get to the scanning
machine, which is where you get to see
strangers in various, sundry stages of
undress. (No, I'm not counting that as the
third "funny," albeit worthy most of the
time.) This is the where outer jackets, belts
and shoes gotta come off and go on the
conveyor belt. I already had my laptop in its
own bin, with my purse, shoes, jacket and
1-quart zippered baggie chock full of
less-than-3-ounce bottles of liquid in
another bin. (BTW, you'd be surprised how
much a 1-quart zippered baggie can expand
with a little help from your blow dryer.) The
guy behind me, however, listened to the TSA
agents who are paid to bark "Place your shoes
directly on the conveyer belt." He obediently
opted NOT to put his shoes in a bin. Too
late, not now, not me, I thought to
myself as I shoved my bins into the mouth of
the machine. On the other side, the guy who
was behind me is now standing to my left, and
we robotically watch our bins and belongings
emerge. Out comes my suitcase, my brief case,
and the bin with my laptop, followed by my
other bin of leftover outerwear and liquids.
Followed by a shoe. One shoe. The guy looked
to his
right at each of my two bins, then sadly back
down at his one shoe. He looked to the left,
leaned over, hoping he could see inside the
machine, waiting to see if his other shoe
would appear next and join its mate. No such
luck. His briefcase, and yet another
passenger's bin came through
instead.
"It ate
my shoe," he muttered to himself. "It ate my
shoe!" he said to me. Before I could express
my condolences, he got a TSA agent's
attention, pointed at his solitary loafer
left on the belt and demanded to know, "Who
makes these damn machines? Maytag?"
Then he winked, and smiled, which got
the agent to crawl inside the machine and
cheerfully retrieve his shoe.
Three little laughs. They made my day.
But I would have missed them, had I not set
my sights on finding them. Why not look for a
laugh before you go home today? You'll find
one. And how about looking for three more
once you get there? You'll find that it
doesn't just make your day-it might just make
a difference in someone else's.
Here's to laughter. May it make your life
less ordinary and anything but
blah.
TGIF,
Terri
