Here are some random things I've been thinking about lately.
Since I have one deaf and one nearly-deaf animal, I have to communicate with them differently. I still catch myself talking to them, but I'm working to always include hand signals. For the dog, that will help her to see what command I'm giving. Cats don't obey commands, of course, but I do find the cat is more likely to climb into my lap if I catch her eye and give her a welcoming wave. I'm thinking about installing a some sort of flashing light in my bedroom that I can activate remotely, because I'd like to be able to "call" the dog from downstairs with ease.
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Sometimes when I'm telling people about my career trajectory, or at least the last fifteen years of it, I sum it up as "my job is to get people to do the things I want them to do." Usually, thankfully, these are things that people sort of want to do, but don't have the time or energy to do. In physics education, this getting students to interact with each other and the ideas in the ways that I knew would help them learn best. In my work with education and diversity, it's about helping professors (who have the desire but not the time) to make their classes and departments a place where all students can succeed. Now, as a manager, it's about helping my team do their work more effectively. In all cases, the training that I received in science education has been invaluable - if you alter the environment, the context and the rewards in the right ways, it's just easier for people to do the thing that I want them to do than not. And since that's usually a thing they intended to do, everyone is happy.
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Google has decided that I am gluten-free and sends me recipes every day. Thus far I have been unable to convince it that I do not ever need to make gluten-free, grain-free bagels. If I were eating gluten-free, I think I would not ever want to eat a torus made of egg and cheese called a bagel. Then again, I eat veggie burgers, but only if they taste nothing like meat - no bleeding burgers for me.
2 comments:
As your primary talent is getting people to do what you want them to do, I suppose we should be very thankful that you do not have megalomania because that is the perfect skill set to become a dictator.
lol that is a variety of thoughts! It is a good reminder to think of a world without sound, how our life would be very different. Perhaps lonelier?
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