Mr. Watson – Come here I want to see you.

 

As I was having my sandwich assembled at a Subway in Bellevue I noticed this sign. I'm used to seeing this kind of thing in the Doctor's office and the start of a movie, but this was a first. My initial thinking was that of all of the potential challenges faced by the employee at this store how is it that this was the one that made the signage cut? Why not "Try to make your decision before you get in line" or "Please be polite, I've been on my feet all day"? It wasn't long though before I was able to visualize the scenario that led to this decision. It's hard to divide your attention when talking on the phone. It just is.

I spent 5 years perfecting that skill. Working as a police dispatcher conjures up some images for you I'm sure. The 911 operator taking the call, "You say your cats up a tree and he's annoying the neighbors by singing opera while grooming? We'll send someone right away!" The other image you may have is of the radio operator "One adam twelve, one adam 12, see the man, fifth and maple, on a four seventy five violation". During my time in the hot seat we had to handle both tasks, 9-11 and the radio, as well as answer the business lines all at the same time. Dividing my attention between conversations became second nature.

Today of course this is commonly referred to as multitasking. My understanding of the origin of that term comes from the computer industry. Something that is said to be multitasking isn't doing 2 or more things at the same time (that would be multiprocessing) but is in fact dividing its attention between tasks in slices of time based on priority. Allow me to use a Thanksgiving dinner plate to illustrate. On my plate I have

• Turkey, roasted, a touch over cooked.
  
• Mashed potatoes, perfectly done
  
• Cranberry sauce, that congealed type that makes the shlugsh noise when it comes out of the can
  
• Green beans with bacon that has been simmering most of the day
  
• Fruit salad, my Mom's recipe.
  

Ok, assuming one doesn't go crazy mix master on a fine meal and stir all this up (ick!), we'll be eating one food at a time. Now, the older I get the less I can hold, so I like to assign priority to each item so that when I become "moaning full" I have my favorites consumed first. So it goes something like this. Taters, beans, turkey, cranberry, taters, smack myself for putting the fruit salad on the plate and scrape it into a bowl, taters, beans, taters, beans, turkey, cranberry. This repeats until the plate is empty or I have begun to moan audibly, squint and rub my belly. This is multitasking. Your priorities will likely be different than mine, but this should give you the idea.

Thankfully you won't ever get feedback from an item on your dinner plate complaining that you should have given it more priority over the other items. Another unlikely event would be that if you fail to pay attention to one dinner item it may be considered a social offense. Even less likely would be if you ignore your turkey too much you suddenly careen off an embankment causing property damage, injury or death. Umm, well, if any of these do happen during a holiday meal, and you survive, email me and tell me I'm wrong. We'll make sure one of us gets therapy.

The truth is few of us can multitask well between tasks that require concentration. Having a conversation on your cell phone while attempting to order a sandwich is one of them and as the sign above would indicate, it's inconsiderate of the person assembling your meal as well as the other customers in line. Behind the wheel of a car this practice elevates to somewhere starting at rude, traveling through foolish and onto deadly.

In a 2005 study by a University of Utah psychology professor cell phone distraction causes 2600 deaths and 330,000 injuries per year. As the professor puts it, "If you put a 20-year-old driver behind the wheel with a cell phone, their reaction times are the same as a 70-year-old driver who is not using a cell phone, It's like instantly aging a large number of drivers."

I'm glad to see that this study was done but only because it punches up this post. Isn't this really a no-brainer? If we take the time to consider it, doesn't the idea of dividing your attention between a phone call and driving your car scream "DANGER, DANGER WILL ROBINSON"? For me, I'm not a fan of talking on the phone any way, not really, and particularly on a cell phone. I'm the type of person that really needs the other 80 percent of the story that is non verbal. I get rather obsessed with understanding what people are saying and being understood. The telephone works well for disseminating information but for me it's no place to have a conversation.

To sum it up, when you are ordering your sandwich, be considerate. That person making your food works hard. They have an expectation on them to get through the line of customers in a timely manner with a smile and a genuine "thank you". If you are the only person in line, the person serving you has other duties to perform when they aren't making sandwiches and I bet they need to get to it. Oh, and if you are in your car hang up your phone. If I'm going to die young I want it to be from overstuffing myself while packing down my fruit salad not in a mangled mix of Chevrolet and Hyundai.

Don't drive angry! Drive weird!

PS – A 475 violation is of course "A misdemeanor citation for allowing your cat to sit in a tree and sing opera while grooming".