Do I Care?

My Dear Princess & Dear Fellows,

I'm quite liking sitting next to Lemon. She's a good laugh and was telling me all about her kids this morning. She tells me when she goes to her boys' school she gets called "Wani's Mum" or "Missus Wani's Mum". 

"Put that stick down," she'll say to the schoolkids. Or "Pick your feet up". Or "Get your feet off that table". 

"Once I said all those things and I was in their actual classroom," she went on. "The teacher was sitting down behind her desk and I was like, 'Girl, take control of your class!'"

She's a good analyst too. Quite different to me, but that's good, I can learn some things from her. She has a catchphrase which I like. When I'm telling her stuff, she will stare off into the distance...

"Do I care? Do I care? Do I care?" she will ask herself out loud, trying to figure out if what I am saying has any bearing on her. It's like a mantra. She is in this dream-like state.

"Nah. I don't care," she will conclude.

Or sometimes she will go through the same internal audible discussion with different results. "Do I care? Do I care? Do I care...?"

"YOU care," she told me. Which I already knew. 

"I don't care," she added.

I don't mind this at all. I have the same conversation with myself all the time. I expect you do too. Some n*b will be waffling on at work and I'm listening for the keywords that mean I need to care. But then instead they say something that makes me realise that, no, I don't care.

YOU care. I don't care.

Unfortunately people tend not to realise that I don't care and they carry on waffling anyway. Unaware I have now flipped the "mute" switch inside my head and I can no longer really hear them.

I think I may adopt Lemon's "out loud" approach in future. I urge you to do the same the next time your manager starts going on about employee engagement and development plans.

"Do I care? Do I care? Do I care?" you can ask yourself out loud. Stare into the distance and try to imagine a reality in which you MIGHT JUST care about kanban boards. Do you care?

I expect it will throw them off. 

I don't care.

S.