OBVIOUS! ... OR IS IT?!

"A fool hath no delight in understanding, but that his heart may discover itself." (Proverbs 18:2)

There's a fascinating (and frustrating) characteristic of human behavior and it's that the solution to a matter can be SO obvious and yet a person can be SO totally blind to it! I experienced that with a person yesterday, and I'll share that story further on.

First, I want to give an example of the kind of thing I'm writing about. Back in the 1980s I read an interesting motivational book. Parts of the book were fascinating and really caused me to think and to understand how a person can be limited by their PERCEPTION of things. On one page, the author presented an exercise for the reader to do. He wrote that below is a Roman numeral, and that the assignment is to look at that Roman numeral and figure out what letter could be added to that Roman numeral to create a number between 1 and 6. Below that paragraph in large bold type was the Roman numeral IX. I sat and stared at that IX. WHAT could the solution be? IX equals 9. It's the Roman numeral 9. So how could I possibly ADD a letter to the IX and make a number between 1 and 6? ANY letter I would add would make it a LARGER number. I couldn't add a V, or another X or a C or an M or a D. I puzzled and puzzled over it. It COULDN'T be done, I reasoned. What kind of foolishness was this anyway? At the bottom of that page, the author wrote that when I turned the page, the answer would be at the top of the next page. I turned the page, and in large bold type I read "SIX". Boy, did I feel stupid! He made his point. If a person added a letter to that Roman numeral IX, well of course it would create a number between 1 and 6. It was SIX, meaning 6. So often an answer is right in front of us, and we can't (or won't) see it.

My father used to lament that most people had no common sense and that he was amazed that they could not figure out how to handle simple problems. He had a very practical mathematical and mechanically inclined kind of mind. Unfortunately, some of us DON'T have a brain that works that way, and if we're not careful, that can be a real handicap to us. As the author of that motivational book demonstrated, we've really got to CHANGE our way of looking at situations.

Now, here is my story from yesterday:

First, I must give a little background. The incident happened on my job as a telephone answering service operator. I've written previously about all the lessons God has taught me on this job. I would never had "signed up" for the church I pastored to close, and to work at a humble job like this for a couple of years, but God has allowed this and showed me and taught me SO much. We have pretty strict guidelines and policies to follow on the job. Most of the the clients we answer for are doctor's offices and medical practices. We can never give out medical advice of any kind. We can also never tell a caller to DO something. We can SUGGEST something, like "Maybe you need to call an ambulance instead" or "Maybe you need to go to an emergency room" but we have to be VERY careful in what we say. We represent our clients. It's very difficult when a caller tells you what a jerk his or her doctor is or how much they resent the medical practice they're calling. We can never "feed" that thinking or agree with them. We represent the client. That DOES become very difficult to do, at times. Yesterday I took a call from a very frustrated woman. I had spoken to her earlier in the week, too. She has been calling and calling a certain doctor's office and the calls would go to the answering service every time. (Sometimes that happens when there's a high volume of calls.) It was unusual that her call came to us SO many times over a few days. Yesterday afternoon, this woman caller was depressed and furious.

"I DON'T want an answering service, I WANT MY DOCTOR'S OFFICE!" she demanded, "HOW can I speak to my doctor's office?"

Now, normally, I'd patch a call like that through to the office on an inside line. Ninety-five percent of the medical practices we answer for have inside lines on which we can patch people through to the office in emergency situations or in cases like that where a caller is frustrated and just insists on speaking to someone in the office. The problem is that HER particular doctor's office does NOT have an inside line. I explained that to her. I did also explain that I could fax a message to them. She was not up for that. She wanted to TALK to someone in the office immediately."

She was almost in tears and demanded of me, "Well, WHAT SHOULD I DO, WHAT SHOULD I DO, WHAT SHOULD I DO??!!"

I paused and took a deep breath.

"Ma'am," I said, "I do understand your frustration. This is somewhat frustrating for me, too. I am really not allowed to give you medical advice nor am I allowed to TELL you to DO something."

I then added, "There actually IS something you could do, but I can't tell you what that is."

Maybe I was asking for trouble!

She didn't like my response. She then began whining like a 5-year-old who had been told she couldn't have candy because it's so close to dinner time.

"Are you telling me to FIND ANOTHER DOCTOR?" she pressed, "Are you telling me to go to an emergency room?"

"I'm really not telling you either thing," I responded, "But if you THINK about it, there really IS something you COULD do."

I had to leave it at that. In fact, she called back AGAIN, and we repeated the same conversation! I guess she felt like I did when I was trying to figure out how IX could become a number between 1 and 6 by adding a letter to it.

Do YOU know the simple solution to what that woman could and should do? It's frankly obvious. Or is it? I could write it here, but I'm not going to. I'm going to see if you can figure it out.

As the old "Emergency Broadcast System" line used to say, "This is a test."
Can you pass it? Do you know what she could and should do? You're welcome to post a comment here or to e-mail me at:
revrbaril@aol.com