Boot camp for extroverts
School is over, and my job is happening. This concludes day four of a five-day workweek. I'm a bit pale and interesting due to lack of sleep--it's hard to get to bed at a reasonable hour, harder to drag myself out of dreams in the early morning--but I think I'm toughening up a little.
Work is wonderful, now that I'm in a fit state to appreciate it. Funny how admiration and envy can make you learn things that you might resist if you were forced into them. Does that sentence make any sense? I'm kinda groggy. What I mean is that I had a funny realization today. I was on task as an interpreter, talking to museum guests with my friend the costume designing dude. They all gravitated to him more than to me. At first, I was automatically jealous--"He's a guy, they think he's an authority and write me off because I'm a girl." And I'm not going to kid around, maybe that was part of it for some of them, but it wasn't the main reason.
People wanted to talk to this guy because he has a really nice manner. He seems relaxed and friendly at all times. He also has a way of effortlessly drawing people into conversation with him and making them want to see all the cool things about the house that he wants to show them. After a while, I quit being jealous and started just watching how he did it. For one thing, he has a really mellow, laid-back voice, always sounds humorous, always ready to laugh, never rushed or bothered. I envy that like crazy. There's nothing wrong with my voice, per se, but I tend to sound nervous--even when I'm not nervous, even when I'm in a great mood, my enthusiasm comes out sounding like nervous, breathless twitchiness. And that makes people nervous of me, in their turn, which sets up a cycle. I asked this guy how he did it, and he said, "I don't know! I just have always done it without knowing what it was." He did gently suggest that I remember to take deep breaths.
One thing that I know I can imitate: he has a special form of words that never fails to get people to check stuff out. It goes like this:
Him: Hey! Has anyone shown you the [X]?
Them: No.
Him: Oh man, it's great, you gotta see the [X]! Here, lemme show it to you. [He does]
This is beautiful. You can use it in many situations, and it almost never fails. When you say, "Hey, has anyone shown you the [herb shop/pot-bellied stove/soap boiler]," and they say, "No," then you can offer to demonstrate the thing for them and they pretty much have to come and see. What are they going to do, say, "Go away, I'm not interested in seeing the thing I'm already discussing with you"? Nearly no one is that rude. Now, I've been making the mistake of asking people closed-ended questions--would they like to see the building? --or walking up and telling them things before they can ask me. There's a place for all that, too, there's nothing wrong with that, but "Has anyone shown you the [X]?" is so simple and elegant that I'm still admiring it hours later.
As you've seen, it's my habit to give hours of analysis to simple social behaviors which most people take for granted, but which require some thought and explanation on my part, since apparently I'm a researcher among the humans. I suspect that few other people would care about this complexity of interaction, because they don't care either way, or because they're already doing it right with no effort, like my friend there. Fortunately, public history is a sink-or-swim training session geared to make us all into approachable extroverts. I like overanalyzing my own behavior and this is an excellent reason to do it.
It's 6:27 by my computer clock. The Apocalypse has been going on for nearly half an hour, and I'm late as usual. Unless it happened very quietly and my housemates have been raptured without my noticing. I doubt it, though. If the End comes, it'll come with four horsemen, the skies splitting open, two-thirds of the moon marked off in neat wedges to turn to blood, etc. Well, it is a beautiful evening. I'm going to go downtown and eat in a cafe (I'm too tired to cook) and possibly have fried dough at the fair on the town common. If it's the end of the world I'll just have to deal.
Work is wonderful, now that I'm in a fit state to appreciate it. Funny how admiration and envy can make you learn things that you might resist if you were forced into them. Does that sentence make any sense? I'm kinda groggy. What I mean is that I had a funny realization today. I was on task as an interpreter, talking to museum guests with my friend the costume designing dude. They all gravitated to him more than to me. At first, I was automatically jealous--"He's a guy, they think he's an authority and write me off because I'm a girl." And I'm not going to kid around, maybe that was part of it for some of them, but it wasn't the main reason.
People wanted to talk to this guy because he has a really nice manner. He seems relaxed and friendly at all times. He also has a way of effortlessly drawing people into conversation with him and making them want to see all the cool things about the house that he wants to show them. After a while, I quit being jealous and started just watching how he did it. For one thing, he has a really mellow, laid-back voice, always sounds humorous, always ready to laugh, never rushed or bothered. I envy that like crazy. There's nothing wrong with my voice, per se, but I tend to sound nervous--even when I'm not nervous, even when I'm in a great mood, my enthusiasm comes out sounding like nervous, breathless twitchiness. And that makes people nervous of me, in their turn, which sets up a cycle. I asked this guy how he did it, and he said, "I don't know! I just have always done it without knowing what it was." He did gently suggest that I remember to take deep breaths.
One thing that I know I can imitate: he has a special form of words that never fails to get people to check stuff out. It goes like this:
Him: Hey! Has anyone shown you the [X]?
Them: No.
Him: Oh man, it's great, you gotta see the [X]! Here, lemme show it to you. [He does]
This is beautiful. You can use it in many situations, and it almost never fails. When you say, "Hey, has anyone shown you the [herb shop/pot-bellied stove/soap boiler]," and they say, "No," then you can offer to demonstrate the thing for them and they pretty much have to come and see. What are they going to do, say, "Go away, I'm not interested in seeing the thing I'm already discussing with you"? Nearly no one is that rude. Now, I've been making the mistake of asking people closed-ended questions--would they like to see the building? --or walking up and telling them things before they can ask me. There's a place for all that, too, there's nothing wrong with that, but "Has anyone shown you the [X]?" is so simple and elegant that I'm still admiring it hours later.
As you've seen, it's my habit to give hours of analysis to simple social behaviors which most people take for granted, but which require some thought and explanation on my part, since apparently I'm a researcher among the humans. I suspect that few other people would care about this complexity of interaction, because they don't care either way, or because they're already doing it right with no effort, like my friend there. Fortunately, public history is a sink-or-swim training session geared to make us all into approachable extroverts. I like overanalyzing my own behavior and this is an excellent reason to do it.
It's 6:27 by my computer clock. The Apocalypse has been going on for nearly half an hour, and I'm late as usual. Unless it happened very quietly and my housemates have been raptured without my noticing. I doubt it, though. If the End comes, it'll come with four horsemen, the skies splitting open, two-thirds of the moon marked off in neat wedges to turn to blood, etc. Well, it is a beautiful evening. I'm going to go downtown and eat in a cafe (I'm too tired to cook) and possibly have fried dough at the fair on the town common. If it's the end of the world I'll just have to deal.