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October /
November 2006 Contest Results |
Enough
Multi-Tasking!
By Sue Thompson,
Minnesota
For
anyone who has been on a job search in the past 10 years, I can only
assume that the topic (or skill) of “multi-tasking” has surfaced during
your interview. Employers love to hire people who are proficient multi-taskers
as this ability proves that the prospective employee has the ability to
handle several tasks at the same time, in essence, the boss is getting
the most out of an employee.
Dictionary.com
defines multi-tasking as the concurrent or interspersed execution of two
or more jobs by a single CPU (Don’t ask me what that means, I just write
this stuff). For those of us technology illiterates, CPU stands for
Central Processing Unit, which is totally connected to something related
to computers. The whole idea of multi-tasking has nothing to do with
humans as its origin arrives from computers.
So when did the
concept of multi-tasking become a human function? If you ask me I think
multi-tasking became a human function at about the same time that cell
phones began growing out of our ears. Don’t you think that the cell
phone explosion in this country has gotten a bit out of hand? Okay, I
agree that in certain situations cell phones serve a wonderful purpose
and I myself own one. But I do believe there are certain times and
places when talking on our cell phone should be postponed.
Take for
example, the other day when I had to use a public restroom. There I was
minding (and doing) my own business when the women in the stall next to
me starts a conversation with, “Hey, how are you doing?” Being brought
up to show respect to others, I replied, “just fine and you?” “Well, the
woman goes on to tell me all about her recent break-up with her
boyfriend and I believe we talked for several minutes before I realized
that she wasn’t taking to me but to a friend on her cell phone. It was
an awkward situation to say the least and, by the way, her boyfriend
sounded like a real putz. I think their break up was a good thing.
Yes, the cell
phone phenomenon only adds to our already over loaded lives.
Surprisingly, the bathroom incident is not at the top of my list when it
comes to cell phones and multi-tasking no-no’s. No, that award has to go
to the person driving their car while carrying on a conversation on a
cell phone. In fact, many folks are not only talking on cell phones
while driving but doing other activities as well.
I recall a time
when I observed a person driving her car, putting on mascara, trying to
change a CD, talking on her cell phone AND trying to shift from 4th to
5th gear on her manual transmission. Good Lord! Talk about an accident
waiting to happen. (It was a good thing that I noticed the light had
changed from green to red because a police officer was behind me and
could have been pulled me over for running a red light.)
Well, I better
wrap up this column because the battery on my computer is about to run
out and I don’t want to lose my document. And, the stop light just
turned green, and my cell phone is ringing, and the attendant at the
drive though is trying to take my order, and…yes, too much
multi-tasking.
http://www.suegthompson.com
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