While working at home the other day, some missionaries knocked on my door to spread their message. I could have just chosen not to open the door, but my screen was already open, and they had already seen me. Since I was completely hammered with work, I told them that I was on a conference call.
It then occurred to me that this is the perfect way to avoid having your time eaten away with someone trying to sell you something, while still seeming courteous. I’m not sure that there is a rebuttal for this.
Few people have the cajónes to expect you to interrupt your very important conference call to tend to their whims.
In fact, this applies almost universally to any social situation that you want to avoid. Old girlfriend coming around the corner? Pull your mobile phone and chat away. Panhandler? Just start chatting into your Bluetooth headset that you forgot you had on.
So, the next time you peep out your door to find a cookie pusher, soapboxer or magazine peddler, pick up the nearest phone and proceed:
“Well you tell those lunkheads in Business Development that I don’t care who asked for it, I need at least 4 days of lead time before I can have the prototypes DHL’d to Hong Kong. What? Well she realizes that this gonna slip the schedule right? Fine! Let her escalate! I’ve had executive buyoff for three months on this and she can’t just spring this shit on me at the last minute! Go ahead, you can tell her I said that. Hang… hang on, Jerry…”
[Looking perturbed, cover the phone, take the cigar from your lips and mouth "What?"]
The cigar is optional, but you get the picture. It also works on telemarketers. Be creative 
Categories: Getting Things Done · Simplicity
The BBC reports about 32 people dying when a steel ladle split, spilling molten metal on a group of people gathered for a quick meeting. Then, I was astonished to find the following fact at the bottom of the story.
Industrial accidents reportedly killed more than 127,000 people in China in 2005.
I totally get that they have a larger population, but still. Doesn’t it seem odd that that many people are dying in an industrially advanced nation? I wonder what the US number is.
Categories: Uncategorized
