I almost missed my flight!

Well… I HAD to visit the men’s room and there I was…

… trying to get the electronic eye on the paper towel dispenser to “detect” my frantically waiving hands! 

That’s when I heard, “last call for passenger Lon Kieffer flight 1185 at Gate H3.”

It was then that I realized I had been day dreaming.  When the electronic eye ‘thingy’ chose to view me as the invisible man and refused to give me a paper towel, my mind started to wonder. 

I don’t know how long I stood there in front of that new-fangled contraption waiving my hands as if warming them over (or under) the invisible heat of a campfire but it was long enough for my thoughts to conjure numerous other “failed” yet successful technological advances.

I was reminded of the early (and sometimes lately) cell phone’s.  Remember when the coverage was so bad they were reduced to glorified beepers?   Once taking a call and trying to talk you at least knew who to call back on the land line to actually have a meaningful conversation.

Then there’s the copy machine that constantly jams and mis-feeds. 

This is a true shame in the healthcare industry because in today’s computer driven world of electronic charting everybody knows… you simply cannot have a paperless record without a well functioning copy machine.

Then I started thinking… it has been like this my entire life!

Remember the “sea monkeys” you got as a kid?  They certainly were not monkeys and frankly, I never could “see” them either. 

Maybe it was just me? 

And those things you were supposed to add water to and watch them grow into some jaw-dropping creature like a dragon or something… I really can’t remember because mine all ended up looking like, well, a non-jaw-dropping BLOB-creature.

But, as time passes, things either improve or we get used to them; today, kids don’t have to live out such disappointments.  Hell, today we buy them real monkeys to play with!

Cell phones have improved… copiers still mis-feed occasionally but they are better; paperless medical records?  Let’s not push it… a work in progress shall we say?

And speaking of paperless… just as I heard my name being called and was snapped back to reality I became aware that by “throwing my  hands up in the air… and wavin’ ‘em like the ‘thingy’ just don’t care” my hands were actually dry! 

I never did get a paper towel… but my hands were dry.

Huh… a paperless paper-towel dispenser? 

Maybe there is hope for a paperless medical record?

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Lon Kieffer, author of “Get Out of Bed and Go to Work!”, Speaker, Consultant, Expert on Workplace Culture Change and Generational Conflicts, gives seminars, keynote and plenary addresses, runs annual sales meetings, and provides Common Sense Consulting at:  www.LonKieffer.com. He can be reached at:  (302) 462-6748 or via email at:  Lon@LonKieffer.com