Of Course

For years, asking a clerk or a salesperson or a nurse or a friend for something got you No Problem for a response.

It annoyed me, implying that I had asked for something difficult, that the listener would handle the situation, that it was not a problem at all.  But I usually didn't think that my request might be a bother.  

May I have ice tea to drink?  Could you hold the door for me?  Can you reach that item on the top shelf?

Those are requests.  If I thought they might create an issue I wouldn't have asked.  I didn't want to make a tumult, cause an issue, initiate a problem.  No problem assumes an issue, one I didn't see, anticipate, or intend to bring to the situation.

Spending most of last month sitting with TBG in the hospital, I began to notice a change.  Instead of No problem people were saying Of course.

That's so much nicer, isn't it?  Instead of assuming a problem needed to be swept away, there's an acknowledgement that what was asked for was exactly what could be provided.  What else could we be thinking?

I thought it was localized to the hospital, an outgrowth of a seminar on How to Talk to Patients and Families, perhaps.  But once I began to interact with the world again, I found that it is ubiquitous.  The bagel store cashier says Of course when I thank her for handing me my bag of carbs. 

We seem to be agreeing that our actions are obviously correct.  She's saying that of course we have the same expectations and of course she's happy to fulfill her part of the bargain.  

In these troublous times, when our silos bump up against one another with loud and disturbing clanks, it warms the cockles of my heart to have others recognize that we share a common set of values.  I'm not creating a problem, I'm making sure that we're on the same page.

A small thing, but one that has been tickling my fancy for a while.