jakorte's blog

I guess my inflection and intention both weren’t quite in the right place when I recently had to apologize for attempting to multitask and for not following my own rules of courtesy – I got caught texting while waiting on an appointment.

“Sorry, I’m…” I mumbled, trailing off as I waved my cell phone in silent explanation. Shrugging my shoulders, I finished with just the tail end of my inaudible thought, “…scheduling conflicts.”

I received an incredulous response. “You’re scheduling conflicts?”

I had to laugh. And I probably appeared a bit too amused.
Truly, I’m not the sort of person who has to schedule conflicts.
They’re a regular natural occurrence in my every day world.

However, wouldn’t it be grand if we could schedule conflicts?
Knowing they were coming, preparing for them… what a concept!

I suspect that knowing of a conflict in advance and having ample prep time could possibly dissipate the event. As opposed to taking a few cool down days, we could take a few days to warm up. And to consider options for responding: raised voices, monotone voices, written complaints, tears – maybe even backing down after applying some self-reasoning.

You know, they could have a “Scheduled Conflict” seating section in the back of the retail "Confidence Store" I’ve been dreaming of. Couldn't hurt to throw a little caffiene in that mix, right?

It sure would be nice to confidently anticipate disagreeing about next Thursday’s dinner menu.

So… who needs an appointment for next week? Just let me know.

My conflict calendar’s wide open.