I kind of get tired of being asked if I'm sure I really want to do that every time I do something on a computer. Yea I admit that it has probably saved me grief once or twice, but the ratio of "thank-you's" to "just do what I ask you to do's" is so disproportionate that the prompts are really just an irritant.
What I really need is a user prompt between my brain and mouth that would allow me one last chance to consider my words before I say them. Or maybe a feature like they have in Microsoft Outlook where you can recall a message. Sometimes, like most people, I say what's on my mind when it's better just to keep my mouth shut; but if I had these options available to me it would allow me another opportunity to edit my words or recall them altogether before they get me in trouble. Something like this would save me a ton of grief and prevent a lot of those "did I just say that out loud" moments.
I had this girl that worked for me once and toward the end of her employment she frequently had duty after hours and was thus given a company cell phone. One day she got a call and stepped outside to take it. When she returned I asked her if she had just taken a duty call or booty call. Though it was funny and I chuckled I probably would have recalled that statement; human resources frowns upon such witticisms. Knowing her though it probably was a booty call.
This same girl quit because she felt that she was underpaid; she had an overinflated sense of self-worth. We were disagreeing about what she was worth in relationship to everyone else when she said "well I guess that we can agree to disagree then and I will be turning in my resignation." I walked her to her desk, helped her word her resignation just right, accepted it and told her that I would pay her for the 2 weeks, but that she was free to leave. I don't think that she saw that outcome when she threatened to resign and I'm thinking that she would have recalled that message to me if she could have.
My lack of a filter is well documented in Goodson household lore; it's the thing upon which legends are built. We laugh about it now, but a couple of years ago my wife was sick and spent most of the night hugging the toilet. When I get roused from a deep sleep it takes a minute for me to gather my faculties about me. At about 2 o'clock that morning I was awakened by the sounds of my wife being victimized by a particularly vicious round of sickness and I turned around and asked her if she could throw up more quietly as I was trying to sleep. As I said we laugh about it now, but at the time she was not amused, not one little bit. I didn't mean it, I was just half-awake and the minute those words came from my mouth I knew that the price for saying them would be steep.
My wife and I laugh because over the years we have discovered that she doesn't have a filter sometimes too, so we're more alike than we previously thought. I guess that filter deficiency is really something that we all suffer from at times. The fact that we recognize it and wish to correct it shows that if nothing else our hearts are in the right place; it's those who know they don't have a filter and don't care that I don't like to be around much.
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