Fixing the world’s problems one minute at a time

I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but it seems there are a lot of angry people out there in the world.

It’s political campaign season.  That’s gotta play a role, I get that.  But markets are down, prices are up, tensions are high, emotions are low, it’s allergy season, Twitter is alive and well, the Queen is not.

People have reasons to be ticked! 

I remember a ride to school with my two young boys.  After a good five minutes of unusual silence, the younger said to the older:

“Hey Owen.  Did you know there is a boy in 1st grade named Owen?  He has anger issues.”

 Owen replied, as every good older brother would, “So, like you?”

 “SHUT UP!!!!,” his younger brother raged back.

We are all just looking for an opportunity to rant, to tweet, to cancel, and to dismiss.

Now, I like to think this quarterly column is a tiny vehicle driving toward positive change.  A seasonal effort to find some comity among us.

So, in this vein, I propose that we direct our frustrations, anxieties, and grievances toward the one person who deserves it the most.

You all know who I’m talking about.  If you’ve been paying attention at all to what’s been going on in recent years, the person at the source of our personal and collective angst is obvious.

Please step forward person who was the first ever to say at the end of a conference call/Zoom meeting, “We’re done a little early. I’m happy to give you back (insert insignificant number) minutes of your day.”

Of course, there are countless people who utter this sentiment each and every day, and I’ve counted myself a culprit once or twice.  But we are not to blame!  Don’t get mad at us.  No, it’s the first person who said it.  It was the he who started it all, or the she who spoke the words first.  Let’s get em’!

It’s no wonder really why we don’t know who this person was.  Who on earth would take credit for it at this point?!

I first heard the sanctimonious salutation pre-pandemic, at the conclusion of an already insufferably long conference call.  After an ear-bleeding 54 minutes on a Friday afternoon, the “host” cheerfully gave us all back six minutes of our day. 

“What?!  You’re giving me what?” I thought.  “What about the last 54 minutes?  Who do I need to email to get those back?”

Still, this was just a random call on a Friday.  Maybe a one-off.  But then, as they do, a pandemic struck, and now we all have eight online calls a day.  Each and every one is doing us a solid by donating back a minute here and a few minutes there.

Sure, it’s all professional conference call yackety-yak at this point.  Words that are said because everyone says them and everyone expects to hear them.

Still, they aren’t your minutes to give!  Get your hands off my minutes!

That one person started it all, and now everyone is dressed up as the Santa Claus of Microsoft Teams, dropping nicely packaged minutes back into our days.   

Twitter rarely gets anything right, but this morning it shared in my feed under the banner of “You might like” a tweet from a woman I didn’t know.  I doubt she is the person we are looking for who started all this because she had tweeted this: 

“Oh wow!  You’re giving me back 4 minutes of my day?  Now I can go save the #@%&ing world.”

Nailed it.  Now, let’s all agree to stop saying it.  Your time is your time.  It’s limited and valuable.  It’s yours to give, not receive.

“Thank you for taking your time and have a great day.”  That has a nice ring to it.

And there, the problems of the world: fixed ‘em.