She was 30 seconds into her response when she realized he wasn’t listening. He could hear her alright but he didn’t really care much for her response.
It didn’t matter that he was the one who asked her; “Linda, how are you feeling today? I hope you are fine now!”.
Linda had been away from work sometime around 3pm on Monday and stayed off on Tuesday and Wednesday too.
She had dragged herself to work on that Monday morning but realized she couldn’t make it to the close of work.
The flu…that’s what she had.
So when she ran into the CFO at 5:15pm on Friday and he seemed to be concerned about her health, she felt the need to give him a detailed breakdown of the whys and hows.
…but he didn’t care. She could see it. He was probably thinking about something else…but she went ahead and finished her story.
“Okay, have a nice weekend” he said.
“Thank you Sir” she replied and then she got into her car and drove home.
It was somewhere between the office and home that she realized he just wanted to be sure she was back and able to work…that was all he wanted to know.
The work…that was all that mattered to him.
It was common knowledge.
Unfortunately quite real
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Very real
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When this has happened to me, I’ve always wanted to add some crazy element to the story to see if they’re really listening. “And then my neighbors dog stole my keys” or “An UFO from outer space took me too it’s planet.” Why not? Ha ha.
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Okay you’ve got me laughing really hard here Brian. 😂
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I love that Bellamor quote; employers should have more empathy for their workers; empathy is a field we need all practice ; when someone shows me empathy, I open up, feel loved and I show empathy back 🙂
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You got it just the way I think it John.
I remember being asked what the most important quality in a person was- Empathy…that’s all it is for me… Empathy
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The story you told emphasizes it well 🙂
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