On a typical telework day for me, I work half my shift in Dale’s self proclaimed “man cave” and the other half in the living room. He sleeps in until at least 11:30am, which is half of my work morning so I usually head upstairs by noon to finish my work day. Well, on this particular evening I needed to be in the “man cave” all day in order to meet a deadline. I have a full monitor in the man cave and that was needed to complete my assignment. When I’m working from the living room I only have my laptop which is harder to see.
I was wrapping up my day and my mother and Dale were in the basement because it was well passed the time I should have logged off for the day. I asked my mother, because she’s a wiz at Excel spreadsheets, if she knew of a quicker way to do something that I was positive I was doing the long/hard way. She comes over to take a look at an example of what I’m trying to do and she says “hmmm, wait a minute, let me give this a thought.”
Dale puts his iPad down, oh my he’s connected to that thing so much that I had to put some screen time limits on all the devices. If he can stay on it from the time he opens his eyes until he closes them at night he would and that’s not healthy for any of us. Heck, I’ve even limited my own time on these devices. I know it factors into having trouble winding down for bed and I think with so much information on all platforms it’s making us all anxious just trying to process it all. So we’ve come to an agreement about screen time, he doesn’t love it but he’s humoring me.
My apologies, I digress. He gets up and says “well wait a minute, what are you over there working on?” I said it’s an Excel spreadsheet. I’m getting it done but I’m sure there is a better way. With a very stern look on his face he says “well why didn’t you ask me!?!?” I said “I’m sorry Dale, I didn’t think of it, is it something you think you can assist me with?” He says SURE.
He looks at my sample and says “ok, what is it that your trying to do?” I explain it to him and he says “ok, I see.” He ponders for a minute and like the true old man he is at times he says “hold a second, let me go get my reading glasses.” He comes back and he starts talking to himself, which he does often but mainly when he’s at home. He’s saying how he use to work on spreadsheets at his internship with The Smithsonian and he just needed a minute but he’s got this.
By this time my mother is looking at me wide eyed like you sure about this? I put my hand on her shoulder and said he’s got this. My actual spreadsheet was untouched so he couldn’t do any harm. So he starts reading the name of each tab and ask me again to explain what I wanted, which I was happy to do because I’m feeling excited at this point. I literally see the wheels turning in his head and I know he’s really got this. He takes a long look at me like he was replaying what I said in his head and before I knew he was click, click, clicking away. Showed me exactly what I needed like it was nothing. He literally helped me reclaim the hour I was going to lose doing it the long way.
I was so proud of him. That internship was over five years ago, but that’s the wonderful thing about how he is wired. Once he’s got something, he’s got it. My mother gave him a pound and admitted to him she had some trepidations but told him how proud she was of him. I told him I believed in him and was very proud. When he is very confident in his response about something I believe him so I was prepared to be wowed.
My mother gave me a high five and says “NOW GO BLOG THAT!!”
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6 Replies to “I’ve got this….”
That’s right…fist bump Dale (OK, maybe an elbow).
Only because we live in the same house. Everyone else gets the elbow ?
Ans that’s the power of Dale. Amazing.
Air hugs and elbows, all around!! Way to go, Dale!! His confidence is a reflection of the trust in him that you’ve shown. Keep up the good work. ??
That’s the man of the house handling his business.. I got this!!?
I’m glad Dale has his I pad because it means we get to FaceTime all the time!!! He seriously is a wiz with his technology. That is beyond cool that he remembered that information from his Smithsonian internship. I can barely remember what I learned last semester!! He is a superstar, once again.