Step Lightly Please

Par course for a Friday, the bus was packed when I got on to head home tonight. I hunkered down in a back corner and swayed from left to right in unison with the other standees. There is an unwritten rule frequent commuters follow “Thou shalt not stand on the toes of others.” When the ride is particularly bumpy we tend to look like a flock of cranes bowing and shifting around each other. This evening I successfully evaded the splayed feet, bunions, and fallen arches laid out around me and emerged with victoriously unscathed toes and heels.  It was the second high point of a day punctuated by more shadows than shine.

The end of a fiscal period is always hectic, and this is a quarter as well as month end.  With being out next Monday the day was flowing faster than to does were getting done. I felt like Alice in Through the Looking Glass, running full out yet not gaining ground.  The department phone was pealing cries for help from the business community and our position as support felt precariously akin to trying to balance on quicksand.

I finally got a breather at noon and called the Glass XE support line.  I finally will see and experience Glass this coming Sunday and wanted to get a bit of reassurance before I fly tomorrow to San Francisco.  The Glass Guide who answered the line might have been given another name at birth, but for me she will always be “Wondrous Gentle Google Glass Guide”. Her sense of pride in Glass was palpable, her excitement infectious, and her happy laughter was balm for my frazzled nerves.  She exuded happiness with the wonder that is Glass and without giving away any secrets about this coming Sunday at the Embarcadero, fine tuned my excitement and pointed me firmly toward the future I fly to tomorrow.  

Working a call center requires a certain charm, the art of listening and reflecting back the knowledge gained.  Some skills can be learned, some taught, but the underlying talent either is or is not there.  Like +Sarah Price ,, my Glass Guide today has taken empathy and bonded it with information to forge a support for Glass that will carry it safely through beta into production. Google is one of the few companies that know technological leaps must interface with social science to achieve mass acceptance.  Wrapping wearable computing devices with gentle humor, intelligent answers, and responsive Glass Guides builds loyalty in many and excitement overall.

As we shared laughter the Guide allowed me to see again how very lucky I am to be a +Project Glass  #ifihadglass winner. The interaction rejuvenated my desire to do well by Glass and show off its charms through written, verbal, and pictorial interactions. She turned a call with questions into a conversation that left me smiling. I hung up knowing that I had just been in the company of a master at not standing on the toes of others.