What’s Your “Lucy” Moment?

Last week, I was on a much-awaited, exclusive teleconference with a well-known and very successful business and marketing consultant. As the call began, the tips and ideas started flowing, and I feverishly took notes and tried to digest all of the information. Everything was going really well, but then…things started to get ugly. About half way through the call, the sound got weaker and weaker on my phone. “What’s going on?!” I decided to walk around to see if the signal got stronger in different locations. First, I went into the bathroom and closed the door. (How strange it was to be listening to a business call in the bathroom!) But the sound level on the phone didn’t change so I went outside. Well, the leaf-blower person was out there blasting away so that didn’t work AT ALL. I ran back into my office. Then, I put an ear plug in the ear that was not connected to the phone. That seemed to help a little, and I continued to listen to the call and take notes. Problem solved… for now. Then the big moment came when we could ask questions directly to the speaker. Woo Hoo! I got through and was able to ask my question. The expert started giving me some excellent words of wisdom, and then… dial tone. My phone went dead! Ugh! The receiver said, “Battery Low!” What do you mean “Battery Low”? I just charged the phone for eight hours! Anyway, it was time to move fast. I slammed the phone back on the charger and quickly picked up my cell phone. I dialed into the conference number. Phew! The call went through and so far, so good. Then, the recorded voice asked me for my password, and I entered it. “The password is unacceptable. Please try again.” I tried again. “The password is unacceptable. Please try again.” I tried again. “The password is unacceptable. Please hold for the operator.” AHHHHH! I then put my cell phone to the side and tried my landline phone again. And what do you know? I got through, and the expert speaker was still responding to my question – What luck! Then, he finished, and said: “Does that answer your question, Melanie?” I started to say “thank you,” but he couldn’t hear me. He went on. “Melanie? Are you there? It looks like we lost Melanie. Well, that’s all the time we have. Thanks for joining the teleconference today.” Ugh! I guess when I called back into the teleconference the second time, I wasn’t patched through to the non-mute function for people asking questions. Oh well. My phone went dead again right as the speaker was saying goodbye anyway. Fortunately, I was able to send a note to the teleconference organizers thanking the speaker for answering my question. And the morale of the story is… Get a good phone. (I had fun throwing my old one as hard as I could into the trash bin) No. Well, that’s part of it. The real morale is that after screaming at my awful phone, I learned something from this. We all have “Lucy” moments (as in Lucille Ball in “I Love Lucy”), and I was able to laugh about it. Do you laugh at your “Lucy” moments? If not, it’s time to take things a little less seriously and enjoy life. And even if you can’t have a good laugh, think how great it will be to share your story with your significant other at the end of the day, at a party with friends, at the next conference with your peers… or on a blog like this! With this in mind, do you have a good “Lucy” moment you’d like to share? Please feel free to share it below or send me a note. After all, we could all use a good laugh and see that we’re not alone when it comes to dealing with all life throws at us. Who knows, we may learn something about ourselves from your “Lucy” moment!

By Melanie Rembrandt