Call Me

To all the people who told me not to worry about Brittany getting a job in Charleston – you were right. She arrived there on a Monday night, interviewed with a company that owns 5 hotels in the area on Tuesday afternoon and Thursday morning they offered her a job, starting as the front desk manager at one of the hotels; in training to be a hotel general manager.

While she was waiting for the call back; she unpacked, joined a gym and set up two more interviews, which she ended up cancelling because this was the job she wanted.

So have I stopped worrying about her?

Please! Has my mother stopped worrying about me? I doubt it!

Although Brittany still tells me most things, it seems to be getting harder to get answers to what I want to know.

I recently read an excerpt from a book called How Not To Act Old by Pamela Redmond Satran. It was a fun read and one piece of advice really jumped out at me because it was so true. “Don’t leave a message.”

She wrote that only old people leave voice mails. Young people just figure that the other person will see their number in “missed calls” and call back if they want or need to talk. She said if it’s urgent young people leave a text.

Brittany almost never answers an email from me unless I put in the subject line, “Please answer.” Then I will get an answer something like 1. yes 2. did 3. ok

I rarely hear back if I leave a voice mail and to save face (before reading the book) would end my message with “You don’t have to call me back, I just wanted to tell you this.”

The advice in the book was to say nothing. Just hang up. When your kid doesn’t answer their cell it’s either because they didn’t hear it, didn’t charge it, or saw your name and didn’t want to talk to you. If you leave a long message they’ll get annoyed and won’t listen nor call you back. But, if you say nothing you are speaking their language. Plus, they’ll think your news is so bad (or good) you couldn’t leave a voice mail. So they get curious – and call you back.

The first time I sort of tried this with Brittany it sort of worked. I didn’t want to just hang up, so I briefly said, “Call me.”

She immediately called her dad and asked, “Am I in trouble?”