The Critical Thinker

Yesterday, I had to go to the dentist and get caught up on some work that couldn't be done while I was pregnant. I actually had an appointment scheduled in August but got a horrible bug and didn't rebook the work until much later.

I love getting my teeth cleaned and always look forward to those appointments. However, I had to get 2 fillings repaired and 1 new cavity filled and I was dreading going.

My dentist told me I had a small mouth and a very powerful tongue. Huh? She told me her hand was sore from having to press my tongue down. Good, I'm glad I could reciprocate.

So, after 3 fillings and a cleaning and having my mouth open wide for 2 hours, my jaw was sore, tongue and cheeks were frozen and I was not a happy girl. I couldn't really eat anything and just felt like a milkshake for supper. So, off I headed to my local Cold Stone Creamery for a cup of icy cold,thick deliciousness.

I got to my usual place and they were out of almost every flavour of ice cream (no sweet cream, no vanilla, no chocolate) but had cotton candy, candy cane and some others that didn't really appeal. I decided to head over to another location that I noticed had recently opened - the Braeside Tim Horton's/Cold Stone Creamery.

When I walked in there, they had plenty of ice cream in all of the flavours - excellent! However, I stood there and wondered for a few minutes if I was invisible. You see, they have a separate line for the Tim Horton's customers and I guess maybe they aren't used to having ice cream customers yet because so many staff just walked on by and after politely just trying to catch someone's eye, I finally spoke up and asked if I could get some ice cream.

The young guy that said he would help me looked frazzled. I told him that I wanted a peanut butter and chocolate milkshake (Tim's order) and a cookies and creme with raspberries milkshake (my order). He had to turn around and look at the menu to see what was in a peanut and chocolate milkshake (because the name alone did not give him a clue what might be in it).

He did not know how to make a milkshake. Okay, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt, he's probably new, the ice cream thing is new to Tim Horton's, but he had to enlist the assistance of not one, not two, but three different people to get the first milkshake started. And there were even laminated written instructions on a card. Tick tock boy-o, ice cream melts and I don't got all night...

After much fumbling around, he produced a 3/4 full milkshake and gave me sort of a "ta-da" like I should applaud for him or something. Congratulations, you put chocolate ice cream and peanut butter in a blender. I had to ask him to please fill up the cup - if I'm paying $5.29 for a milkshake, the cup should at least be full. He had to ask somebody if that was okay. Uh, yeah, I'm sure it's fine, considering you still have about 1/4 cup left in the blender that would fill the empty space perfectly.

When it came to doing mine, he did slightly better, only this time he didn't make enough and still had to ask somebody what to do. A manager came over and told him to just put more milk, more ice cream and more oreo into a blender and make a little more.

At this point, I didn't know whether to laugh at this kid or feel sorry for him. And now the point of this blog.

What is wrong with kids today? Why can't they think for themselves? Why are companies programming their employees so they cannot make decisions? When you go to the theatre and ask for something slightly out of the ordinary (bottled water instead of a pop in a combo or to split a large popcorn into two bags) you are looked at oddly and told in no uncertain terms that it can't be done. Yes, actually, it can be done, but you've been brainwashed into thinking that you are not allowed to step outside the box to help a customer.

What bugs me though is that managers always have the ability to step in and do what you want them to do, making them look like heroes and the employees look like schlubs. Companies need to start letting people think for themselves and give a little leeway. Employees need to know they can make a mistake and nothing bad will happen, as long as they learn from their mistakes and don't continually do the same wrong thing over and over again.

I was disturbed that this kid had to ask a question for every step of the process. Had he be trained that he can't think for himself or could he really not think for himself? Either way, not a nice way to live.

I hope that I can teach Vaughn to think for himself, try to figure out how to do something and only if he really needs help, ask me for it. It's hard, because I already have to catch myself just doing things because it's easier. In the long run, it's not going to be easier, because I'm going to have a kid that depends on me for absolutley everything and I don't want that.

Vaughn's only 8 months old and I'm already thinking about these kinds of things, but I guess one has to. The habits we set now as parents are the ones that our children are going to take into the outside world with them, and I don't want my child to be working somewhere someday and getting somebody frustrated because of his inability to make a simple decision.

This parenting thing is hard.