Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Damned Details

Some of you may have noticed a typo here and there in my blog posts. As it turns out, I didn't notice them. In fact, I overlook many of the details in my life.

In my almost-quarter century of life, I have learned about myself as a learner and liver (You know, one who lives?). Among some above-average and mediocre skills, I have some deficits. Most apparent is my failure to attend to the details of life. Recently, Tracy and I flew to Los Angeles to visit her family. Tracy flew down a day earlier, and I had planned to fly into Orange County and arrive at the same time as her sister, who was coming from Oklahoma. Without paying attention, I flew into LAX instead of SNA. Tracy had to drive an extra hour to pick me up and have her cousin pick up her sister-- Brutal (and brutally funny to many of you). Tracy's dad put it most accurately when he asked, "Leo, where is your brain?"

On the same night that I booked my LAX ticket, I also booked tickets for my dad and sister to fly into Denver. Knowing that I needed to coordinate times, airlines, and credit card numbers, I took my time to focus on this task. You know what's coming... Yep, I scheduled my sister's flight for 7pm rather than 7am. Classic. As I blog, my sister is on the phone trying to figure out stand-by procedures. Tomorrow, I will find out how much effort and money is needed to amend this blunder.

My inability to focus on details extends beyond aerial snafus, but these examples are the most outstanding as they have impacted others. As a graduate student, I am juggling class work, practica, research projects, and side endeavors, and I have got to find a way to organize my life, one detail at a time. Although this post has been especially incriminating, I want to speak directly to my current and future employers, family, friends, and significant other.

Hi! We are or soon will be interdependent on one another for work, fun, and/or living... Wait, don't leave! Hear me out! Regarding this post, I am going to work on it, I promise! I realize my actions have spoken otherwise, but I am about to about-face with this careless trend. Morning routines, lists that get looked at after they are made, reading directions, and double-checking confirmation pages will soon be in my arsenal as a functioning human being. To prove it to you, I have edited and reedited this blog post*! And, as always, I will be your number one big-picture guy.

Mea Culpa,

Leo

*If you find mistakes in this post, call me ASAP! Great, thanks.

4 comments:

Naomi said...

You effed up my name too.

Good thing I love you unconditionally and understand completely as another non-detail person.

Naomi said...

You should have also written about how you overslept and missed your flight in Oklahoma that time.

Maybe it's not details, just airlines.

Remember when dad showed up at the airport on the wrong day for his SkillsUSA competition?

Okay... I'm going stop....

Newt said...

Oh, cute Leo! I bet you put that typo in the italicized portion of your post just to see if I would call you at 2:44AM your time to tell you. Just remember, every great and famous "global thinker" had a well organized administrative assistant behind them. Also, look towards the future. If you were totally organized you wouldn't have great stories to tell your grandchildren... or for them to tell about you.

Susan said...

Pobody's Nerfect! Wonder if it's a genetic trait? Global, big picture folks know they aren't good with details. Detailed folks, in as much as I need/love them, are clueless about the big picture.