Every once in a while I encounter someone in some professional field or other whom I find to have a bit of a hidden agenda. I hear them speaking, but it’s always that “background” noise that I find disturbing. It happened more than once today with people from two different professions. I’m getting a bit worried that it’s becoming a bit of a contagion in society.
The first occurrence was when I was asking someone about time frames of this person’s workload going forward these next months because I would possibly have some work to be completed. All I was doing was asking about time frames and the gentleman didn’t answer me directly and jumped forward in saying he wanted to inspect the work I wanted done. I didn’t even say I had a project or work. I was simply asking about his workload. I was a bit annoyed because he didn’t answer my simple question and jumped to a broad conclusion that I did have immediate work and would indeed us him. I took his card but will likely not call him back because he lacks the ability to answer direct questions with a simple answer.
Another person I just happened to run into this afternoon who’s wife does specialty work caused me to ask him a simple question about the general cost of a service. Instead of him simply saying, “I don’t know what she charges for that particular service, but I’ll have her call you.”, he continued on with a multitude of questions about the what’s and why’s of the simple service I questioned him about. Whew! It’s no wonder we don’t seem to get much done during the course of a day due to the over-load of irrelevant questioning.
One of my dear and terribly intelligent relatives gets overly annoyed when I ask questions that are considered at the time to be too inquisitive. I know he’s learning not to be so guarded because he’s never found me to be a spreader of tales. Yes, we all must be careful about sharing information, but we also must remember that there are those who do want the best for us.
With that said, I believe all of us can learn to discern in what name or “in nomine” the inquisitive person speaks. Is it in the name of truly sharing and caring, or in the name of greed and self-promotion? To have a real established relationship in business or personal life, wouldn’t it be a hoot if we had the ability to know from the outset, in what name or in nomine, the person speaks? I think I shall attempt it but a few times with several of my close associates. How about if I start a conversation off by saying, “In what name do you speak?”
