Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

A recent manager wrote his thoughts in the air with his finger. There was some good, some bad, and some annoyances with this habit. But, as with most things people do, there was plenty to learn.

I worked on a short project recently where the project manager wrote in the air. To emphasize a point, he literally moved his pointer finger through the air like a pencil spelling what he said in the air.

Needless to say, what he wrote in the air disappeared quickly. There is no magic whiteboard in the air; there wasn’t even any fog in the air to provide a lingering view of his writing. It went away as soon as he wrote it.

There is some good to his words disappearing so quickly. Most of his words, frankly, were not worth remembering let alone being recorded for posterity. I was happy to have them go as soon as they were written.

There is also some bad to his words in the air. Sometimes he would start by, “I’ve got it. This is really important.” Then her would state a list of eight or ten things to be done and how to do them. He finished with, “You got it? Okay, now go do it.” My protests of, “Wait, could you write that on paper or something?” fell to the floor as he had bolted from the room no doubt to hypnotize some one else in some other room with his finger dancing through the air.

There was also some annoyance about his writing in the air. After the first half dozen times I was no longer amused. This short project comprised 10 or 13 days of working 10 to 13 hours each day including the weekends. Fatigue has a way of making otherwise eccentric behavior downright irksome.

But there is some good to having temporary thoughts be recorded in a temporary manner. Projects have been ruined by some “thinking out loud” that was scribbled on a white board and then emblazoned with “DO NOT ERASE” next to them. Thinking out loud is fine as a technique to generate ideas, but I have found it to be un-erasable only on rare occasions. Most of the manager’s air writing was recording temporary thoughts, so it was good that it was written in a very temporary manner.