Smiles Like a Watermelon; or, Old Dogs Learning New Tricks is a Happy Thing

One of the good things about getting older, dear reader, is the ability to be able to freely admit that one doesn't know something; or perhaps, if one knows somewhat about something, one is able to allow that there is Plenty More to Know about that something than the knowing that one currently enjoys.
This ability is a rather joyful thing to possess; handy in most situations that one can think of, and in some that one may not readily perceive.

For instance, I employed the Crocs website to order a pair of red Crocs for Little Guy's birthday, the item at the top of his handwritten wish-list. Being a person of a certain age, my experience with navigating websites is still rudimentary; I still regard the online ordering process as filling out a form to enact an exchange: this is who I am, this is how you can find me to deliver the goods, and here is how I'm paying you to do so, thank you very much, and now I will click the send button. In most instances, this viewpoint has been quite functional.
I began to check both porches of our house when the stated window of delivery arrived. In my previous experiences, the online ordering process has ended at either of these porches, and I didn't wish to Take Any Chances. He is going to be so excited! I think.
LG's birthday came and went. My ritual of the porches continued each day.
About a week and a half ago, I sent an email to Crocs, asking them to please advise me as to the status of the order; usually when I've ordered online in the past, the order confirmation has included tracking information, and I could not find any in the correspondence from them in my inbox. He is going to be so excited! I think.
My porch ritual continued. No delivery; no reply in my inbox.
Friday morning, I attempt to phone the customer service toll-free number listed on the Crocs website. I reach a recorded message that says the system is down, and if I know my party's extension, I may dial it at this time. Thinking I've misdialed, I dial again, and receive the same message, though I'm now listening to it in its entirety. It tells me to dial '0' for assistance, as I hoped it would: and then it continues to ring for the five minutes I remain on the line before hanging up.
Now feeling thwarted, for I had so hoped to speak with A Real Person, I begin to fill out the form provided on the customer service section of the website; the form is given as an alternative to phoning and speaking to a customer service representative: yet, I feel strangely irritated by the form. The form was my last option, and I feel as if I've been forced to use it.
Pull over, FedEx truck, and give me my Crocs, LG jokes, everytime we pass a FedEx truck.

So, from my limited experience with How Things Work When You Order From Crocs Online, I wrote my inquiry into this form, and I am sad to say, I was somewhat more terse than in my first written and unrequited inquiry: being in a job where I don't sit down all day, I felt that I could be a lifetime customer, but I would go elsewhere if I did not receive satisfaction, the choice was theirs---more or less.
Pull over, FedEx truck, and give me my Crocs, LG jokes, everytime we pass a FedEx truck.



A few hours later, I receive a short reply from a polite representative. The order was shipped and delivered, and indeed, arrived on July 13 (note, dear reader, 3 full days before the birthday); but if I indeed had not received the shipment, she would arrange to have a replacement delivered. I should, she notes, have been able to find this information on my account page on the Crocs website.
Oh. So that's how they do things, I think, glad to add some new knowledge to my previous experience.
I share with Snowy, LG, and Big Guy what the representative has told me.
Intuitively, like the most quiet flash, LG, BG, and I go to the front porch, the porch whose door we never, ever use. We open the screen door; inside the screen door, outside the front door, in that little space between, sits the box: snug, waiting.
LG and BG tear it open, laughing.
LG puts on the red Crocs and jumps up and down. He's beaming.
So am I.
Dear reader, I think so much about learning, and about experience. I'm glad to have this experience, as mortified as I felt, for many reasons.
I love to learn new things; so I'm glad to have my experience and knowledge about online ordering become more nuanced.
I'm glad to also have the lesson reinforced to me about assumptions: we assume so much knowledge as a given. I assumed that the FedEx driver would place the box openly on either porch, as the mailman and countless UPS drivers have done in the past. To the Crocs representative, so facile in the Crocs system, it was incredibly apparent how to navigate that system to find the particular knowing I wanted. To me, my experience of How Things Have Been didn't match with How Things Are For Crocs: and as a result, I felt frustrated, powerless. It caused me to feel anxious because I was trying to use what I knew had worked before (emails, tracking links, and telephone inquiries) to get me what I wanted (LG's happiness: beaming and leaping in bright red shoes).

We are told in our classroom management classes that students want most to feel as if they can affect others in a positive way (LG's happy leaping) as well as to feel that they have a sense of power and control over the environment (thus the desire to speak to a real person to reason out the situation as opposed to filling out a form and waiting) and to belong (I've been able to navigate the environment successfully, and make a positive outcome, so therefore, I'm in my element here---I belong).
In my Birthday Crocs lesson, I didn't feel power, belonging, or able to affect something positive, until I was able to have my experience more nuanced. Someone had to Spell It Out (delivered on the 13th, see it on your account page), and I had to be able to be Sufficiently Motivated ( Pull over, FedEx truck, and give me my Crocs, LG jokes, everytime we pass a FedEx truck) to step a little outside of my experience (box in plain sight on the porch), to Meet It Halfway (halfway between inside and outside, to be exact!).

How much do we assume as a given for our students with autism? For our students in any classroom? Or as a given for anyone that we meet?
My experience is too much, too often.

What a wonderful gift, this lesson: I'm much better equipped to Meet Halfway---and then the real good stuff of the trip, that part where we all learn good, new stuff together---in fact, because we are together---can begin.

I'll finish posting with a poem by the new United States Poet Laureate, Charles Simic: in honor of different ways of perception; in honor of a belated bit of LG's birthday celebration.
As I have another post to make up for my weekend silence, more about poetry later today, hopefully, dear reader, wherein I will again confess to how much I don't know, and why I revel in my foolishness.

Watermelons

Green Buddhas
On the fruit stand.
We eat the smile
And spit out the teeth.

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/watermelons/


Former location of the "Green Buddha," in Wat Phrakaco, Laos
http://galen-frysinger.com/viet_nam/laos16.jpg