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Located in Nevada, Tahoe Call Center is a small family-run business with a big heart, ready to help with your communication needs. Since 2012 we have assisted clients coast to coast in varied economic and emergency climates: wild-fires, blizzards, ice storms, pandemics, and unforeseen events (with affordable, competitive pricing that didn’t add further trauma).
Rain or shine, short-staffed or no staff, we help keep your business going: Answering phones / taking messages / providing information / Taking credit card orders / collecting and transmitting confidential information via email, SMS, or API (linking with existing systems). Our agents are trained to process sensitive information with courtesy, respect, and maintain the strictest of confidence. We also help with those intermittent overflow call surges during business hours and cover your customer inquiries when you are closed. “Always here so you don’t have to be” – We help keep things running smoothly 24/7, 365 days a year. Tahoecall.com
JULY 2022 Blog: 19 – M. Hines
We have some new neighbors. New is a ‘relative’ description. Living rural, anyone existing here for less than 10 years is ‘new’, and anyone here, even for 20 years, is still ‘newer’ than those living here before them. This paradigm is not stagnant. It ebbs and flows like the tides. As one resident passes or moves away, history shifts and the least ‘new’ person becomes a method of measurement, a source of reference: “Remember those people who used to live at the Smith’s house? What was their name …the ones that had 3 dogs?” The newly attritioned oracle would respond: “You’re thinking of the Jones’ house and those were the Parkers.”
Out here, addresses are known by the names of the residents –not necessarily the current occupants but the original tenants. Residential history is often used as a navigation tool: ‘Follow this road past the Smith’s house and take a right by the Jones place; the Marley’s will be just around the corner…” (Just around the corner is a relative term when you’re traversing acreage). “You mean the Randall house down the lane?” “No, they live there now, but the Smiths were there before them.”
In our valley, we accept these historic residents as authorities. They provide current and past information spiced with bits of unsolicited gossip. We accept what they say must be true; after all, they’ve lived here longer than anyone. As sole witnesses of our valley’s past; it doesn’t matter if memory doesn’t serve them as well as they think. We acknowledge the details and topics of common discourse in our small existence aren’t ‘life and death’. Still, this complete acceptance of information and opinion as fact got me thinking about how we as humans—in a larger venue—communicate, and, just what is it that makes us blindly accept and believe what others tell us?
“COMMUNICATION IS ONLY 10% VERBAL…”
A teacher ignited a class I took once with this revelation. I hadn’t thought much about that statement until lately when Covid hit and mask-wearing reminded me how much we rely on facial expression to clarify and understand the intent of what is being said.
Communication has many layers and applications. Over time, our minds develop tools to help process what we hear, see, and experience. These tools and methods are not stagnant; they grow and adjust as we progress through life. Our techniques are unique to us; intrinsic and interwoven into our being. Akin to breathing–we’re not always consciously aware of their existence. Yet they are constantly there; adjusting, accommodating, filtering and processing the relevance and significance of information we receive to determine:
- ‘Is it threatening?
- Do I believe this?
- Is it truthful?
- Is it of value to me?
“COMMUNICATION IS VISUAL”
- “Look me in the eye and tell me that…”
We need to see a person’s face; to ‘read’ them; to ‘see’, are they telling me the truth?
- “I saw it with my own eyes”
Visual messages can be powerful and linger, often longer than verbal ones. However, relying on visual communication alone makes us more susceptible to deceit.
“COMMUNICATION IS PHYSICAL”
- A firm handshake
Society has associated this physical action with legitimacy.
- A Hug
This physical act communicates more than words are able.
Communication is not infallible. Like anything else, it is vulnerable to corruption. It can be used to con, lie, cheat, harm, delude, control, and deceive. Those filters and processors we’ve acquired throughout our lives; those tried and true methods we’ve developed to process what we hear, to protect us seamlessly from falsehoods; those filters–so akin to breathing—are not perfect. They can be manipulated by the simplest or most complex of things and people; adept masters of the con. No one is immune to this threat; we are all susceptible:
“They just asked me for my address…”
“They said they were calling from the bank and of course I gave them my account number…”
We want to believe what we are told –especially if the message is coming from someone we love, trust, or agree with:
- They share my values…
- They tell it like it is…
- They just speak to me and what I believe…
- I can see they are a good person…
Communication is the key that winds our moral clockworks:
- We trust the messenger
- We believe the message
- We accept it as truth
- We act on the information
- In our hearts, we know we’re right
No one wants to be victimized, duped, lied to, or deceived. Yet, we all have the potential to be. We are all humans:
“How could I be so stupid?” (you’re human)
“How could I let that happen?” (you’re human)
“How could I not see that coming?” (you’re human)
“Why are we so hard on ourselves?”
(we’re human)
Though the neighbors who live in this valley occupy just a tiny corner of the planet, we still share, feel, see, and empathize with the events affecting others all around the world. Whether that information is communicated through newspapers, magazines, social media, radio, television, or word of mouth– each venue has the potential to inform, educate, entertain, confound, shock, soothe, and challenge us.
As receivers of these communications, It is our responsibility to search, filter, listen, see, and discover the truth—even when it exposes us and teaches us something uncomfortable about ourselves and/or others we may have believed or trusted.
Communication like anything else can be used for good or bad. It can unlock the doors we shelter behind. It can help us see the value of each other as humans with all our complexities, fallacies, and commonalities.
And, in being able to do that, in choosing to do that, we are one step closer to that ‘more perfect union’ those who were here before us were reaching for.