Words Matter
“Mamma, do you want to know how we go to the bathroom in cyber-technology?”
What would your answer have been?
I said, “Sure, hit me. Can’t wait. How do you go the bathroom?” My daughter who is in seventh grade proceeded to tell me, “First you have to get one of your hall pass slips and take it up to the teacher. Once she sees you have a hall pass you take one of the permission notes from the board, but if there are no permission notes you can not go to the bathroom. Then you log into (some name of some software), and fill in a request for hall access. You have to enter your name, your teacher, your grade, where you want to go, what time you want to go, estimated length of time you would need to be there, and the reason for the request. Once you hit submit you get a code and you take the authorization note with the code on it to the teacher. Then you sit back down and log into (same name of the software that I forgot) to see if someone in the front office approved or denied your request. If it is approved you write the code down on your hallpass and you can go. After you get back, you give the hallpass to the teacher and you log back into (same name of the software) and you have to enter the time that you returned to class.”
“Hmmm”, I said. “Are you able to go to the bathroom between classes without doing all that?”
“Yes.” said my daughter.
“Well, I would do that. Just go to the bathroom between classes.” I suggested.
“She said, oh no, the way we go to the bathroom is fun!” she said.
I told her to enjoy the process of gaining authorization while she still thinks it’s fun. I was expecting her to describe an interesting toilet or a quirky middle school girls’ line procedure, rock/paper/scissors or something. Instead, she described what sounded suspiciously like onboarding paperwork for a mid-level corporate job.
It also occurred to me that words matter. Notice she did not say, We have to ask for permission to use the bathroom. She said, We request hall access. One sounds like elementary school. The other sounds like you’ve been issued a badge, an employee handbook, and a compliance training module. It’s amazing what a few carefully chosen words can do. They can soften inconvenience, disguise bureaucracy, and make waiting for someone else’s approval sound almost…exciting.
Apparently, if you rename permission authorization and call it a digital workflow, middle schoolers think it’s entertainment, and it becomes “how we go to the bathroom”.
