Friday, September 2, 2011
Question 3
An interesting part of the chapter was the part about our safety needs in regard to communication. The chapter gives the scenarios of having a sober friend drive, or speaking with law enforcement if you think you may need protection. This is an area that we often take for granted because we don't think about how important our communication skills are in these types of situations. If something bad were to happen to someone, they would need to have a certain level of communication skill just to explain the situation or to even ask for help. I liked the fact that this part of the chapter was easy to relate to some personal experiences in my life. I remember there was a time when someone was knocking on my door at a random hour during the night. I was not expecting visitors so I chose not to open the door. I called our apartment security and explained to them why this was a concern for me. I think that if I had approached it from a different angle the security might have just thought that it was a friend or someone coming to visit me. They were able to understand why I found this strange because I explained that I was not expecting any visitors nor did I order a pizza, etc. As paranoid as that may sound to some people, the time of day and the fact that the person was a stranger to me was a red flag not to open the door. My girlfriend had peered through the door and was able to recognize the person as someone we had seen before walking his dog around our complex. However just because we are neighbors doesn't change the fact that he was a stranger to us. We had never spoken before this night so I found it weird that for the first time he chose to talk to us was at such a late hour. Through communicating with security and the office staff we were able to sort everything out and also find out that the reason he was knocking was to ask me if I was planning to sell an older car that I rarely drove. Although he chose a bad time and place to ask me the question, the communication between everyone ended up giving me the peace of mind that I needed.
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Hi Catana,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that safety needs is an area that we often take for granted. When I read this section, I thought about how normal and relatable the concept was, yet I had never really thought of safety as an area of communication. After reading this section and your post, I can definitely see how being able to communicate effectively is integral in getting the help or advise you need. No one can help us out if we do not give them relevant information. Not only will it be ineffective, but it could also be misinterpreted. In cases of our safety needs, I think the most important is getting to the point. The longer we beat around the bush, the more lost the message becomes.