Mental DMs
Musical Mixup
I recently bought an Alexa device for my mom. She's been slowly losing her vision over the past few years, so I figured a voice-activated device might brighten her mornings and simplify some tasks.
I programmed Alexa to execute a few routines every morning — she tells my mom the day, time, and weather, then lets her know what's on her calendar for the day. After that, Alexa plays a little morning music to get my mom up and at 'em. I pick a different kick-off song every day, then Alexa fills in the blanks with similar artists for an hour, or until mom stops her.
This routine was doing what I'd hoped it would. My sister and I noticed my mom had a bit more pep in her step whenever we'd check in on her via the Ring cams we have in her house. But one day, things kinda went off the rails.
That morning I'd programmed the song O-o-h Child by The Five Stairsteps to play, but somehow Alexa got confused. She played Started From the Bottom by Drake.
That's like ordering french toast for breakfast and receiving sushi.
If you know anything about Drake — or most hip hop artists — you know his lyrics can be rather explicit. And if you know anything about septuagenarians raised on Motown music, you know that hip hop music sounds like fingers on a chalkboard to them. To add insult to injury, in this particular song Drake drops the N word so often, you'd think he was getting paid by the occurrence.
Mom doesn't like or use that word.
About 90 seconds in she'd had enough of this hippity hoppity stuff. She walked over to Alexa and glared at her with a menacing look that would make a human child immediately stop what they were doing. But Alexa is an inanimate object that can't read expressions — so she kept playing Drake.
Then my mom called Alexa the N word.
It was clearly inadvertent. Within a half a second mom caught herself and said, "I mean Alexa. Stop playing that music. I don't like it!"
I think Alexa was shocked. I know I was.
I think I watched the Ring cam replay at least 50 times, each time laughing harder than the time before. The image of my mom — a docile, legally blind, 78-year-old African-American grandmother — flashing an ice grill at a computer as if she was about to shank it was funnier than the SNL Cowbell sketch.
Less time than a TV commercial break — that's all it took for Alexa and Drake to turn my mom into a Menace II Society.
Maybe next time I'll start her off with Kenny G and call it a day.
The Internal Speaker
So, Drake's word sliding into my mom's mental DMs then tumbling out of her mouth is pretty funny. Ninety seconds of repetition essentially overrode seventy-eight years of choice. But the moment that really jumped out at me isn't the slip — it's the half-second after.
Mom heard the word so much, she eventually said it. Then she heard herself say it and self-corrected in less time than it took you to read this sentence. We see this play out at work all the time, albeit at varying speeds of self-recognition.
You join a new team ready to make a difference with sharp and original opinions. Six months in, you hear yourself in a meeting and realize the words coming out are leadership's, not yours.
Your colleagues speak poorly about another team member at a happy hour. You pile on, citing your own examples of the co-worker's sub-par work quality, only to feel guilty the next day. The next time the gossip starts, you steer the conversation elsewhere.
In the heat of the moment, you fire off an email to quickly get your point across. Five minutes later you reread it, realize it came off a bit sharper than you intended, then immediately send a softer follow-up.
Each case highlights the same phenomenon at three different scales. The variable isn't the thing that influenced your words. It's how quickly you hear yourself.
The gap between speaking and hearing yourself speak is where character actually lives.
Mom's slip was funny. The catch was the part of her I'll remember.
Question of the Week
When was the last time you heard yourself say something that wasn’t really you?
Are you subscribed?
If you enjoyed this article and want more weird stories that make corporate life make sense, Sunday Setup lands in your inbox every Sunday at 3:30 PM ET.
Click the button below to get a weekly dose of humor and mindfulness to help beat the Sunday Scaries.
