Lessons learned


Well the comments from Val in yesterday's post made my day when I read them at 2 am this morning
I had just got home after a stint at SAMS.......and had checked Going Gently before going to bed......
It's nice to bookend a blog entry is it not ?
Anyhow
Does anyone remember the movie Airport?
It was the precursor of the 1970's disaster movie and was basically a cinematic " Grand Hotel" with 707s  and George Kennedy chewing on an unlit cigar.
Well the heroine of Aiport was Helen Hayes who played the 70 year old stowaway Ada Quonsett.... And tonight I worked until the wee small hours at Sams with an Ada Quonsett lookalike.
I've not worked with this lady before, so I sat back and listened to some of her interactions over the phone.
It was a revelation
Insightful, challenging, objective , caring and oh so appropriate I listened to a real master of the craft deal with several acutely distressed and potentially suicidal callers.
She looked like a dotty older lady
But what I listened to was pure class.....class that would put the best psychoanalyst to shame

I learnt a great deal tonight

31 comments:

  1. Slowly I am falling in love with you. Thank you.

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    1. Oh dear... Remember I only have eyes for Chris ( and russell Crowe)

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    2. You are not alone. me too. The problem is that I am a little beat old and too far.

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  2. Airport is a movie I've loved, each time I've seen it. I also like when I get to use lines from it (who doesn't)...a couple weeks ago I had visitors, was pointing out the various things from up on the hill, said "....and that's the hospital."), she wasn't paying attention and turned. "What a hospital?" she asked, wondering what I was talking about. "It's a large building, a lot of doctors inside, but that's not important."
    She just frowned.

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  3. You crack me up
    The film you are referring to is " airplane" a spoof of airport made in 1980 ( airport was filmed in1969)

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    1. Fine. I'm checking in tommorrow to the 'home'. I'll check back in as they let me, or meds allow.

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  4. And yet another lesson well learned. We dotty-looking old broads are smarter than we look.

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  5. Pure class, how great to recognize it and to be near it.

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  6. I've loved Helen Hayes since I was a teenager back in the 1950s....here she was called the First Lady of American Theater.

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  7. I liked 'Airport' too.

    I know your blog was essentially about a more serious matter, but:-
    On my first and (so far) only visit to NY, back in '69, on getting to my distinctly sub--standard hotel (spiders in the bed, would you believe?) I needed cheering up and switched on the room's small b/w telly to see none other than David Frost, in his first American series, interviewing Helen Hayes about this film. He buttered her up by describing it as "A film you STOLE!" - which I thought, on returning home and seeing it at the cinema some months later, was rather OTT. But a good film all the same.

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  8. Oh I so want her to become part of the cast at Trelawynd.....for us to get to know her and her history.....John you are so sweet to acknowledge her capabilities in a post x

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  9. Much to be learned from the dotty old gals...and so like you to spot it...

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  10. Are people daft or something?

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  11. That lesson could come in handy.

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  12. I do remember Ada Quonsett, being a huge lover of all disaster movies! Helen Hayes always played classy parts. Even when she was dotty, she was dignified in her dottiness.

    As for your co-worker, she sounds like she does a terrific job!

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  13. She sounds incredibly good at her job. As if she were made for it.

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  14. I bet it's enlightening to listen to others doing their SAMS job.

    I guess all of you come at problems and calls with a slightly different tack and expertise. All of them good, most of them right, but all of them of such immense use to the callers you speak too.

    The callers would be lucky to get either of you on the end of their line.

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  15. Class and experience knows no age or bounds....

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  16. I love competence, people quietly, thoroughly and appropriately tackling work.

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  17. Older people are the treasure of our society

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  18. I hope you find a moment to tell that woman how impressed you were by her telephone wisdom.

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  19. I loved Helen Hayes in Airport. She made it worth watching. I would like to run into a Helen Hayes lookalike.

    Love,
    Janie

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  20. It's often the case that the most unassuming, unprepossessing people turn out to be astonishingly wise and inspiring. You can't judge a book by looking at its cover....

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  21. I remember the movie "Airport," and I've liked Helen Hayes in every film or tv show I saw her in.

    I agree with Sue, i'd like to have someone like that woman or you on the other line if I were to call with a problem.

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  22. I want to have been born with this woman's skills. Failing that, I want to apprentice under her in order to acquire them. Failing that, I am just happy to hear she exists. Kind, skilled and helpful people are gems.

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  23. I was obsessed with that movie and the book as a kid! And I loved Helen Hayes.

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