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Dr. Ed

There’s and App for That: Lessons from Willy Loman

In playwright Arthur Miller’s iconic play, Death of a Salesman, Willy Loman was a tragic figure. In the early years of his career, he got by with a shoeshine and a smile. In other words, the power of his personality, the catalyst of personal relationships sealed the deal.


However, Willy did not keep up with technology, and, in his case, it was the telephone. Without use of the latest communication device, his sales performance plummeted, and he was overlooked for many professional advancements. In the final scene, Willy commits suicide out of total desperation.


But Willy did leave us a legacy.


Most of us live in a blistering, hyper-caffeinated digital tornado where everything is due yesterday, time and space are totally irrelevant, and a text message can circle the globe in a second. The news of Lincoln’s assassination in 1865 took twelve days to reach the United Kingdom. Today, that information would’ve gone viral with several videos in less than a second.


Here is the lesson in today’s blog.


Peggy and I stopped by a lawn and garden “shop” to pick up a few plants and some clay pots. The day of the mom-and-pop operation is over. Almost every city has a plantation about the size of a Central American country with almost every bush, twig, and flower that you could purchase.


We were looking for a particular size of clay pot to accommodate a plant. Because of the growth pattern of the plant, the specifics of the pot were very clear. So many inches on the inside measurement, so many inches on the outside measurement, and a depth of X number of inches.


A gentleman who looked like Indiana Jones, tanned and weather-worn, had an expandable ruler on his belt that could have easily reached the moon. We explained our specifications, and he moved a number of pots in the broiling sun and finally found one that met our needs. He then balanced the pot on his knee and took multiple measurements and wrote them down on a tattered sheet of paper and wished us all the best.


Before we left the mega-store, we checked our list and noted that we needed an additional pot for some obscure tropical plant with a long name in Latin. Indiana Jones was not available, but we connected with a young man in that department. We explained the predicament, and he said, “We can fix you up right now.”


He calmly scanned a pile of pots until he could see a QR code. He then fired up his cell-phone-inventory device. He scanned the code and printed out the specs in less than thirty seconds.


Always looking for technical gimmicks, I asked our young gentleman how he learned to do this. He said, “There’s an app for everything. He had downloaded an app that clearly enabled him to find the specifics of any product with a QR code.

 

Sorry, Willy, this is the bottom line:


  • The future belongs to the fit, the focused, and those who are technically fluent. This does not mean building our own laptop, but it does mean asking the question, “Is there really a better way to do this?”

  • The future also belongs to the humble. Our young salesperson patiently explained the mechanics of his handheld device and made us think of all the time we must have wasted when this technology wasn’t available.

  • By the way, the future also belongs to those who can build a better mousetrap.

 

 

 

Edward T. Creagan, MD. FAAHPM, is emeritus professor in the Mayo Clinic Medical School. A board-certified hospice and palliative medicine physician, an oncologist, he has written two books (available on Amazon): Farewell: Vital End-of-Life Questions with Candid Answers and How NOT to Be My Patient. He welcomes you to view his poignant and helpful tidbits of health info on his new channel on TikTok.



Media image from Unsplash

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