When I was in high school, my mom was a secretary to an elementary school principal. One of Mom’s responsibilities was taking phone calls from the teachers at that school when they called in sick. It happened almost every school day. So my mom would have to offer a temporary contract to someone on a list of qualified substitute teachers. One morning while our family was at the breakfast table, Mom called a surrogate, and one of the woman’s sons responded to her call like this: “She’s hot.”
This was too much information, the wrong information, and it went both ways. Probably the bathroom lady needed that job and she never knew she had received a job offer. How did this happen? My mom simply asked to speak to the other woman and she gave no hint that she was calling to offer a job. Also, Mom didn’t indicate an emergency. After my family laughed at what happened, my mom kept calling other substitutes until she found one who accepted the offer. The first woman could have instructed her children to ask the person she calls, “Is this a job offer?”
My mom just did a task (one she hated to do) and gave little thought to how to do it. This event took place in the early 1970s (no Internet, no computers, no cell phones, no conference calls, and no commercially available answering machines), so she it was limited technology. But you could have minimized your effort by anticipating the task and planning to support it more efficiently. Mom told me that most teachers had a lesson plan set up in their classrooms, ready for a substitute just in case. She said teachers would get upset if a substitute didn’t follow the plan or if students said the substitute allowed them to have a “lazy” day.
Over time, Mom should have known which substitutes liked which teachers. She could have gotten the principle of making a policy change regarding finding substitutes, something like this: Teachers who would call in sick should try to find their preferred substitutes (the first, or the first two or more) and those particular substitute phone numbers will be provided to them. Once it’s fixed (or if you tried and didn’t fix it) then call the secretary (my mom) and tell her who’s going to replace you or who you called that. I couldn’t substitute. The clerk will then handle the matter of an abbreviated list.
A simple but wise saying, “You know what you know,” could be better said as, “You find out what you want to know,” by asking detailed questions or providing details that might prompt a detailed question.” Matthew 7:7-8. You have read a quote from Jesus, the Christ, who taught others how God looks at them Read more, Matthew 7:9-29 for more context on how God will interact with you through prayer.