Back to school sounds like the house should suddenly become quiet again. For part of the day, it does. Then I pick Oliver up, we come home, and I still have work left to do.
He is seven. He should not need to understand my calendar, know which meeting platform I am using, or guess whether the headphones mean I am listening to music or talking to a room full of people.
He just needs a clear answer before opening the office door.
We made the answer a color
The Presence display lives beside my office door. It turns all the signals from my workday into something Oliver can understand in a second.
It is not a complicated system. That is exactly why it works.
“What did you break?”
That is what Oliver asked one day when he came in, saw me talking on the phone, and noticed the display was still green.
He had already learned the system well enough to know that the software was wrong. As I have worked through bugs, he has become one of the most honest testers I have.
The details stay inside the office
Presence does not need to tell Oliver who I am talking to, what the meeting is called, or what is on my calendar. It only shares the answer he actually needs.
That same idea can help a spouse, a coworker, a receptionist, or anyone else standing on the other side of a door. Good communication does not always need more information. Sometimes it just needs the right information at the right moment.
A small win after school
There is still homework, dinner, family time, and the occasional interruption. Presence does not try to remove any of that. It simply makes the handoff between school time, work time, and family time a little clearer.
And apparently, I now have a seven-year-old quality assurance department.