Flatten It Out

Internal Slack message chain between Sean and Troy.

SEAN: Hey Troy. I’m trying to put together a write-up for this “Garment Steamer” thing but I’m having a hard time understanding what it actually does. You mind giving me a quick rundown?
TROY: Sure I can. But remind me, how long have you worked from home?
SEAN: Oh gosh, it’s been years and years.
TROY: That’s what I was afraid of. It’ll make this difficult, but I think I can explain. So, imagine your most prized piece of clothing.
SEAN: Easy, the sweatpants I wear to sleep at night. So comfy!
TROY: Okay, but maybe something a little fancier than that.
SEAN: The sweatpants I wear when I take a walk.
TROY: Fancier still.
SEAN: The sweatpants I wear to the grocery store.
TROY: You really can’t think of anything fancier than that?
SEAN: Maybe a black pair of sweatpants, for if there’s a funeral?
TROY: I’m going to try a different approach. Imagine you have to talk to someone. And I don’t mean via text or Slack or even on the phone. They’re going to see you. But your shirt is all wrinkly. What would you do?
SEAN: Angle my screen so you can see as little of the shirt as possible over the Zoom meeting, and then trust that my built-in webcam’s resolution isn’t crisp enough to show much anyway.
TROY: I don’t mean on Zoom.
SEAN: Same strategy works for Google Meet too.
TROY: Not Google Meet either.
SEAN: Whoa, Skype?! People still use that?!
TROY: No! Real life! You’re meeting someone in real life! For work! And you have a wrinkly shirt!
SEAN: So, I don’t mean to ‘well, actually’ you here, but it was called Second Life, not real life, and I don’t think anyone was doing work stuff in there.
TROY: Ugh. Okay. Look. Here’s what this thing does. It produces steam so you can run it over your clothes. When you do that, it removes wrinkles, refreshes the fabric, and kills bacteria. This one happens to have a bigger steam area than a lot of them out there, and 4 settings, so it can be used safely on delicates and not-so-delicates alike. Plus, it’s portable, so you can take it wherever you go. Does that help at all? Is any of this getting through?
SEAN: Wow, yes! Thank you! This is exactly what I needed!
TROY: Phew, okay. Great.
SEAN: Seriously, thank you so much, Troy! I’ll get right on the write-up as soon as I get off the toilet.
TROY: You know what? I’m going to go ahead and mute notifications on these DMs for a little while.