Focus

I've touched on this before. I'm not a detail person. I prefer to allow my mind to wander over the 'big picture' and leave the examination of the brush strokes to others.

Lately I've had that challenged. The assessment for my new job entailed levels of concentration on one thing - focusing - that I find difficult. I did it though.

Yesterday I had to focus again. It was during the 'Sight and Hearing' tests I have to have for the job.

The sight test was normal run of the mill stuff. Reading things at a distance and close up, with and without glasses, with both eyes and then each eye. I realised that it wasn't too crucial as long as I could see reasonably well, which I can.........with my glasses on.

Not so the hearing test. This was a tightly controlled exercise that I found quite nerve wracking.

I had to sit inside a little cubicle with a window with some very tight fitting headphones clamped to my ears. The test consisted of listening for pulsating noises and pressing a button for the duration of the time I could hear the noise.

And boy were they faint. So faint that I had ended up holding my breath. I could hear my own heart beat above this and then became aware of the general noise from my body and allowed that to take my mind elsewhere. I wondered if I was imagining some of the faintest noises and the whole thing took on a dream-like quality which fired up my imagination and..............oh shit.

I was getting distracted and had to force myself back to the task in hand.

Then, I just had to breath and because I'd held my breath for a while it came in a whoosh that hid the noises and that made my mind wander.................bugger.

It seemed to go on forever and I was a bag of nerves when it finished. We had to wait for the computer to process and then print out the result.

And the result?

Well, the nurse who supervised it was gobsmacked. My hearing is near perfect; unusually so for my age.

'I bet you can hear a pin drop' she said in awe. She showed me the graph - way up it was - and told me where hers would be - quite low down.....normal for our age.

I'd passed, and with flying colours it seems.

When I thought about it I realised that it did make sense to place the most emphasis on hearing.

Whether or not I hear things being told to me by someone possibly in a state of panic, in a noisy place, could dictate whether someone lives or dies in an extreme case.

How I record it on the computer using my eyes can be adjusted. It is not so immediate.

It lifted me. I'm probably going into that job with better hearing than many a fair bit younger than me.

But, oh boy, the concentration was the real test. I'm sure I missed some noises owing to my ever curious wandering mind.

Heavens, maybe I could have performed even better.

Mrs AWB laughed though. We both know that I can never use the excuse of not hearing what she said.

My, ' What was that you said?' will fall on deaf ears in future.