Got called three times this morning by mistake from an old woman in NSW trying to contact her son who had a very similar phone number to mine.

First time I ignored it as I didn’t recognised the number and thought it was spam.

Second time I answered and after trying to understand what she was trying to say, I simply said “I think you got the wrong number, sorry” and hung up.

Third time I answered and after recognising that it was the same person, I figured it was right to work through the problem with her. So I spend some time with her, going through each number slowly, trying to make sure that we understood where the mistake was made. I didn’t hang up until I got the sense that she understood what number she needed to dial. I was trying to be helpful, but I’d be lying if I said that self-interest was not involved. After all, I wasn’t too keen on getting any more wrong numbers.

Four hours have passed and I yet to hear from her again.

Is there a lesson involved? I don’t know: this could have happened to anyone. I guess if there is one, it’s that sometimes you don’t get to choose the types of problems you need to work on, and you just got to do what you can to, if not solve them, help in making them less of a problem than they were before.