On Describing Not Explaining

this past weekend a mysterious sound that came from somewhere behind and above the living room interrupted movie night...

unfortunately for me and my partner this was during The Bourne Identity, an action-thriller that had heightened our sense of paranoia 😬

obvi we immediately paused the movie and took a quick look out the windows to see if we could spot anyone or anything or any animal that could be the culprit.

but alas. the backyard was seemingly clear and it was too late for any of the neighborhood kids to be causing a ruckus and nothing was amiss in any of the rooms on the upper level.

we quickly cycled through possible explanations:

• was it an acorn or something similar falling off a tree?
  • not likely since we would have heard this type of sound in the past
• was it in our imagination?
  • NOPE! We both, and the cat, heard and reacted to some sound
• was it a wayward bird or really giant-bodied bug hitting a window?
  • sadly we know what both of those sound like and it wasn't the weird sound we had just heard

we found ourselves unsettled as we attempted to settle back in to resume the movie. and I remarked "I'm not satisfied not getting to some likely source for the sound"

which led to my partner hypothesizing: was it the faucet hose in the kitchen sink falling into place?

"hmmmm no because what I heard was a sliding sound coming from above" and then 💡a metaphorical lightbulb went off.

In our haste we had been jumping right into trying to answer the question: what made that weird sound?

BUT having just re-read the classic Debriefing Facilitation Guide for the full length version of What The Real Housewives Taught Me About Postmortems at Conf42 SRE...I realized in the moment it was important to 💖 Remember to Look for Descriptions, Not Explanations 💖

so I stopped our runaway train of explanations with a deep breath "OK. Wait let's stop and describe what we each heard"

which revealed that we both:

• heard an unusual sound
• agree it originated from above and behind us
• were unsure if the source was external or internal
• would describe it as a "thunk" followed by a sliding sound and then silence

talking through the details, and with a calmer mind now that any immediate threats like a robber or something were pretty much ruled out, my brain had some space to think.

it wasn't long before a possible cause hit me

In the course of rearranging my office that afternoon I relocated the above awesome print of Women Welders in PDX which was affixed with poster putty (because I am loathe to put holes in the walls of a rental that I will in the near future need to spackle but I digress...). I recalled how earlier that print had fallen and my brilliant band-aid answer was to move it and then just press really hard so the putty knew I meant business and it better not fall down on the job again!!

My partner and agreed this hunch definitely would account for the sliding sound PLUS my office is above/behind the living room so the location checked out.

Lo and behold, partially obscured by my bookcase, was the print, innocently chilling on the floor, unaware of the entire investigation that had ensued.

But wait! Why didn't this surface during the initial pass looking at my office?

With the benefit of bright daylight, from this vantage point peeking into my office, I can see no trace of the fallen print! Plus that picture ^ above was after my partner had fished it out from behind the keyboards so it was completely hidden initially!

Add in the pitch black of the evening, heightened paranoia thanks to the movie, and only relying on a small flashlight for the first sweep and its easy to understand how it got initially overlooked.

Needless to say, now I really, really, really understand the power of descriptions over explanations!

By stepping back and focusing on describing what we heard vs. jumping straight to explanations, we created space for actual discovery. The sliding sound, the location above and behind us, the timing—led us to the fallen print, while our rushed explanations only led us in a doom spiral.

It's funny how the same principles that help us learn from incidents can also apply to solving little everyday mysteries.

Next time you encounter something unexpected whether it's a production outage or a weird noise during movie night, give this approach a spin. Pause, describe what you're observing rather than explaining it away or catastrophizing, and let understanding emerge naturally from those descriptions.

Your investigations (and your stress levels) will thank you for it!

CAT TAX