March 22, 2008

Recognition

Posted in life at 6:46 am by Michael

Ok, maybe a few people do watch Good Morning America and Nightline.

Neither Anh nor I really thought that anyone would recognize us from the show. This is why I was so surprised for us to get recognized on the subway in Boston, and what lead to my non-great response to the person who said hi to me.

(Non-great in that while we said thank you, and smiled, we didn’t take the opportunity to engage with him. I should have at least asked “What did you think?” and had that conversation if he was willing. Lesson learned, see below.)

Last Sunday, as we were at the airport in Boston, I stopped at the food court to get some food to go for the flight. While I was standing at the register, one of the servers came by (she wasn’t waiting on me), and said “I saw your show on TV last week, good for you!” I smiled, said thank you, and then asked her “What did you think!” She said it was interesting, thought Anh was great, and thought it was a good piece overall. She had hot plates in her hand, so our conversation was brief.

I went to Malay Satay hut for lunch on Wednesday with a co-worker. When we walk in, the hostess asks me “How was your TV show?” She had been amazingly helpful in letting us get taped there, and I was really appreciative. We talked about it for a minute or two, and she asked “Well, what was it about?” I explained a little, and she just said “Ooooh, that’s interesting!”.

I have probably heard either directly or indirectly from half the crowd that was in the restaurant the day that the taping happened. It’s funny to hear about the different interpretations that people had about what was going on. Dating show? Recruiting Video? The fact is that people *were* looking at us – but because of the cameras!

Anh has been recognized a couple of times without me there as well… this I never expected either.

Oddly, most of the times that this has happened haven’t been in Seattle. (For both of us) I have two explanations for this: 1) People in Seattle don’t watch those shows 2) We do get recognized here, but for some reason (cultural difference here?) no one says anything. Maybe because it’s clear that we are from here. Who knows.

Permalink