Explaining Rules the Same Way I Explain Aftercare

Sorry for how long it took me to actually sit down and write this one, it’s been rattling around for a while. Part of my job at the clinic, probably the biggest part honestly, isn’t the medicine. It’s explaining the medicine. A dog gets neutered, a cat gets a dental, whatever, and then I’ve got maybe four minutes to make sure the owner actually understands what to watch for over the next week before they’re back out the door with a cone-shaped animal giving them betrayed eyes the whole ride home.

You learn fast that the same explanation doesn’t land the same way twice. Some people want the short version, three bullet points and they’re gone. Some people need you to slow way down and repeat the part about redness versus normal swelling, because that’s the part that’s actually going to make them call the emergency line at 2am if they get it wrong. I’ve got maybe six different ways to explain “watch the incision site” depending on who’s standing in front of me, and I switch between them without really thinking about it anymore.

I noticed a while back that I do the exact same thing at the game table. Teaching Cascadia to somebody who’s never touched a hobby board game, I’m not explaining it the way I’d explain it to somebody who already plays a ton of euros. I’ve got the beginner version and the fast version and I read the room to figure out which one I need in the first thirty seconds. Same with Townsfolk Tussle, actually, that one’s basically become my go-to for anybody nervous about getting into the bigger boss battlers, I’ve got the explanation dialed in at this point almost the way I’ve got the dental aftercare speech dialed in.

I don’t think this is a coincidence and I don’t think it’s just me being a natural teacher either. I think ten years of watching people’s eyes glaze over mid-sentence and learning to catch it before they tune out completely just… transfers. A rulebook is a discharge sheet nobody’s going to read twice. Might as well walk them through it the first time and get it right.