Tell the truth... Who among us has been putting together a desk, dresser, bed, or other piece of pressboard furniture from our favorite outlet and it didn't quite work as it should or didn’t quite line up correctly because you either weren't paying attention or didn't follow the instructions and thought "fuck it, good enough..." only to later regret it? In fact, who among us knew we would regret it and went ahead and did it anyway? How often has something broken and even though you had the time to fix it and the skill set to do it, you cobbled it back together and let it go only to come back and be forced to repair it correctly? I’m not just referring to a door hinge or a piece of furniture you fucked up accidentally on purpose… I’m talking about a report for work that you try to slip in and it gets rejected, or a recipe that specifically states that it requires 45 minutes that you try to finish in 20 and end up wasting and hour and throwing out the inedible food… This is a result of the “gotta have it now” culture we live in… We have become a civilization where instant gratification is far more important than quality or a job well done. Building 100 miles of shitty fence in a week is far better than building ½ that in the same amount of time, until of course your cows are scattered to the wind and you have to take the next month rounding them up while simultaneously repairing the shitty fence… Which is better in the long run? Which costs far more energy, time and money to fix…? I build fence at ½ the rate that others do, but mine doesn’t fail immediately. See how that works?
Let’s say you write reports at work and they have specific qualities that must be within the structure of that report. Now, in addition to that, these reports are what generate capital for your business. Instead of taking the time to think carefully about your words and making doubly sure each report meets the even the minimum standards set by the guidelines, you rush through, guess when you should investigate and you end up turning in really shitty reports. The thing is you know you’re doing it, unless of course you are in such denial that you’re blind to your own instincts. The numbers look good on the surface… As an employee, you look like you’re meeting the standards set out before you but dig down and your report goes in for a review and then rejected, then kicked back to you and guess what, yep, you’re doing it twice… So what should have been written carefully, reviewed, and qualified for payment becomes:
Written poorly – reviewed – rejected – returned – re-written – re-reviewed – accepted
On top of that, now your reports are going to be scrutinized which puts you in an awkward place with your employer… So you’re telling me that you don’t have enough time to write them correctly when you certainly have time to do them twice?
Now look, I’m not fucking perfect by any means. In fact, this particular piece of writing was born out my just accomplished mounting of the television in my bedroom… Well, the second round of hanging the television in my bedroom… The first attempt was, um… Well not a total failure, it never fell off the wall… Completely anyway… Story goes like this…
Like anyone with half a brain, I mounted the television mount and attached the television properly making sure that the expensive piece of equipment would not be damaged by any stupidity of my own doing… Then, because I took my time to do that part right, I was running out of time to finish the job so I rushed that second half… Instead of screws for the power strip, I used double sided tape… Yeah, I know… Go ahead and laugh because we all know where this is going… Gets even better when I tell you the double sided tape was from The Dollar Tree… Yeah now, you are laughing… I could actually hear the take coming loose the more weight I plugged into the power strip... You know that little tearing sound that cheap tape makes as it slowly fails… I “readjusted” it a few times before I finished up all the while knowing I was going to have do it again…
So last night I am watching a scary movie in the dark and the creaking sound is coming from the television area and I was trying to figure out what it was and the tape failed and everything that was plugged into it came crashing down behind the television, jerked the clock off the wall and scared the fuck out of me in the process… So I had to get up at 10:00 PM last night and tuck, stuff, balance and readjust wires, plugs, clocks and power strips back up behind the television… Why? BECAUSE I DIDN’T TAKE 5 MINUTES TO PUT IN TWO SCREWS RATHER THAN USE SHITTY TWO SIDED TAPE TO HANG A HEAVY OBJECT PERMANENTLY…. Yeah, a saved five minutes cost me a heart attack, a broken audio cable and an hour or so today to put it all back together correctly.
Thanks Grandpa… Maybe you should have hit me while telling me that there is always time to do a job right the second time…. Instead you laughed and I took it as half joke / half life lesson and it has cost me quite a bit of time and money throughout my life… Now, if I even think “there isn’t enough time to do that…” I will schedule it for later or do the job right and if it takes three days to get back to it, it takes three days to get back to it…
Next weekend I am going to replace the headlights, running lights and tail lights in my truck… Why next week? Because I was unfucking the job I hurried through last week on the television…
I knew better, that’s what really fucking pisses me off… I don’t care about the broken cable or even the time it takes to redo the job a second time… There is still a level of satisfaction that I did it right the second time. The thing that bothers me is I knew better. I saw that left hook, considered the damage the left hook would do to me and I leaned into it and even turned my chin up just so the punch would take me out… I even thought, I will put screws in this later because this tape isn’t going to hold and I cannot for the life of me figure out why I continued. The screws were in the garage in a place where I keep screws. I have three tool sets with screwdrivers that I know where they are. I didn’t have to go on a screw finding quest or sell my body for a screwdriver… It was all available to me and yet, I said “I will do it right later…” Unbelievable but true and very common among all of us…
You don’t need to fight a tiger to get the guidelines for your report… They are probably in your desk and if you’re too lazy or disorganized to find them, there is more than likely a system setup for you to ask a question… It’s called email...
Yet with all of this in place… We guess, we tape, we know it will fail and we pretend that it’s fine…
Good enough is never good enough… Listen, the ONLY time that good enough is good enough is when you are giving it all you have with the tools you are given to work with… That’s it… When you aren’t doing your best, it’s not good enough. When you get something back to do again, or something you half assed fails then you didn’t do it right… If you aren’t surprised to watch it fail or have it returned for rewriting then guess who is the idiot?
Let us take a minute here to thank the FAA for putting in place a system where the employees can’t say “Well… It’s good enough, put the passengers on board and fly it, we will fix it correctly later…” The mechanics on a jetliner count the bolts coming off and going back on for a reason… There is no such thing as “pocket bolts” on a commercial jet engine repair… You know, the bolts left over when you “fix” something, have no idea where they came from, or in even better scenarios, you DO know where they go and it’s somewhere deep inside the project you just “finished” and you look at them and just put them in your pocket…
So look, slow down… Do it correctly and you will do it once… When you are tired from building the dresser and it’s time to attach it to the wall, then finish the project or set it aside so people cannot hurt themselves on it… Otherwise you will pull the dresser off your toddler and then explaining to the doctor that you didn’t have time to attach it to the wall… Yeah, that isn’t funny… Not only it isn’t funny, it’s your fault… Not IKEA, not Wal-Mart… The screws and straps are in those things for a reason, they’re not “pocket pieces”…
It’s also not funny to lose your job when you are clearly underperforming… You can blame it on your employer if you want, but in the end, when your mind starts slipping from Alzheimer’s, you will pull your grandchild off to the side and explain that you lost a job once because you didn’t do the TPS Reports to the standards.. He won’t have a clue what you’re talking about, but the truth always comes out…
Woke up this morning and absolutely dominated the 90 Day Life Change Challenge… ½ Murph, P90X3 Total Synergistics, plank and meditation… Since I wrote the lion’s share of this yesterday it was easy to finish during my lunch…
Straight killin’ it, yo…
Have an afternoon and listen, don’t be dumb when you’re in a hurry, either slow down, or postpone because having to do shit over is 99 times out of 100, your fault…
Love you to death… All of you… Mean it…
See you on Day 23…
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