Wednesday, February 6, 2019

I am simple, most people default to complicated

Einstein stated "If you cannot explain it simply then you don't understand it well enough" (Rough translation)

There are days at work where I believe that most people try and make things complicated. Not necessarily on purpose rather it is just how people work. I am always teasing my Mother In Law about how she tells stories. She will want to tell me about how she went to the grocery store but then will get stuck in the miniscule details. Example could be "I went to start the car but left my keys in the house so went in the house to get my keys, then the phone rang, it was Fred and oh how we laughed about the weather and how we used to..." meanwhile back in the story she started I have lost patience and want to know why we are talking about going to the store in the first place!

Work processes I see people make complicated. Simple task could be take out the trash. Then one day someone forgets the bathroom trash. So now the process needs to include all the locations of trash and we add a check list (Ugh) It would have been so much easier to just address the person who made the mistake and move on. But because we don't address that one person the list continues to get larger to include
Recycling
Location where trash is to be taken
Shredding
What if trash bin is full outside then what
Putting plastic bag inside of garbage bins after taking trash out.
What days to take the trash out
What if one of those days are holidays?
and so on.

I have made a career out of making complicated things simple. Others make jobs out of making simple things complicated. I know which one pays more...