Killing Time

I had a manager one time that kept suggesting that I visit every Winery in Kansas to sell filters. This was something that I knew was a waste of time, wineries do not buy the kind of filters I sell. Every week, he would call and ask me to update him on the efforts, even though I told him it was fruitless. It got on some upper manager's task list somewhere and they couldn't just let it go, someone somewhere expected it to be done and they had a report with a check box on it that they had to check off every week for some worthless meeting where they'd be asked if they checked off all their boxes. I wasn't getting paid to just visit the wineries, I wouldn't get paid unless I ever sold anything to them, and I deemed the effort fruitless, so I didn't do it. Asked pointedly by the manager why I wasn't doing what he suggested, I told him it was too much effort and not worth it. He started lecturing me about how easy it would be for me to do this, which was supposed to convince me to do it.

I realized that it was easy for him. He just had to talk to me for 3 minutes once a week and check a box on a report. He didn't appreciate how difficult it would be for me to do it because I was expending the effort, not him. So I came up with a new axiom in my life, which I refer to constantly now.

It's easy to spend other people's time.

It takes no effort to tell someone to do something. They have to do the actual work, spend the actual time. When it takes no effort, it's easy to lose sight of the value of the time spent making something happen.

"Why don't they just ..." You've heard it a million times. People pontificating on the problems of the world, or of their coworkers, family, or friends. Blithely prescribing simplistic solutions to complex problems with a dismissive wave of the wrist. Ask them to actually roll up their sleeves and expend some effort and you'll see how popular the idea is even with the main proponent of it.

Once you recognize this annoyance, you'll see it everywhere, but the real trick is to not do it yourself. How many times have you visited someone's house and said, "If this was my house, I'd paint the kitchen blue." or carpet the patio, or build on a deck, or make a fish pond, or add on a room. People don't like to hear that about their homes, or their lives, or even the way they open a peanut butter jar. When you start to scale yourself back from doing this, you realize that there is a subtle difference to the approach - a new axiom:

People will take a suggestion much quicker than "direction".

Would you rather be told to do something or have someone make a casual suggestion that you could follow or reject without any offense? Being told to do something brings out a rebellious streak in me anyway. Even if it's something I was planning to do anyway, I don't like someone reaching into my life and pushing buttons and pulling levers as if I was their robot or slave. I have to quell the immediate swell of resentment that flares in me any time someone "orders" me to do something. If I think about it, I realize that true free will is not sacrificed by occasionally doing something at the direction or suggestion of someone else. I still have the choice to do it or not, it's still my decision. I still have to calculate if the result is worth the effort if I'm the one that will be doing it.

If you turn it around, it gets really interesting. If someone comes to you and says, "I want to do this" you have to recognize when you are simply being informed versus when you are being roped in. If they are simply informing you about something they are going to do in their life, why would you want to mount objections? If it doesn't cost you any effort, the best thing you can do for someone is encourage them. What kind of friends would you want? Supportive people that are telling you positive things and giving you encouragement, of course. It's also really simple to be that person. They may want help looking at it and thinking about it, but if they're not asking you to commit money or effort to the cause, then why bother shooting it down for no reason? Just because it's something you personally wouldn't do for yourself doesn't mean you shouldn't let them do it.