Scattered Thoughts

Imagine working your butt off to help someone complete a project. Imagine running in to an obstacle that you can’t resolve on your own. Imagine telling the project “owner” of the problem and hearing “Oh, well” as a response.

Wouldn’t that response make you think the project wasn’t important? Wouldn’t it make you wonder why you were spending so much time and energy on it when it didn’t seem worthy of the project owner’s time?

The above situation happened to a friend of mine recently. Let me tell you, it really ticked her off. The problem, it seems, was that the project owner didn’t do all that she needed to do before handing the task off to my friend. So when my friend started to work on it, it wasn’t ready. So now she not only had to do her part of the project, but she also had to redo (or in some cases do) things that the project owner should have already completed.

“Oh, well.”

“Oh, well” is such a passionless expression. It even seems defeatist. It’s like you’re expecting things to go wrong and “oh, well, what can you do?”

When I think about it, it seem ironic that “oh, well” has a lackluster meaning to me. Because “well” means good, acceptable, satisfactory. Yet oftentimes when I hear people say “oh, well” they don’t mean those things at all!

So when something go awry, show some emotion. I don’t mean get angry or vulgar, but at least say something that suggests you care–especially if the problem occurred because you messed up.

The expression I frequently use is: “Oh, crap!”

Depending upon the vocal inflections when saying these words, the meaning can be very different. It can sound self-deprecating as in “Oh, crap, I’m such an idiot.” It can sound humorous as in “Oh, crap! Look at the mess I made.” It can even sound worrysome as in “Oh, crap, I really screwed up this time.”

I think that if my friend had heard “Oh, crap!” instead of “Oh, well” her response would have been different. She probably would have laughed or commiserated. She probably would have willingly offered to do what was necessary to complete the task. Instead she felt overworked, underappreciated, and just plain aggravated.

So what’s my point? As I type this at 6:33 a.m. I’m not sure. But I think it is to remind you that if you don’t take and express an interest in the results of the things you’re working on (whether physically, spiritually, financially, careerally, etc.) why should someone else? If something matters to you it will matter to others. If it doesn’t matter to you, then why should others bother to help you?

When life disappoints you or obstacles block your path, don’t shrug your shoulders and say, “Oh, well”; instead, flex your muscles and say, “Oh, crap!” Then get to work and solve the problem.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 16th, 2006 at 6:38 am and is filed under Misc. Ramblings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.