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Scraping off the Windshield

I've heard a (possibly apocryphal) story about a girl (why is it always a girl? It could have been a guy...) who was living in Rexburg, Idaho. For those of you who don't know Rexburg, it is a beautiful little community in eastern Idaho in the upper Snake River Valley. It is traditionally home to the farmers who grow the greatest potatoes on earth. It is also home to the College formerly known as Ricks. It was a junior college, and people came from many different places around the country and around the world to go to school there - primarily because it is inexpensive. So this (girl?) was from California and had never had the experience of having her windows frosted in the morning. When she discovered that she could not see out of her windows, instead of scraping the frost off or waiting for her car to warm up, she procured a pot of boiling water and splashed it on her windshield... with predictable results - a cracked windshield...

Whether or not this story is true, it is interesting that sometimes the solutions we find for our problems are a lot more simple than we think. I think we have the tendency to over analyze and over engineer our solutions. When difficulties arise, it is often the most simple solution that is the most effective. And many times all that is required is patience - things have a way of naturally sorting themselves out.

I worked in a call center for several years. Part of that time I was a supervisor and I had to work on Saturdays occasionally. One Saturday I was working we had a shift that could take calls from Canada scheduled, but the person that was to cover that line was sick. So there was no one to take those calls. I watched as the few people (there were only ever just a few calls from Canada, so that's why we only staffed the one person) who did call waited and waited, knowing that no one would ever answer their call. I was frantic, but what could I do? There was no one to answer the calls, and the calls went unanswered. Some of those callers waited more than an hour thinking that someone would get on the line.

As you can imagine, I heard about it on Monday. I was called to give account for what had happened. I am not one for excuses, and I took responsibility for the missed calls. The guy in charge of MY boss, Ethan Barborka (a nice guy who has since unfortunately succumbed to cancer) asked me why I didn't just get on the phones myself.

I was stunned.

I could have taken those calls.

I don't know why I didn't think of that myself. It would have been so easy...

In the note of apology I wrote to Mr. Barborka and the rest of those who were interested (which was a lot of folks) I noted how I felt badly that I had not thought of the solution myself. Specifically, I noted that it was difficult to explain how the solution that seems so clear now could have been so far from me at that time... I said I would never let that kind of thing happen again.

There came times when there was no one logged on to take calls from Canada. I found myself remembering that I have the skills required to perform that task, and that the solution was for me to get to work - not just sit and watch those calls go unanswered, the job not being done...

And I learned.

I'm still learning.

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