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Systematically speaking
Jan. 25th, 2009 12:29 pmSo far this week I have wasted nearly a hundred quid. First I forgot when my temporary parking permit ran out (I thought it was the 23rd, it was the 16th), thus generating a £60 parking fine, which I paid (the really annoying thing was that I had bought the new permanent parking permit on the 16th, but didn't bother walking up the hill to affix it until the evening of the 20th. Needless to say, I had been given the ticket on the morning of the 20th.)
Then, this morning, I discovered that I had put a brand new (worn once) rather expensive hand-wash-only jumper in the washing machine. This despite admonishing myself for making a similar mistake a month or so ago and swearing blind that I would never do it again.
These kind of mistakes really annoy me because I have no-one to blame but myself. At the poker table you will often see a player reacting to his or her own mistake by berating the opponent raking in the cash. It's not the money, it's the need to shift blame. There's one particular facebook poster who will never come back from a tournament saying "well, I fucked that up". It's always the fault of a "muppet" opponent hitting a better hand (never, for example, asking why the "muppet" opponent had a bigger stack at this point). Indeed, reading these posts gives me a warm feeling that live tournaments still contain a remarkable amount of easy money. Well, the ticket and the ruined jumper are all my own fault, and I know that, and I'm not blaming anyone. But it has still pissed me off.
The sad thing is, I need systems, because when things go wrong, I'm incapable of shrugging my shoulders, having a laugh about it, and going "oh well, it's not the end of the world". because my problem is that for me, it IS the end of the world. Or, at least, that's how it feels for a short while. In the case of the jumper, I simply forgot that I had bought it. I saw the label "Gap"; knew that I had two machine-washable jumpers from Gap, and thoughtlessly allocated this particular jumper to that category. Of course, if the "merino" had been in bigger print and the "Gap" in smaller print, then I probably wouldn't have made the mistake, but such helpfulness from others isn't going to happen in my lifetime, and I have no right to expect it.
John Harrington was at the Rose Theatre at Kingston yesterday, where a group of us went to see a new play. He and Lin had managed to turn up a week early for this, solely because John hadn't bothered to read an email properly. I would have been mad enough at myself if I had done that solely to my own invconvenience, but if I had done it to my partner as well, I would have been furious at myself beyond belief. But John just seems capable of muddling through it without too much trouble.
I avoid errors like this because I am intrinsically fanatical about having systems in place to make sure they don't occur. That doesn't stop them occurring every so often, but if I have "done what I can", then I don't mind too much. But if it was avoidable, well, man do I get mad.
++++++++++
Then, this morning, I discovered that I had put a brand new (worn once) rather expensive hand-wash-only jumper in the washing machine. This despite admonishing myself for making a similar mistake a month or so ago and swearing blind that I would never do it again.
These kind of mistakes really annoy me because I have no-one to blame but myself. At the poker table you will often see a player reacting to his or her own mistake by berating the opponent raking in the cash. It's not the money, it's the need to shift blame. There's one particular facebook poster who will never come back from a tournament saying "well, I fucked that up". It's always the fault of a "muppet" opponent hitting a better hand (never, for example, asking why the "muppet" opponent had a bigger stack at this point). Indeed, reading these posts gives me a warm feeling that live tournaments still contain a remarkable amount of easy money. Well, the ticket and the ruined jumper are all my own fault, and I know that, and I'm not blaming anyone. But it has still pissed me off.
The sad thing is, I need systems, because when things go wrong, I'm incapable of shrugging my shoulders, having a laugh about it, and going "oh well, it's not the end of the world". because my problem is that for me, it IS the end of the world. Or, at least, that's how it feels for a short while. In the case of the jumper, I simply forgot that I had bought it. I saw the label "Gap"; knew that I had two machine-washable jumpers from Gap, and thoughtlessly allocated this particular jumper to that category. Of course, if the "merino" had been in bigger print and the "Gap" in smaller print, then I probably wouldn't have made the mistake, but such helpfulness from others isn't going to happen in my lifetime, and I have no right to expect it.
John Harrington was at the Rose Theatre at Kingston yesterday, where a group of us went to see a new play. He and Lin had managed to turn up a week early for this, solely because John hadn't bothered to read an email properly. I would have been mad enough at myself if I had done that solely to my own invconvenience, but if I had done it to my partner as well, I would have been furious at myself beyond belief. But John just seems capable of muddling through it without too much trouble.
I avoid errors like this because I am intrinsically fanatical about having systems in place to make sure they don't occur. That doesn't stop them occurring every so often, but if I have "done what I can", then I don't mind too much. But if it was avoidable, well, man do I get mad.
++++++++++
