I think I’ve learned a lesson. It’s not necessarily a good lesson, it’s a real lesson. One of those things that people just wont tell you because they are too afraid to admit that it’s true.
I’ve learned that, in all walks of life, most people are much more excited to see “fast” than they are to see “right”. This is a big problem for me, because I am the guy who likes to do things “right”.
Let me explain with a few examples.
Example One:
There was an employee that used to “dotted line” report to me. (For those of you who aren’t up on your corporate lingo, “dotted line” reporting means that this employee actually worked for someone else, however, I acted as her boss most of the time. I gave her assignments. I checked her work. I praised her. I corrected her. The only thing I didn’t do was approve time off and fire her.)
She was still learning how to program when she started reporting to me. There is a certain method I take toward new programmers, to ensure that they are trained to do things “right”. In this case, projects for her were given to me by my boss. My boss made the mistake of directly telling her about the projects as well. I would go up to her, tell her about a project, and tell her that I was going to work out a design map over the next hour or so, and then we’d get together to discuss how she should go about programming it. Because she already knew all the specifics from when my boss told her, she would start coding before we had a chance to agree on the proper approach. By the time I was done with the design, she was done programming the application.
Now I know you are thinking, “wow! great! why is he complaining?”, and that’s just it. That’s what everyone else would say too. The problem was, she did it “fast”, but she didn’t do it “right”. There were gigantic holes in the security of the application. I could corrupt her database using nothing more than a few seconds of time and a web browser. It wasn’t done very well at all. But, it looked nice, and it worked. Of course, she’d show my boss what she had done, and before I had a chance to show her all the problems I had with the code she had written my boss was pushing her to roll it into production and praising her for her efforts.
Example Two:
When I clean the kitchen, I clean the kitchen. No fucking around. It will take me well over an hour to get it done. I’ll mop the floor, clean all the burners of the stove. I’ll scrub every last inch of counter-top with a cleaning agent. I’ll wash every pot, and every pan. I’ll organize the fridge. I clean. So, I put in three times as much work cleaning my kitchen than most people do. However, with nothing more than a quick glance, you can’t tell the difference between my kitchen cleaned “right” and a kitchen that has been cleaned “fast”. However, if you were to attempt to use each of these kitchens, you would start to see the difference. The problem becomes more complicated when you consider that I am unwilling to do a “fast” cleaning job. Therefore my kitchen will sit there, dirtier and dirtier each day, until I have a chance to do it right.
Now, more to the point, I give you a third example. This example summarizes precisely what I’ve learned recently.
Example Three:
I watch people. I watch the way they interact with one another. I watch when they notice in one another. I watch what they ignore. I watch the faces they make when they turn their backs. In relationships of any kind, most people choose to handle things “fast”.
There is a woman (fictitious in every way). This woman knows that if she tells her husband that he puts too much salt in his chili he will think that she doesn’t like any of his cooking. This in turn will lead to her having to spend the next hour explaining to him that she really does enjoy his cooking and that it is merely his chili that she has a problem with and even then, the problem is merely a little too much salt. After massive amounts of time and energy are spent discussing one silly little issue, he’ll decides to put less salt in the chili from now on, and then just add a little more salt to his own before he eats it. That’s called doing things “right”. However, this woman also knows that she can just keep her mouth shut, save hurting her husband’s feelings, save over an hour in time discussing his cooking and trying to make him see that he isn’t a bad cook, and just eat salty chili for the rest of her life. That’s called doing things “fast”.
When Sarah and I dated, we fought all the time. She had aspects of her life and the way that she thought that she expected me to just accept. Regardless of whether I understood them or not, she wanted me to swallow, say, “okay”, and ignore any other thoughts that might surface. She wanted me to do things the “fast” way. On the other hand, I wanted to understand. I wanted to learn. I wanted to either show her that she was wrong, or be shown that I was wrong. This way, in the end, it wouldn’t be a huge bowl of too-salty chili that I had to swallow every time she decided to cook it up. But she couldn’t accept that. So we would fight over it. Then we would fight over fighting. Then we would fight over how we always fight. Eventually, neither one of us could even remember why we started fighting in the first place.
I’ve also never understood the concept of “Girls’ night out” or “Guys’ night out”. In fact, I’ve never intentionally attended such an event. I’ve asked people, in private and in the company of their significant other, what happens at these events. The different answers are surprising. In the company of their significant other, you hear answers like “we talk about computers and video games” or “we discuss clothes, and our menstrual cycles”. However, more often then not, you find that, in reality, these “night out” events are really just an opportunity to bitch about all the things you don’t say to your partners face. To stick with my example from above, this is the time when you might say, “My husband’s chili is so salty I end up feeding spoonfuls of it to the dog when he’s not looking just so that his feelings wont get hurt”. The reason I don’t understand the “night out”, I’m sure, is because I’ve always done things “right” instead of “fast”. Therefore, I never really had anything to bitch about with the guys.
Let me explain something, to ensure that I am not misunderstood. I’m not saying, in anyway, that doing things “fast” is bad. I’m also not saying that doing things “right” is always best. What I’m saying is that there are two distinct ways to do things, and that those two methods strongly disagree with one another. Those who do things “fast” in a relationship, aren’t really willing to admit that to themselves or their partners. I imagine this is because the “fast” way seems to be the wrong way at first glance, and no one wants to admit that they way they handle everything in their lives is wrong.
Here’s where the lesson comes in.
People who do things “right”, like myself, are rarely willing to do things the “fast” way. Especially when it comes to relationships. However, when the “fast” way is what society (and in many cases our partners) expect of us, things get complicated. “Fast” people say things like, “Can’t you just accept that this is the way it is?” and “I don’t know why I do it this way, I just do”. Communication is essential when doing things “right”. However, in many cases, someone doing things “fast” will choose not to communicate certain thoughts or feelings because they don’t believe the effort required to make that communication is worth the end result. In other words, the “fast” wife isn’t willing to tell her husband that he makes salty chili because the amount of work that would require isn’t worth the end benefit, which would be not having to eat salty chili. In fact, not communicating everything is essential to operating the “fast” way. They choose their battles. They fight over the big things, and bitch about the small things among their friends.
The lesson I’ve learned is that “right” people will always fail to understand “fast” people, and “fast” people will always be offended by the honesty of the “right” people. In other words: life is hell and something has to change. Since the whole world isn’t going to start doing things the “right” way, overnight, I’m going to have to start doing things the “fast” way.
When I was dating Sarah, I told her that, by generalizing, I could classify the people in my life into two categories. On one hand there were the people that I wouldn’t argue with, because they’re wasn’t any point. If they said the sky was purple, I’d agree simply to save the argument because, in the end, I wasn’t close enough to them to care whether they understood that they were wrong or not. I would deal with these people the “fast” way. On the other hand were my real friends. The people I really cared about. I would deal with them the “right” way. I told her that the person I ended up spending the rest of my life with would have to be someone that treated me “right” and someone that I could treat “right”. She seemed to understand this. However, she was so “fast” minded that we never got to that point.
Basically it amounts to a Prisoner’s Dilemma. If both people do things “right”, both people are very happy and yet both have to put in some effort. If both people do things “fast”, then both people are only moderately happy, however neither had to put in much effort. Clearly, doing things “right” is the best choice. However, if one person does things “right” and the other does them “fast”, then the “fast” person is very happy with little effort, while the “right” person is very unhappy with lots of effort. So, as an individual, the most advantageous choice is to do things “fast”. And that’s where the dilemma comes in.
One thing is clear, however. Regardless of how badly I’ve always wanted that “right” relationship with every person I encounter, putting in very little effort to be moderately happy is MUCH butter than putting in a lot of effort to be very unhappy. And since I can’t convince the world to join my cause, I’m going to have to join theirs.
So now I’ll be like every one else. I’ll tell you I like your new hair cut when you ask, but then talk bad about it behind your back. I’ll come over to visit you out of obligation, bitching to my girlfriend all the way there and all the way home. I’ll go play golf with my boss in hopes that he’ll give me a bigger raise next year. I’ll smoke cigarettes with the guys at night and then come home tell you that “it was just smokey in the bowling alley”. I’ll stare at your girlfriend’s ass and then tell my girlfriend that hers is the best. I’ll have “guys night out” and bitch about how horrible you are in bed. I’ll tell you that your tuna casserole is awesome, and then feed it to the cat when you’re not looking. Regardless of the truth, I’ll always tell you that those pants don’t make your ass look fat.
The first step in doing things “fast” is the hardest. I must accept that people do things fast. Don’t question it. Don’t try to change it. Don’t try to understand it. That’s just how life is.