Carpet Sweeping
July 16, 2008 by jason hirsch
Filed under The_Latest
Have you ever been asked to do something, and you wait tell the last minute? We probably all have done that at some time. Some people are amazing procrastinator’s and I tend to be a good one, but I’m really trying to change my ways.
OK, go one step further than procrastination and you have something that just absolutely infuriates me. I call it sweeping. Sweeping something under the carpet in hopes that it will just go away, but it never really does, just lift up the carpet & there it still is.
In preparing to buy our home, our mortgage broker never did anything to advance our loan process & Angel & I have been swept under the carpet by our mortgage broker since April. He did nothing! He would be questioned about where things were at in the process, but instead of dealing with things openly and honestly, he would just sweep the stuff under the carpet. But of course he would lift up the carpet and there we would be. It happened again in May – there we were! June – We’re back! July – you can run, but you can’t hide!
Lessons learned? 1. Don’t be afraid to tell people the truth, even if it hurts. To sweep something under the carpet only puts off the inevitable, and ends up hurting people and losing their trust. 2. Carpet sweeping costs people time, energy, and can really tap peoples resources. Value people enough not to sweep!
If you’ve been using the broom lately, maybe it’s time to get the dustpan!
I don’t know if this applies, but I teach. I got an email today from a student who I failed. Now before I go any farther, I need to tell you that the class was over and the grades were posted in mid-june.
Now her email was basically a why did I fail thing. She asked if it was the numerous projects that she did not complete on time, “because if it was, you accepted them on the last day and I deserve a C.”
I was initially worried that maybe I had not credited her with the projects she presented. But I went back to the spreadsheet and noticed that she had failed the final. I had warned all my students repeatedly that failing the final constituted failure of the class. And as I remember now, she was the ONLY ONE who failed the final that quarter.
So did she sweep? Yeah big time. Big globs of botched projects turned in late, Lots of wasted time doing whatever except learning her craft, and then she comes before me and asks what for? She knows that her skills were deeply lacking. She just thought that if she looked under the carpet that her past would magically disappear.
And what angers me, is that instead of owning up to her own failure, she would rather throw her instructors under the bus.