If It Was That Simple

So the title of my blog evolved from the fact that most things in life are ridiculously simple. Easy beyond belief, even. Yet the human factor tends to make stuff so much more complicated, and suddenly it's no longer easy. Things that should be done without hassle require effort, and then things that were even close to hard have become Herculean tasks that can only be accomplished by the best among us in society.

Life is like juggling. Most of us can get two balls in the air without trying (OK, that sounds kinda dirty). In life I have found that most people can do TWO things at once. If they focus and remain driven to complete those two tasks, they can mulitask enough to get both done. Practice and hard work lead to some of us being able to carry on three or four tasks simultaneously. Just like a juggler with three or four balls in the air, a lot of focus on each task is required to keep everything going. But it can be done.

But just like juggling, there is a limit that, once reached, is a definite wall. Pretty soon people just can't keep adding, and no matter what they do, something is going to fall.


What brought this up?


My boss was given the simple task of picking up 4 tickets to tonights Mariners game.

Well... 4 tickets, and a parking pass.
Ok, in reality... 4 tickets, a parking pass, and a dinner gift certificate for the Pyramid Alehouse next door.
Oh yeah, and that one other thing... 4 tickets, a parking pass, a dinner gift certificate, and the month end recaps for the buyer I'm taking to the game.

And then he had to do everything else that he normally does in a given day on top of these things.

So, he passed the request along to his assistant, who got it all done and back to him today. He got the envelope, confirmed the contents, and passed it on to me.
Inside my envelope was; the recap data, the parking pass, the gift certificate, and four tickets to tomorrow night's Mariners game...


My boss works his ass off, and I can't blame him for the mistake. How many of us look at the date when we are handed tickets to something. He was expecting four tickets, and look what we have here, FOUR tickets along with all the other shit Stormin requested...

Of course everything else was right, and why would we think that the people that work for us would forget the date you told them, and then go with Friday night. But that was his assistant's genius IQ at work.
After all, to his assistant Friday night made perfect sense. Who would want to be out late at a baseball game when you have to go into work the next day? Friday night means that you can be home at pretty much any time, and not worry about the alarm in the morning. And I guess that logic fits for me.

The only thing is that I found this all out about and hour and a half before I was going to leave for the game. So I had to call the buyer to change the date, look like a jerk in the process for giving such short notice, and then look like an even bigger jerk for when I passed the blame on to my boss' assistant. (I've known the buyer for years, so he was confused as to how I messed up.)

Isn't it really his fault though? Doesn't that person deserve the blame? If he forgot the date, he knew whom the tickets were for, and he has my cell number. He could have called me and had the info in a matter of minutes. Probably while he was on hold with the Mariners...

But at the same time, I could have known that it was right by doing it myself. I only didn't because I thought that I had to much to deal with today already...

Maybe I need to take juggling lessons...