During my “evening commute,” today, a four-mile walk I took after work, I found myself faced with something I can only call outright stupidity.
I picked a different route today that took me by the nearby city rec center. As I passed the rec center, I found myself under the leading edge of a light rain storm. Nothing much to write about there. But the rain did make me think there was some urgency in finishing the last two miles of walk.
As I reached the main road the the part of the neighborhood that I needed to cross to get home, I couldn't help but notice an older woman (not really old, but noticeably older than me) struggling with 90-gallon bin that the city likes for us to use for trash collection.
It seems that this woman could not get the 6-inch wheels of the bin across what looked like a two inch gap caused by someone edging the grass at the curb. And she wanted/needed to get the 90-gallon bin over the curb and into the street for the city's robotic truck to pick it up tomorrow.
I was not surprised when she called out to me (on the other side of a somewhat busy street during the evening commute) and asking for help.
I removed my ear buds and asked her to repeat herself, just to be sure she was talking to me, and that I had heard her correctly.
Of course I did go and help. I'm not always heartless, just during office hours.
“My husband edged the grass earlier,” clearly assigning blame for her inability to complete the task.
Taking a second to look at the situation and reach the assessment described above I then hauled trash bin the two feet back to the sidewalk and then the two feet to the left to her driveway, which then provided easy access to the street, completely avoiding the two-inch gap.
“It might be easier to just go around, and use the driveway.”
“Oh, I hadn't thought of that.”
At hat moment, I was suddenly reminded of the words on of the senior consultants, Leo, had used describing how we were going to solve what amounted to a political and cultural problem at work.
Quote:
“In the end, science and engineering always win.”
Science in this case, observing the environment around the problem.
Engineering, using the features of the environment to solve simple problems.
