This morning I witnessed a uniquely Indian engineering philosophy. It is called, “If something else breaks while doing the job, that is somebody else’s problem.”

The tree cutters arrived to remove a dried junglee neem tree behind my house. I watched them with interest, expecting chainsaws, careful measurements, helmets and perhaps even a little planning.

Instead, they produced one rope.

The rope, apparently, was expected to perform the duties of an engineer, an architect, a crane and common sense.

I politely pointed to the old compound wall standing directly in the path of the falling tree.

“If you pull it like that,” I said, “the tree will crash onto the wall.”

The contractor looked at me as though I had insulted generations of his ancestors.

“You want everything,” he shouted. “You want the tree removed and the wall to remain standing.”

“Exactly,” I replied. “That is generally how successful tree cutting works.”

He looked genuinely puzzled.

And then he did the unexpected. He called his men and walked away without cutting the tree.

I was shocked. What he was telling me, was, “You wall is collateral damage!”

Somewhere along the way we have accepted collateral damage as a perfectly normal part of life. We expect that whenever something is repaired, something else will mysteriously stop working.

Call an electrician to fix the fan and suddenly the doorbell develops depression.

Invite a plumber to repair one leaking pipe and your bathroom tiles decide to retire.

Painters arrive to brighten your walls and leave colourful footprints across the entire house, including the dog.

Roads are dug up to lay cables. The cables are laid. The road is forgotten. Months later another department remembers it has pipes underneath and digs up the same road again with tremendous enthusiasm.

Then comes the granddaddy of collateral damage.

A flyover is built to save commuters ten minutes, while traffic below suffers for three years. Shops close, businesses collapse, pedestrians risk life and limb, and occasionally the workers themselves pay the highest price because safety was treated as an optional extra rather than part of the project.

None of this is unavoidable. It is simply the result of poor planning.

Good work is not merely completing the task. Good work is completing it without creating three new problems for somebody else.

Whether it is cutting a tree, repairing a switch, laying a road or building a bridge, the real measure of professionalism is not what you finish but what you leave untouched.

As for my tree, I still hope it comes down without bringing the wall with it.

Because replacing a tree is expensive. But replacing a wall is more expensive.

Replacing common sense, unfortunately, appears to be impossible…!

____________________________

HERE’S MORE THE AUTHOR CAN OFFER YOU…. JUST CLICK HERE..

————————————————

Would love to hear from you in the COMMENTS section below…and IF YOU WANT TO RECEIVE BOB’S BANTER EVERYDAY, PLEASE SEND YOUR NAME AND WHATSAPP PHONE NO TO [email protected]
————————————————–