Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

I hate doing something twice. That leads to disliking short tasks. Short tasks are easy to do all over a second time, especially when someone else decides that they want you to do it again.

This may not sound right, but I would much rather have a long, time-consuming task that one that is short and  can be completed in a couple of hours. This stems from something I’ve noticed about myself in the past couple of years:

I hate doing something twice.

Perhaps it is a sense that doing something twice is wasting time; perhaps it is a desire to move to something new and learn something new. I am not sure, but I do know that I hate doing something twice.

Hence comes the distaste of short tasks. Most of my tasks these days are reading and writing things for people at work. The nice people at work ask me to research a topic. I spend an afternoon or two doing so. That is a short task. Then the nice people at work come to me and say, “Oh, did I tell you to study this-and-such? Sorry, I’ve changed my mind. I meant to tell you to study that-and-such. Well, I’m glad you didn’t spend a lot of time on the wrong thing. It should be easy to catch up.”

Groan. Do the task again.

I have similar experiences with writing at work. The nice people at work ask me to write about a topic. I write a couple of pages as requested (an hour or two spent writing). The nice people at work read what I have written, think a moment, and tell me, “This-and-such is interesting. It has caused me to think of a few things. I guess I really want you to write about that-and-such. Well, this is a short piece, so I guess you can just start over and write about that-and-such.”

Groan. Do the task again.

I have to ask, why did my first writing spur thinking? Why didn’t they think first, and well, you know, only have  me do it once?

Anyways, if the task was long, let’s say five or six days of writing, maybe it wouldn’t be so easy to start over and write something new. Maybe I could do some edits and move on to something else. Short tasks are just so easy to do over again.

Anyways, short tasks are rotten as they can be done over. It is sort of like my equal disdain for short meetings. There seems to a trend here.

Anyways, this is the third paragraph in a row I’m starting with “anyways”, but I digress. Anyways, if the nice people at work knew what they wanted me to do and I only had to do it once, life would be less interesting. I live in interesting times and people pay me to do interesting things. I have to smile.