As he strolled back to his desk we joked that luckily there are two of us halfwits in the office because together we make a fullwit — barely. Ha-ha!
Truly, though, what if Kevin hadn’t been there? What if I was a Lone Ranger, never needing the assistance of anyone? There is no doubt my finished products would not be as good as with an extra set of eyes and ears. Heck, the Lone Ranger really wasn’t alone anyway; he had Tonto, not to mention his trusty steed, HiYo-Silver, or whatever.
So, what about you? It doesn’t matter what line of work you’re in, there are many, many fine opportunities to get advice and assistance from someone else. Are you too proud to ask?
It’s funny, the ones who most need advice are usually the least likely to ask. I recall a young engineer, we’ll call him “Tim,” who thought that because there was this title, “Engineer” attached to his name, he certainly must know everything about everything. And so he blundered through the first years of his career striving valiantly to hoodwink people into believing he really did know everything. Of course, he fooled no one and instead, after the “fool-ees” stopped chuckling behind his back, they were sure never to hire him again.
The ironic part is now that I, uh, I mean “Tim” is one of the fool-ees; he understands and expects folks not to know everything — particularly young folks. And if they simply fess up about their shortcomings, “Tim” is very impressed with their honesty and much more likely to hire and rehire them than if they try to snow job him.
Bottom line: Two sound minds are better than one. Don’t be shy about asking for a little advice or peer review when you need it. Wasn’t it John Wayne who so eloquently said: “Life is hard. But it’s a lot harder if you’re dumb.”
Tim Garrison of ConstructionCalc.com, is a professional engineer, author and software producer for the building industry. Send e-mail to buildersengineer@constructioncalc.com. Tim reads every one.
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