Problem-Solving When Idiots Are Involved

It routinely amazes me how much time and money is wasted trying to fix things that someone is actively breaking. If this person is knowingly screwing up stuff, he is a jerk and should be savagely beaten. However, most of the time the idiot is unaware of his/her consequences and only merits a whiffle bat beating.

When I can't find an easy answer to a problem, I usually look at the people in the vicinity of the problem and search their eyes for that vacant look. You know the one I'm talking about. That empty expression is nature's way of letting the rest of us know not to trust them with anything bigger than a paperclip. Anyway, when I find that person I usually find the source of the problem. More often than not, it is one of our paperclip people that was wrongly entrusted with something larger and/or smarter than a paperclip. Like a coffee maker.

More on this later. I'm sure this method of problem-solving is not original, but I think I'm the first person to write it down in a cool way. So I pretty much own it. (Oh, this is all copyright 2007 by me. Pretend there is that little C-in-a-circle right here.)

Bryan's Economy of Problem-Solving

If a given problem cannot be rationally answered by a simple and practical solution, attention to increasingly complex and expensive solutions should be deferred until it can be established, to a high degree of confidence, that an idiot is not causing the problem.

Parallel:

An idiot is at least as likely to be the cause of a given problem as the scenarios that can be anticipated.

Maxim:

Find the idiot, find the problem.

Pretty graph that really hits the point home:

*Graph not based on any empirical evidence.

As you can clearly see, idiots cause problems. In fact, even when you are still looking at simple solutions idiots will be at the crux of the matter 30% of the time. I thoroughly researched this. I promise. In fact, if you are even thinking about a solution that has more than one "if" in it (as in, "if this and this and this happened, then maybe...) without first considering whether there might be an idiot involved, you are wasting your time.

For instance, consider the following:

A mysterious dark stain is developing on the side of a brick building below the second floor window. No one is quite sure what it is or where it comes from. It is determined not to be mold or sort of growth. The rest of the building is unaffected.

Now, would you:

a) Examine the stain and look for signs of leaching, and carefully go over the window frame for signs of corrosion or paint residue.

b) Or would you find the idiot who has been pouring his old coffee out the window every morning for the past couple months.

Now I bet you know which one we did first. And if it wasn't for someone actually observing this lazy fool in the act, we probably would still be looking for the source of that stain.

So remember, folks, when you are problem-solving always start with the problem...and smack the crap out of him with a whiffle bat.