I spent yesterday being Dr. Frankenstein. The new printer/scanner came in the mail and I had a full afternoon of problems with it. The ink cartridges would not snap into the caddy and the paper jammed every time I tried to print. After consulting all of the help forums I could find and going through about a ream of paper trying to fix the problem – not to mention trying to see inside the thing; not being able to see inside the last one got me in this predicament – I had an epiphany. Eureka! The old printer/scanner is the same model. Scavenge off of it!
So, in true Dr. Frankenstein fashion, I took pieces off the old one and put them on the new. It worked! “Look, Igor! The monster! It is alive! It is alive!”
My husband said it was wrong. A new piece of equipment directly from the distributor should not need to be rebuilt. I should just return it.
Part of me agreed. In an ideal world, everything works the first time. People can hold to their standards and insist on how things should be done, but, honey, this is no perfect world.
Which gets me to the point of this post: effectiveness. Great. Effectiveness. What is effectiveness?
To me, effectiveness is the cable guy rule from DBT. “Get ‘er done.” And get ‘er done in the way that works for you. Focus on what works and keep your eye on your objective. Stay away from should and should not and the ‘right’ way of doing things. Be aware of the situation you are in and act in the most skillful way you can to solve the problem. Don’t give a thought to the situation you wish you were in. Effectively/effectiveness is a ‘how’ skill from DBT.
So, in a perfect world I would not have broken my last printer. AMD does not make for a perfect world so there is no sense dwelling on the “this should not have happened” thought. It is what it is.
In a perfect world, things don’t come damaged from the factory. I could have returned it but how long would it take to pack it up, send it out, get a new one, etc??? Would that serve my purpose? And by the way, what WAS my purpose?
My purpose was to have a working printer/scanner. I accomplished that. Playing Dr. Frankenstein got me what I wanted.
Was it the way it should be? No. Was it done effectively? Yep.
Bottom line is I am not able to do a lot of things the way I used to, the way they ‘should’ be done. I could cry over not being able to do things ‘properly’ or I could get ‘er done in a way that will get me to my goal. It is a DBT How skill and it is done ‘effectively’.