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How right is “right?”

by Miki Saxon

I mentioned last Friday that I had to fix my leaking garage door and doing it brought an interesting, applicable train of thought.

First, some quick background. I bought this house in March 2003 and learned that winter that when it rained water came under the roll-up door—lots of water. While I’ve always been a jerry-rigger, especially fixing stuff around my home, I thought I would do this “right.” Well, as of Friday, I’d spent around a thousand dollars on drywells, barriers, etc. and was still getting water under the door. So I went back to jerry-rigging using a clear, vinyl shower curtain, tape, and a few bricks. (A major rain squall just came through and no water under the door.)

This got me to thinking, how much is too much? How “right” does a fix need to be? How “fixed” does a challenge/problem need to be to count as solved? Every day you face a myriad of challenges, any number of which may upgrade (downgrade?) to the status of problem in the blink of an eye, so this isn’t a casual question. What do you do?

All managers have their own routine for evaluating and deciding on corrections and fixes, and I’m not suggesting that you change yours. I am suggesting that you give thought to what end results that you really need in order to avoid overkill in your decisions.

In other words: Does it need to be “right” on some cosmic yardstick—or does it just need to work.

2 Responses to “How right is “right?””
  1. Nick Mikhailovsky Says:

    This makes me think of the national character in doing things right. In Russia, we have a proverb that “There is nothing more permanent than a temporary solution”, meaning, among others, that temporary (shortcut) solutions that work are typically left forever. On the other hand, if a temporary solution seems to obsolete, we try to rebuild the whole thing – be it software or house, instead of applying a permanent local solution…

  2. Miki Says:

    I like your proverb, Nick, but I’m not sure what, “if a temporary solution seems to obsolete, we try to rebuild the whole thing – be it software or house, instead of applying a permanent local solution…” means.

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