A number of months ago, the property manager of the business complex of which CrossFit No Boundaries is a part put a lock on the communal dumpster in an effort to solve the “trash problem” -- namely, that there was too much of it, and it was overflowing from the dumpsters, and the trash-collection schedule was not keeping up with the trash-accumulation. All tenants received the combination to the padlock and instructions to always lock the dumpster. The property manager, I imagine, wiped his hands in accomplishment and smiled: “problem solved.”
Only it wasn’t.
Not a day or two later, the dumpster was overfilled again, now making it impossible to close the lid (and thus impossible to lock it), and we were back to square one. This went on for some time, the padlock was changed out for a new combination padlock (unsurprisingly, this changed nothing), and the dumpster continued in its cycle of overfilling. Eventually, the property manager decided to switch out the combination padlock for a keyed padlock, in which the key stays in the lock until it is re-locked (so that you cannot leave it unlocked unless you’re willing to leave your keys behind). While this did solve the issue of the dumpster being left unlocked, it only replaced it with a new problem of trash being left beside the dumpster rather than in it. The dumpster was still full, and now the overflow, rather than piling high in the dumpster, sat beside it and behind it. A step in the wrong direction.
Flash forward a few weeks and the problem is now solved. The dumpster no longer overflows, the lid stays closed and locked, and the dumpster-related politics have settled for the time being. The solution? The tenant who produced 80% of the trash just so happened to move out. If you’re shaking your head right now and saying “duh,” well, I agree. Putting a lock on a dumpster won’t solve a trash problem. But so often, the human inclination is to seek out the easiest possible fix -- an external solution to an internal problem. And when it doesn’t work out, people often continue to try more band-aid fixes to cover up the growing, festering wound. In real life, though, the source of the excess garbage doesn’t always decide to move away on his own, and sometimes the problem continues to grow.
We’ve all got our own “trash problem.” Make sure you’re not just trying to put a lock on the dumpster to solve it.
- PS
10 min EMOM
6 strict pull-ups
Then...
For time:
30 cal row
20 pull-ups
10 S2O (135/95)
Rest 2 mins
For time:
30 S2O (135/95)
20 pull-ups
10 cal row
Posted on 01/30/2018 at 08:24 PM
