Editing

There is an idea called the tragedy of the commons. Common land everyone has access to, overused by everybody. Because Joe is grazing his sheep on there, I’m going to do it too. And so on. Until there is nothing left to graze.

We had that problem, raised in an Ops Meeting once. I started to use it as an example. I crumbled under the attack from one of the people causing the very problem. Criticising me for being irrelevant. I should have stuck to my argument. Instead I capitulated, and the problem got worse.

I knew it weeks in advance. It was in the scope of work. Nobody wanted to hand back the fee. I wrote on sticky notes. I voted with my stars. Just like everybody else. It took me four beers to have to guts to say this. Too late. I should have called this out well ahead of the wasted day. But I didn’t because I was more worried about rocking the boat than I was about wasting time and money.