Stupid is as stupid does; or is he?

The mining industry birthed a process called Take 5 many, many years ago when the spotlight was turned on workplace safety. Safety in the work place became a necessary evil because, to put it plainly, too many workers were getting themselves dead! The concept of the Take 5 was wonderful in its simplicity and practicality; before you do something that is potentially dangerous just stop and take five minutes to think about the consequences. If, upon consideration, your task reveals itself to be dangerous don't do it. Make some change in the process to make the task safe.

Unfortunately the Take 5 process is seldom employed in the home and falls short in the hands of someone like me. I stop, think things through, realise there will be deleterious consequences and then go ahead and do things any way. Fortunately for both myself and my family this seldom results in injury, but more often results in a lot of wasted time and/or damage to expensive machinery. 

Let us employ the Take 5 and demonstrate it's shortcomings.

Case Study

On my property I am building myself a little dam (I love water in the landscape; it adds another dimension of life and motion to what is otherwise a static asthetic). My little dam has a dam wall (as they do) and the wall is hard up against the common fence I share with my neighbor. 

My dam wall was a little lumpy in its construction and I wanted to smooth it out by driving back and forth over it in my big, black, shiny 4WD.

Take 5 

The task - flatten and smooth the topside surface of the dam wall.

The desired outcome - a nicely sculptured dam wall that no-one would actually a) see b) care about.

The risk - the car would lose traction on the topside surface and slide down the side slope into the fence.

The likely outcome - my car would be stuck fast, bogged and pressed hard against the fence posts and fence wire.

The consequence - damage to my car, damage to the fence, damage to my relationship with my neighbour of whom I am already scared of, significant lost time on my weekend spent retrieving the car and fixing the fence.

At this point in the Take 5 process one is supposed to weigh up the pros and cons of the task. Essentially this is to determine if the risk is worth the reward. However, for me the reality is this: I could Take 5, 10 or even 15 and I would still come to the same conclusion. The reward is always worth the risk because getting yourself out of the @#$@# is almost always just as much fun as getting yourself in the @#$@#.