Insight #221
The big yellow bus, the one with the wheels that go round and round, is back. If you live in America, that is. I don’t know how kids get to school in other countries. Me? My parents gave me a bicycle when I had less than seven years to my credit. “Get yourself to school.” They said nothing about getting myself back from school. And that was it for almost 12 years.
The big yellow bus no longer annoys me as much as it did when I had to get myself to an office. There are no big yellow buses or any other traffic on my walk down the passage to my home office.
But years ago, if I timed my commute badly, I would face the backside of a big yellow bus when its wheels stopped going round and round. And then Murphy’s Law would doom me to a stop-start commute.
One morning I had to stop-and-start three times before I got away from that big yellow bus. Life, it seemed, was determined to make me slow down and smell the fumes.
Frustrated, I watched the cars buzz by going in the opposite direction on the other side of the center island. But then I noticed something else.
No doubt, you’ve heard that irritating saying about getting the right people on your bus and the wrong ones off. Well, that morning I watched kids, the right kids, get on the bus. Slowly. Annoyingly slowly.
Then it hit me. Obviously, it’s not enough to find the right kids, I mean people for your bus. You must also pay attention to how they get on your bus. Are they willing and keen, or do they drag their feet while rubbing sleepy eyes?
You might have a bus. You might even have the right people for your bus. But maybe, just possibly, they don’t want to get on your bus. Because maybe they don’t like where your bus is taking them.
I must admit there were many days when I dragged my feet onto the bicycle pedals. I was the right kid for that bike, but I did not like where it was taking me.
Welcome to my side of the nonsense divide.
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Quote of the Moment:
“I was always the right person on my bike, even when I didn’t want to cycle to school.” The Chief Nonsense Officer.
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