Barbara J. Hamby

Is it Possible

The problems I’ve had in recent years with screw-ups such as this most recent one described in my previous blog have made me wonder how many drug-damaged people are out there holding down jobs.

I know of one professional person whose brain was so affected by drugs he took in college that his partner had to carry the load when it required concentration and focus. I don’t know what arrangement they had, but I watched them operate with great interest.

In the last fifteen years, I’ve had many frustrating experiences where the wrong merchandise was delivered, parts and pieces were missing from sealed boxes, or the wrong box was sent home with me.

Maybe the mix-ups can’t all be blamed on former addicts. Possibly the stress load of underpaid and overworked employees is a factor also. No one has the level of security that we had fifty years ago when employers were more paternalistic and caring. Companies were not run by greedy CEO’s who concentrate solely on the bottom line, as happens so often today.

Also, most products were manufactured in this country and subject to a higher level of quality control. Any items which had to be assembled by the purchasers contained instructions that were originally written in English and generally understandable.

We are now struggling with assembly instructions, probably translated from Chinese, and about as easy to understand as the original version. Undoubtedly, we will somehow eventually get this sofa bed put together, with difficulty. Fortunately, Floyd has more mechanical aptitude than I, which is to say he has some.

He suggested that a good employment opportunity exists for someone to write assembly instructions for all the stuff that comes in boxes that actually illustrate how to get the job done. They might have to move to China, however.

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