Six Men Won't Fit In a Bucket

Unhappy because power had not been restored to her home after a damaging storm, an irate customer called her local power company to complain.*

Customer: I can see the truck from my window, and there are six men out there, but only one of them is in the bucket fixing anything on the pole! The rest of them are just standing around on the ground! Why aren’t those other men working?

Power employee: Well, ma’am…all six of them won’t fit in the bucket.

Customer: Oh. (click)

As a former power employee myself, the story made me laugh, and then it made me think: How many times do we get all worked up because all the men aren’t in the bucket?

The caller had a single point of view – her power was off and she wanted it back. She had limited knowledge – she knew that power was reconnected by the man at the top of the pole, but she knew nothing about the number of men it took to remove and replace a damaged pole, cut and move fallen limbs, or ensure the safety of the guy in the bucket. She had limited perspective – her pole was the only one she could see. Yet with so little to go on, she was sure there was slacking going on and that said slacking was the reason she was still in the dark.

How often do we do that? How often to we get all fired up about a situation before we really know what’s going on?

So often, situations go like this: Someone does something that seems offensive to me. I have limited knowledge, limited perspective, and only my own little problem in my sights. So what do I do? I invent all those other details, filling in the blanks with just enough information to support my righteous indignation, making up a story that supports the offense theory and fuels my ire. The more I think about it, the madder I get!

Why is that? In the best of all worlds, we would have a wider view, one that made it harder to focus on a potentially offensive act or word. We’d resist feeling offended until we had all the facts and knew the intent and context from the other person’s perspective. That might require a conversation, some questions, some honest listening, but it would be worth it. If that’s too much trouble, we would at least make up a story that felt good rather than one that just makes us madder. If we are supplying the missing details, why choose the ones that cause the most misery? Do we enjoy having our feelings hurt?

Things are not always what they seem, and offense is taken far more often than it is really given. Next time you find your knickers all wadded up about something, take a step back, refocus, and learn the facts. You won’t be giving up your right to a good head of justifiable steam if the situation really warrants it. You also won’t waste your precious energy writing a story to piss yourself off. Before you get mad, remind yourself that six men won’t fit in a bucket.

*An all-too true story borrowed and paraphrased from my friend Indigo Satin.