Passing the figurative buck

Sorry about the late post. Sometimes you close your eyes for that extra few seconds in the morning and then they shoot open 20 minutes later and you wonder if you already missed work.

Today, the landscaping crew came and did some work around my office building. Well okay, the building isn't mine, but my company lives there. Well okay, it's not my company...but you get the picture.

They blew off all the sand, dirt, and debris from the grass, edges, and planter areas. Awesome right?

The sand, dirt, and debris now lays on the asphalt of the parking lot, two feet inward from where it used to be. But hot damn, those edges are clean as I've ever seen them!

There are so many things wrong with this, where do I start...

• Is this just their way of passing the buck?
• If it still is their responsibility, why didn't they just clean it up instead of leaving it for another day (it will be blown around and driven on between now and then)?
• It looks worse now. If someone else is coming to clean it up, why not coordinate that?
• Why not just suck up all the debris instead of blowing it somewhere else (this technology must exist, mustn't it?)

Anyway you slice it, it boils down to this: doing things the right way, and doing them thoroughly the first time will make for less work in the end.

Even if you have to spend a few extra minutes doing "someone else's job", it's still a better way to operate. You can have them do a smaller task for you...something they can do from start to finish.