Being Prepared

The day after Thanksgiving is known as Black Friday in the United States. It's known as that because it's the biggest shopping day of the year. People will show up to stand in line at some stores as early as midnight, because many stores will open their doors as early as 4AM. It's probably an amazing day; I stay indoors on this day, however.

Why? There are some things I pretty much know are going to happen that I don't want to deal with. One, I know some of the stores and malls are going to be mobbed with people looking for the best deals they can find. Even if those deals really aren't so good, they'll seem good because of the day. Some people are going to lose control of themselves and cause others grief. Parking will be a nightmare; I'd just rather not participate.

Having said that, there's a couple of things I hear that surprise me every year, things one would somehow expect these stores would know about. One is the number of people that show up for these events. This year I understand was especially voluminous, and in many cities patrons were injured rather severely. In one city, three people were actually killed. Some of the interviews I saw of store personnel was that they never expected so many people to show up; did they forget that this happens every single year?

Something else that happens is these stores run out of stock. I can understand some of how that happens, because one never knows how the minds of shoppers will act, or what all the hottest products might be on the day of the sale. However, what surprises me is how so many of these stores miss the opportunity to ingratiate themselves to their customers by having a rain check policy that allows these shoppers to come back at another time and purchase that product for the same price. Sure, some stores have them, but not all, and I've heard about stores running out of rain checks, or having only a limited number for those shoppers who show up the earliest. Is there any wonder that a frenzy is created that they're not prepared for?

When one really thinks about being prepared, it's supposed to include thinking about the possible things that could go wrong, and how they might be addressed if they occur. If people take more time to think about possible consequences of an action, whether that action is supposed to be positive or negative, maybe another idea may germinate instead, or, at the very least, a tragedy might be averted.

This reminds me of a short news documentary I saw many years ago. There was a dead whale on a beach in the state of Oregon, and the people in the community were undecided as to what to do about it. They thought about trying to drag it away, or hoist it in some fashion to cart it away. They thought about hiring someone to cut it up so they could move it easier. There were also a few other ideas that came up. In the end, they decided the best solution for handling it was to try to blow it up. They would put dynamite all around it, blow it up, and all that would be left would be little pieces of whale that they knew the sea birds would eat; problem solved. For some reason, my mind has always imagined that there must not have been a single female within this group, because I would bet she would have been the voice of reason.

What happened? They blew up the whale, but things didn't quite go according to plan. For one, the top half of the whale didn't go anywhere; it did bust open but the bulk of the top part stayed right where it was. Much of the whale that did blow apart didn't blow apart in that many small pieces. Some pieces went as far as œ mile away; some actually broke car windows, because on the day they exploded the dynamite, there were a lot of people who came to see it live. The beach ended up being covered with whale pieces, the stench so bad that they had to close the beach for the season, and so big that the sea birds, which left and didn't come back, couldn't have eaten them anyway. I never found out how long it took them to clean up the mess, but it should have been obvious that dynamite is not an explosive that disintegrates as much as, well, explodes.

Not being prepared for when things don't do according to plan isn't always so tragic, but it can be. Companies and businesses go bankrupt because they haven't prepared for those times when things aren't going so well. Employees get laid off because companies aren't prepared for the changes in the market. Many of us weren't prepared for our gas prices escalating as much as they have, and it's been harder on some businesses than others. I know in my own area of the country that it's going to cost more for snow removal that in previous years because of gas prices, and we're already feeling the pinch because of the cost of heating oil.

When our decisions have a chance to impact others, it's probably more crucial to try to be as prepared as possible. When your actions only affect yourself, they can be important as well, but, as Mr. Spock once said, "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of a few". If you have employees, family members, friends, or customers whose lives will be impacted in some way by being ill prepared to address the ramifications of bad planning, the results can be catastrophic.

Sometimes it takes more than one head to hash these things out. Every decision doesn't have to be a one person operation. I know many people abhor meetings, but this is as good a reason to have a meeting, probably with a task force rather than having every single person participate, so that, hopefully, someone will think about those few things that could go bad, and everyone involved will have a chance to discuss those items. When one has enough information, has thought about all those things good and bad that could happen, and has contingency actions ready just in case, there should never be any fears in going forward with a plan, because hopefully almost every scenario has been explored beforehand, and something new can be implemented at a moment's notice.

Too bad it didn't work with the whale, though; no one's perfect.