The Sanford Berenberg Experience: Message of the Day - Jerry-Rigging is not always the solution

Good Morning,

This past Saturday, I took a shot at fixing the electric-eye sensor units on our garage door. You know, the ones that allow the garage door to close without having to stand by the door and hold the button down until the door actually closes. It appears that these units at one time offended our dog Bocefus. Bo was kind enough to show us his dissatisfaction with these units by ripping them off the wall. I had fixed them once before, but at that time, they had not appeased Bo and were summarily ripped off the walls again.

I had little to work with, wire-wise, and had to do delicate cleaning of wires and twisting them around each other to ensure an electrical connection. As these wires are so very delicate, I could not use a third wire to ensure connection as it would increase the resistance and it would not work. I know this because I once learned how to soldier to fix a circuit board of a 9-pin dot matrix printer I once broke the board for. I did well soldiering, but even the smallest wire I could find to jump from one connection to the next was so much larger than the flat wires in the board, it never worked.

So, after an hour of getting everything set up, and then having to make changes because one side had less wire than other, and one side needed to be spliced in two places, if I moved the wrong way, the wires came unconnected, again…you see where I am going.

I took a deep breath and stopped. The jerry-rigging of the sensors was not going to work.

As I was resting and thinking of another solution, I realized that I would need to get new sensor units and wires and just do it the right way. After I purchased them and installed them, everything is working again, with a lot less effort.

Isn’t that indicative of many things we try to jerry-rig in life? We just try to make it work even know we know it is not the best path to take.

We have at times, used an old Excel template to make a new spreadsheet, but don’t peer the old spreadsheet to remove all the old references and formulas and slap in the new, only to find a growing number of errors which then force us to start with a new spreadsheet and do it all over again, when that is what we should have done in the first place.

What is it about us that we cling to the old methods which are not cookie cutter solutions and we try to force them into the solutions we are looking for? Is it a fear of change causing us to try to jerry-rig a solution using what we know then going out and trying something new or spending a little more money for a proper solution?

One thing I have noticed about jerry-rigging. It is great when you are in a pinch or in a dire or difficult situation. Outside of that, it often is simply a waste of time and ultimately money.

Something to consider.

Sanford Berenberg

Sanford@berenberg.net
http://www.berenberg.net

http://sanfordberenberg.blogspot.com/
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