I’ve written about my old friend error before. Regardless of whether I acknowledge her presence or pretend shes somewhere else, she’s always by my side ready to hurl the qui vive? when I stray from the path of accuracy, which alas is embarrassingly often. She has billions of sisters who are spread into every corner of human activity. She and her kind have even permeated the laws of physics.
Try as I do, she’s never far. It’s easier for me to spot her presence on the work of others than on my own which makes her ubiquity so troublesome. Hence when I came across the phrase “Female peacock” (it’s in the 12th paragraph) I was struck by her insidious sense of humor. Calling a peahen a female peacock is akin to describing a hen as a female rooster. Now, here’s real gender confusion
Bemused by this classification error I turned my attention to my lifelong and constant companion for an other go around on this platform. She’s been my lifelong and constant companion from conception to today. She’ll likely continue to accompany me to what ever meager trace remains beyond the grave.
She’s an inconstant hussy who spreads her affections over the entire universe, assuming she and her sisters are clones. Keeping her at a reasonable distance is a never-ending task. A few bits of advice about dealing with her comes with no assurance of effectiveness. When you check for her presence, she assumes a cloak of invisibility only to jump out like a nuclear bomb blast when you’re convinced you’ve evaded her embrace. No matter the precautions, checks, rechecks, inspections, do-overs, outside consultations for accuracy, breath holding, sequestration, and paranoia she’ll still be there. She’s as relentless as water and as fixed as the blank stare of the sun. She’s undefeatable.
All of these remain no excuse for hapless resignation. You must fight on despite the certainty of loss. There are degrees of defeat. To maintain one’s honor a sincere struggle is required. Better to lose by an inch than a mile.
There is weakness in numbers. The more people involved in an enterprise, the more errors and the near certainty that many or most will escape notice. This ineluctable property is why error and administrators are directly related. Hence the certainty that hospitals, universities, and governments will be enmeshed in error. There’s no escape possible for these leviathans of blunder. The only way to reduce miscues is to tear them down and start afresh.
Job security is another partner in misstep. Tenure and error are the bacon and eggs of mismanagement. Unless the pain of error is swiftly and deeply felt it will gain purchase like a tick and reproduce like debris in a tsunami. Work that can be done alone has the greatest chance of minimizing error. The Sistine Chapel could not have been decorated by committee.
Still, life goes on and things get done – often without disaster as a sequela. Sightless luck can’t explain all success. The Manhattan Project was a large scale team effort that worked. Of course, it was immediately disbanded before it could descend to entanglement.
To err is human – stop. We have a neighborhood pool to guess the number of errors in this piece.
