Settling for mediocrity makes life easier

I had the pleasure of visiting a fast-food restaurant this weekend. It was 9:50 a.m. on the pleasant Saturday morning when I carefully positioned my vehicle at the end of what was a six-car deep drive-though line.

I thought about walking into the restaurant – there didn’t seem to be a long line inside – but I chose instead to remain in my comfortable vehicle with the windows down enjoying the spring weather.

However, the wait was more than I expected. Over 30 minutes passed before I finally reached the window and received my order.

Was I upset? Did I lose my appetite?

The answer to both questions is “no.”

Ever since Hurricane Katrina flooded New Orleans and Houma’s economy went into hype-drive, many of us have learned to live with mediocre service at local restaurants. However, mediocrity is not limited to food services.

We need only look at last week’s Tri-Parish Times.

Being a weekly newspaper, it is more economical to outsource printing services rather than purchase, staff and maintain a full-time printing press. By doing so, we are also outsourcing some of the quality control.

That came back to haunt us last week when we discovered our printing company had placed page 4D where 4B should have been and vice-versa. Faced with a 24-hour delay and the loss of news timeliness, we reluctantly chose not to reprint the publication and, instead, circulate what we considered a less-than-perfect product.

Our printer assures us it won’t happen again, but experience tells us otherwise.

“If you want to do it right, do it yourself,” my father would say.

My mother never had a housekeeper when we were growing up because she could not find one that cleaned as well as her. A large number of people feel the same way.

How many projects go undone because we don’t have the time, and we refuse to let someone else do it?

There are times when it is better to settle for second best and make progress than stand still on principle. Nobody does what we do better than us. However, settling for mediocrity makes life easier.