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The lack of curiousity
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2006
Apr 05
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People are curious by nature. Curiousity led us to where we are as humans today. Despite this, curiousity is seemingly frightening to some people even though they know it shouldn’t be, at least so it seems.
I had a meeting recently about some new technology at work. Well, not new technology, but a system they want created that would totally rearrange their work processes. Some serious change…but anyway, during that conversation one person was talking about how her secretary keeps reservations schedules in a little black book and that having a system to do it and allow others to see would be nice.
I quickly spoke up to say that system existed, and had existed for quite some time. Her eyes opened and asked some more. I told her there was a lot of stuff that existing (on our intranet) that makes simple communications and sharing easier. Then she mentioned her secretary would never think to ask if there was a system, or even if we can buy/build a system to make the whole thing more efficient.
This kind of bummed me out. In some environments, namely your work place, I find it odd for people to settle for the status quo. I think as an employee it’s your duty to make your job better. And you do that by asking everyone else to make it better, managers, co-workers, whoever will listen. There’s always someone that will agree with you and I’ve seen a simple idea get a lot of chitchat and magically turn into a full-blown project overnight.
If I was sitting there trying to track schedules on paper and handling phone calls from people asking which days are available and when, I would be going, “there’s got to be a better way to do this!” Even if the ultimate answer is “No, deal with it,” at least you asked. This is especially true if you’re not exactly sure of what resources your company has. I don’t think this lady I was talking with knew we could make our own web-based software. Now she does and I hope the gears are turning for the future.
Maybe it’s not really a lack of curiousity but more a lack of willingness to better their lives, even if it’s only their work lives. But I guess curiousity is needed to fuel the courage to ask what is possible instead of accepting the “that’s how it’s always been done” excuse - which is almost never a good excuse.