Patio Pondering: Don't Worry, We'll Remember (We Won't)

This morning is another cold one off the patio, school is cancelled for another day due to the frigid temperatures and drifting snow. I made no effort to venture out to the patio, enjoying my coffee from the warm confines of our kitchen. My coffee is a respite from the surprise way this morning started.

There are few phrases that startle a homeowner into action, words like "The dog has diarrhea!" or "There's no electricity." This morning, I was startled from my early morning REM with "There's water all over the bathroom floor and it isn't from the dog!"

Bleary eyed I sprang from my bed like I had just heard St. Nicholas on the roof and ran to the bathroom.

It took me a few seconds to see water dripping from the tank of the toilet. An easy fix, just reach down and turn off the valve and all is well. Wait, where's the valve? Oh, that's right, our builder used one of those fancy water manifolds in the basement so now remote shutoffs are needed. When I went to the basement, I remembered that the person that built our house chose to not label the valves.

What should have been a simple turn-the-valve to stem the flow of water turned into a game of Turn-the-valve-and-yell-did-it-turn-it-off. Of course, the valve for the master bathroom toilet was the last valve I turned. Finally, the water is off and we can decide what to do with the leaky toilet.

When I returned to the kitchen to enjoy my morning coffee I thought about the blank water manifold with no labels. As I sat there with my coffee, still slightly annoyed at the blank manifold, it hit me - how many times have I done exactly what that plumber did? Not with labeling plumbing lines, or instructions I left for someone, or assuming someone knew how to do something I never actually showed them, but with how I've implemented plans or completed tasks with no documentation to help those coming later.

Just yesterday I wrote a SOP for a new position to help with my podcasting. As I wrote the various sections I kept realizing that I had to specifically write the procedures for the new person because they did not have the knowledge to "Remember what we did." The plumber knew which line went where but that knowledge did me no good 24 years later as I stood there looking at that unlabeled manifold with water dripping two stories above me with a panicked wife telling me “That’s not it."

How many times in our lives whether at home or at work do we say "We'll remember" when in reality we won't?