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Monday, May 18, 2009

Rounding Those Corners

When I was a teenager I mowed my grandfather’s lawn as a way to earn money. It was a big yard, and it took an hour to cut the grass. Granddaddy taught me how to save myself time and effort on such a job. He called his technique “rounding the corners.”

Instead of mowing in a rectangular shape, with corners of 90 degrees, he would cut a row diagonally across each corner. That way he did not have to stop and turn the mower when he got to the end of each row; he just slowed down a bit and followed the angle around. The lawn looks great afterward, and you haven’t worked as hard as if you made those right-angle turns.

We recently had our air conditioner compressor repaired again. The builder-installed unit has been a recurring problem since we built the house. Every repairman has told us that the unit was poor quality. Same goes for the stove, the light fixtures, the plumbing. … In ways that were not immediately obvious, our builder cut corners, saving himself money, and leaving us with
long-term headaches.

Cutting corners. Is that so different from my grandfather’s rounding of corners? I asked some friends and family members. A few folks defined it as saving precious time. One friend, who loves finding bargains at thrift stores, says you might call it cutting corners when you buy used instead of new in order to save money. But most respondents considered the term as a negative, with descriptions including “leaving something out of the equation,” “getting the job done quickly by doing it cheaply but not necessarily thoroughly,” “not doing something to the best of my ability,’ and “the lazy way to do something.”

My daughter, a former police officer, pointed out that if you drive across a corner parking lot at a traffic light or stop sign, it is considered “cutting a corner to disregard a traffic control device” and is a ticketable offense. “How can that be a good thing?” she asked. I agree. I’ve always felt that cutting corners meant giving less than my all to the task, omitting something that should be there.

A student copies someone else’s work and passes it off as his own. A company replaces customer service personnel with an automated telephone system that adds layers of complexity to the attempt to obtain assistance. An auto repairman installs a used part and charges for a new one. Aren’t these all forms of cutting corners? In each case, someone is shortchanged.

The student takes credit for another’s effort and doesn’t learn what he ought to. The customer is frustrated at the difficulty in reaching a live person to handle his problem. The car owner may be put at risk by driving a vehicle containing an unsafe part. All because someone decided to cut corners.

If I cut corners in what I do, I might save myself some time and effort, but I might cause extra work or problems for someone else. On the other hand, if I round the corners in my work, I find a way to do the same good job more efficiently. The phrases may sound similar, but their meanings are very different. So I try never to cut corners.

But I’ll round them when it’s OK. I’m the one mowing in circles.

(Dallas Morning News 5-16-09)