If you want a job done look for a busy person

A Different View with Dave O’Connell

There’s an old theory that, if you want a job done, give it to someone who’s already busy – but the other way of looking at this is that you reward slackers by avoiding them because it’s more hassle than it’s worth.

So if you don’t want to be left with responsibility for the garden, for example, then mow through the rose bushes next time you’re asked to cut the grass.

If you would rather than take responsibility for cooking in the kitchen, then burn one meal until every smoke alarm in the house is ringing and you may never be asked to process anything more taxing than toast for the rest of your life.

If you want to dodge the ironing, leave clothes looking like they’ve been crushed into submission by being stuck under the matrass rather than subjected to the undeniable advantages of a steam iron.

As for cleaning the house, some people react like they got a bad fright from a hoover when they were small and are too traumatised to ever approach one again.

So you don’t like doing the washing up – keep letting good plates and glasses slip out of your hands and shatter on the floor.

You don’t like getting stuck with the laundry – throw a woollen jumper in on a long wash at the wrong temperature so that it comes out five sizes smaller, and you’ll be banned from the washing machine faster than a Russian drugs cheat from the Olympics.

You can take this to any level you want – I worked with a guy once who not alone didn’t drive, he refused to ever learn.

And we used to make fun of this perennial passenger because his inability to get behind the wheel meant he wasn’t as free as the rest of us to take to the highways and byways – until he explained his logic.

He hadn’t started out in life intending to become a permanent passenger – but once he’d realised the advantages, Lewis Hamilton couldn’t change his mind.

As a happily married non-driver, there was no debate as to who would drive the kids to school or swimming lessons; no discussion over whose turn it was to stay off the drink at the next social function; no worries over who’d do the next big shop for the weekend.

Only one half of the partnership knew how to drive and the other was happy to sit up front alongside her.

For more read this week’s Connacht Tribune.