Smoke Gets in Your Eyes  –  Proverbs in Practice

Have you settled by a camp fire, former procrastinators, only to get up and move because the smoke stung your eyes?  Have you been bold enough to taste straight vinegar from a spoon?  It’s the taste bud equivalent of fingernails across a blackboard!

Many years ago, I chose the wrong person for a job.  It was just a quick errand, but still, my mistake – and I was reprimanded.  Ever since then, this proverb has made me cringe.

“Like vinegar to the teeth and smoke to the eyes, so is the sluggard to those who send him.”  Proverbs 11:26.

I can’t say the errand runner was a sluggard, but the person to whom I sent him was displeased.  Three lessons stick with me from this:

• It’s better to do some jobs myself; don’t send anybody else.
• I can only send somebody to do a job for me and another person who has proven to be excellent.  (There’s a time for training, but I shouldn’t jeopardize another person’s work.)
• If I’m sent to do a job, I must do it well and promptly.

The effects of having someone on your team who does not carry his weight is a real downer.  Everyone is affected by his or her tardiness, inattention, distractibility, shoddy work, or whatever way that person proves unreliable. A sluggard’s attitude and work drag down the effect of everybody else’s good work and creates more work for them. 

Select a diligent person to help another with his job.  Be a diligent person if you are the one sent.

Some companies allow an employee to request not to be paired with another particular employee for a work assignment.  If past experience has revealed to one that the other slacks in some way – maybe disregards instruction, fails to follow procedures, etc. – then the company honors the request.  I don’t want to be a “smokey experience” others seek to avoid.

How much better to be requested because you and your work are respected.  “Could you send Susie to us for this project?  She was a real asset the last time we worked together.”  That’s who we diligent women want to be.

What did you learn from sending – or working with – a sluggard?