Five Minutes Between Crap and Quality
I recognize that I will get some blowback on the title of this post. But a confession: crap is one of my favorite words. More than that, it’s my wife’s favorite word. Years ago when one of our now-adult sons was just a little guy, Merriem – in a moment of sheer mom frustration – yelled, “Austin, how many times to I have to tell you, get in here and clean up this crap!” To which Austin marched in the living room and squeaked back “Which crap are you talking about?”
Not our best parenting moment. But looking back on it, definitely in our top ten funniest.
I tell you that because sometimes no other word subs in for crap, except quality. There is both a vast divide and a fine line between crap and quality, and it usually can be bridged in about five minutes:
- Five minutes to grab a tablecloth and cover that nasty plastic folding table you pulled out of the preschool closet.
- Five minutes to walk the parking lot before church and pick up gum wrappers and cigarette butts and discarded water bottles.
- Five minutes to cull the junk in the meeting room, straighten the chairs, turn on the lights, and check the A/C before your coworkers arrive.
- Five minutes to erase the whiteboard after the meeting, reset the room, and take out your trash.
- Five minutes to take that pile of granola bars that you just dumped out of the box from Costco, grab a basket, and line them up so they’re all facing the right way.
- Five minutes to take all of your handouts and bind them in a cheap folder from Staples.
- Five minutes to write a note to a volunteer and drop it in the mail, rather than sending a hasty text.
- Five minutes to run through your outline one more time, see where you can add warmth, see where you can cut fluff.
- Five minutes to recheck your slide deck and make sure alL the tyepos are token care of.
- Five minutes to get a bottle of Windex and a roll of paper towels, and wipe down the glass on the lobby doors.
- Five minutes to check the restrooms between services: dry off the sinks, refill the soap, flush the toilets, pick up the microts.
- Five minutes to straighten your desk before you leave work for the day.
- Five minutes to pick up the discarded communion cups in the back of the pew racks.
- Five minutes to wander the hallways and take down any posters for events that happened last spring.
- Five minutes to grab a razor blade and scrape off the remnants of the Scotch tape that held up the aforementioned posters.
Quality doesn’t have to be expensive or time-consuming. And crap doesn’t have to be our default standard.
