Mercy! Mercy! That Dang Nabed PERCY!

Courses of Action

More on Courses of Action

I better get off his problem solving kick. I'm putting readers to sleep. Oh what the heck…it won’t be the first time in my life that I wound up talking to myself. None-the-less, I think I will go on for awhile because it allows me to record thoughts on matters that swirl around in my mind and otherwise never get recorded…They sort of slip off into the ether and my muse, who has taken the time to explain things to me, doesn’t want me to just blow the whole matter off…my muse seems to want me to write this stuff down. Maybe our muse is a ship load of aliens, monitoring our activities from afar....da da da da. (lol)

I am going to assuming (there is that word again) that my muse is out there and that she is female, and floating around out there in cyber-space. I realize this is a far out notion to many but I believe it because it explains the facts. I think that when I write about muses, which are spirits, people think… what kind of a whack-oh nut case is this Percy Goodfellow anyway? Getting back to problem solving let me turn now to Courses of Action in the BP Situation.

Courses of Action.

1. Cap the well.
2. Siphoned off the discharge.
3. Drill a relief well.
4. Contain the spread through the use of booms and barriers.
5. Pay the damages.
6. Put someone in charge who knows something about oil wells.

I’m going to keep repeating myself that problem solving is an exercise in finding “Good”. Good is defined by me as an intervention that can be taken that improves a situation over doing nothing at all. “Bad” is doing something that is worse than doing nothing at all.

The first thing that needs to be addressed is that BP in trying to “Cap” could have done a “Bad” thing. They made matters “Worse.” Nobody knows this for sure but for the purposes of discussion lets assume that in messing with the ruptured pipe in an attempt to cap it in the face or enormous physical and political pressure…they opened the crimp wider and allowed even more oil to gush out. If this happened this would be a classic example of “Bad” as I have defined it in problem solving. Still it happens all the time…in trying to fix a physical or social problem, instead of making matters better we make things worse. For example, what if your sister and her husband have a loud argument. You define the problem as to determine the best way to restore harmony to their relationship. You frame the problem with facts and assumptions and come up with three courses of action. Point out the error of their ways, call the cops, or/and enroll your sister in the Church’s marriage counseling program. Instead of responding in a rational way to your attempt to your efforts at helping, they react emotionally and instead a minor crisis that would have worked itself out, they now get really "Ticked" and file for a divorce.

Making matters worse in problem solving or taking an action that is a “Bad” idea is something the problem solver must try and avoid at all costs. When your intervention in something, does not contribute to a solution but instead makes matters worse than doing nothing…you have as a problem solver have shot yourself in the foot…you have created the bane of the well intentioned meddeler… you have taken an action that led to something “Bad.” So if in trying to cap the well the rate of discharge went from 60K barrels a day to 100K barrels then BP took a “Bad Action.”

Sometimes, however, in order to improve a situation you have to make it worse to begin with. My wife and I were care givers for my parents. We had power of attorney for their healthcare but they were (My Father) was reluctant to turn over control of their financial matters. It is easy to understand why because people have worked hard all their lives for their money and want to have something to say regarding how it is spent. The down side is that there is a whole scam industry out there that preys on older people who are on the back side of their financial management curve. Plus they tend to forget to pay bills…yada yada yada…anyone in this situation knows what I’m talking about. In addition there are also horror stories of family members who take advantage of the situation. This is a fact of life and there is a system called Probate that employs a legion of lawyers because of the fact that as people grow old they become less and less able to take care of themselves. The issue develops in the transition period were someone begins to slip over the line of being able to cope. ’Tomorrow I will discuss this aspect and see if it doesn’t put the BP Fiasco in a better perspective for understanding.