Thought for the Week: Slow but sure
Judy Clinton considers how 'learning can be available to us in the most mundane of places when we are open to it'
A young man started working at our local post office. He was tall, thin, shy and serious. He was very, very slow in attending to customers. He painstakingly and meticulously attached stamps straight and in an equidistant position relative to the corners of envelopes. Money was carefully and slowly put in the relevant places beside him. Parcels were put in the sacks slowly and precisely, and woe betide anyone who had come to renew their road tax or to deal with more complicated matters: every detail was attended to in the same slow and fastidious manner. He addressed customers with quiet, polite respect with the same care – and slowness.
All of this proved to be extremely frustrating for those waiting in the queue to be served, myself included. Eyes rolled heavenwards as people looked at one another. Weight was shifted from one foot to the other as we shuffled forward. A few people gave up and went away. One man even called out: ‘For God’s sake, get on with it!’ The queue got longer and longer, despite the frantic efforts of the other cashier working beside the young man, and I wondered why he was being so slow: he didn’t appear to be either stupid or unwilling.
Several weeks later, not having been to that post office for a while, I returned with a letter to Sweden, dreading the thought of another long wait. But no, what a change! This same young man was now operating with speedy efficiency and was chatting with customers in a friendly and amicable way.
I suddenly surmised what he had been doing in those early days of the job. He was going so slowly because he wanted to build up the correct and most effective way of doing things, so that his automatic behaviour from then on would become easy and accurate. And that is exactly what he had achieved.
I came away reflecting on the contrast between my habitual way of approaching a new task, and his. I throw myself at a new task fast and approximately: I was programmed as a child to consider that quick was good and getting the job done – somehow – was the priority. Of course, this way of learning leads ultimately to multiple mistakes and a kind of sloppy approximation to how the job might best be done. It took this young man’s exaggerated slowness, followed by the end result of efficient and quick mastery, to show me how and why it is much better to start slowly and carefully, and thereby in the long term reap the benefits. This had most definitely been worth the wait in the queue: it shows how learning can be available to us in the most mundane of places when we are open to it.
You need to login to read subscriber-only content and/or comment on articles.