Jane and Abigail were two extremely skilled engineers who worked for a firm in Cincinnati. The firm had over 100 engineers, each of whom were efficient and had graduated from some of the best universities in America.
One day while taking a coffee break in the common cafeteria, someone discovered that the coffee machine had broken and was not working properly. The employees got irritated due to this, but after plenty of ranting, they went about their day.
The next morning, the employees came back to the same situation of a broken coffee machine, which had stopped serving its purpose. The same routine of ranting and complaining continued, but the employees would eventually go back to their cubicles and continue working in their disgruntled state.
Jane and Abigail were not just colleagues, but were also good friends, who were witnessing this dissatisfaction every single day. Jane then turned to Abigail and said, ‘if no one is going to come fix the machine, then can’t we? I mean, we are engineers after all, and know how such machines work’. Abigail agreed and said ‘Sometimes we spend so much time complaining, but don’t realize that the solution is always in our hands’. Jane and Abigail came the next day, on their day off and got together on fixing the broken coffee machine. It took a few strenuous hours, but they got the job done, and were proud of themselves for having fixed a problem for the other employees.
The next day, the employees came in as usual and expected to find a broken coffee machine, but were instead shocked to see that it had been fixed, and was working normally. They found out that Jane and Abigail has spent their day off in working on the broken machine, and this impressed everyone thoroughly, but also left them feeling embarrassed, as they could have also contributed and become a part of the solution instead of complaining.
So what’s the moral here? If you can fix a problem, then do it, instead of complaining and waiting for someone to fix it for you. Be the solution, not the problem!
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