YYs prompt my Why?

Why did they believe something so preposterous?

If the machine was only capable of running only 65 boards per 10 minutes, then how on this particular morning could “Amber” [Name changed – I want to say to protect the stupid, but I shouldn’t.] be running 100 boards per ten minutes?

And how could “Toni” [ditto above] as our supervisor support this breakthrough in production?

I want to share the details of this incident to help us question our methodology in “processing life” and possibly help us to better understand the struggle it is to see truth and reality apart from our biases and desires.

Why are we so effective in distorting reality?

The story:
I worked in a factory several years ago and learned to run a variety of machines. I came in to run one of those machines early one morning and Amber had already begun feeding the circuit boards into the machine to have the necessary parts glued on.

Toni had Amber start the machine an hour early because we had other circuit boards to put through the machine. Toni asked me when I would be ready to run the other boards and I calculated the time and estimated something like 11:00 am. It was around 6:00 am when we spoke.

Toni was impatient and could not understand why this would take so long. I explained that with the number of boards that needed assembled at approximately 65 boards per ten minutes (which was optimistic) that it would take about five hours. I don’t remember the exact figures as this was ten years ago. These particular boards were “YY” boards; the boards were coded by combinations of letters.

Toni stated, “But Amber has the machine running at 100 boards per ten minutes.” And Amber agreed.

Please bear with me; this story is very revealing as to how we make our minds work to our advantage.

Now more details: Amber was a good operator, but this machine was not capable of running the YY boards through at this pace. Our time study person calculated the machine to run about 72-75 boards per ten minutes. This is another story in itself because although our time study guy was a nice person, he wasn’t very competent. He tabulated his results based on the entry feeder to the machine which would line up several boards quickly so that when the machine was ready, it would not have to wait for a board to process. The machine ran slower than the entry feeder, but he did not calculate that.

So we have Amber’s claim for 100 per…, the time study guy says 75 per…, but the machine would only run 62-65 if everything was just right.

Do you see that we have a problem, Houston?

So how could I explain to my supervisor how Amber could run the machine so much faster than I could?

I asked Amber: Did you reset the counter before you began?

Oops! Forgot to reset the counter and began with a head start.

That explains the inflated production figure, but it doesn’t really explain how two people who were well aware of the capability of this machine could have it running over 150 percent more than what it could run under ideal conditions.

How could they disregard something so obvious?

Because they wanted to. Sound familiar? We believe what we want to believe. We believe what fits our agenda. We process life according to our desires. Blind leads blind.

Now bringing this around to the professing Church: We believe much of what we believe because we want to. It fits and we are sticking with our story, no matter the reality of life, God and his words.

Why do we cling to the distortion? Because we want to.

Wishful thinking, friends.

Here is part of what was going on with my job. Amber was a good operator, and she wanted to show Toni that she was better at running this machine than I was. Amber wasn’t a bad person, but she was going to use me to promote herself.

Dang! If she only hadn’t overlooked the counter.

Toni (our supervisor) wanted to put me in my place. She seemed to want to do that a lot. She didn’t like me. Why? I am not sure, but I know she thought I was too uppity. She told me once during an evaluation that my co-workers didn’t feel that I was concerned about production. This perception was based on my reactions to problems with running the machines. I didn’t look concerned enough.

I asked Toni if she ever read the machine logs. Her answer? No, she had not.

As machine operators, we recorded our production figures for the shift in the machine log. If she had taken the time to read the machine logs, she would have seen that I had higher production figures than most of the other operators, sometimes tripling their production.

But she evaluated me on perception rather than hard data.

Yes, this was a little bewildering to me. Hard data or perception? Hmmm… I am not concerned enough about production because of her perception even though my actual production figures are outstanding. Sheesh!

And third on my list in the wishful thinking category is this. Toni did want to get more production for the day. The more we did; the better she looked to the higher ups.

So everything was in place for a good day, until I ruined it by bringing them back to reality.

Of course, they thanked me for catching their mistake.

No, somehow, it was still my fault that those *&d@##$%^ YY boards would not be done until 11:00 am.

So why have I gone on and on with this?

Because we do it so often, and we don’t even realize what we are actually doing.

(Isaiah 28:14-15 NKJV) Therefore hear the word of the LORD, you scornful men, Who rule this people who are in Jerusalem, (15) Because you have said, “We have made a covenant with death, And with Sheol we are in agreement. When the overflowing scourge passes through, It will not come to us, For we have made lies our refuge, And under falsehood we have hidden ourselves.”

Our lies become our refuge, and in becoming our refuge become our security.

Bewildered. What lie do we want to believe so much that we refuse to face the reality before us?

Look at what we have done. Look at our production. Look at our relationship with God.

Oops! Forgot to set the counter. Was so enthralled with my story that I missed the Story of God.

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