I was recently in a self-serve queue to fill air in my car tire recently. At one point, however, the queue got stuck.
Instead of a quick one minute wait, we were now waiting close to five minutes without any sign of progress. This car owner seemed to just be walking up and down from the machine to the tire. Someone ahead shared his frustration at the situation and he finally got help from a technician at the tire center.
As the queue was fairly backed up, the technician helped the rest of of us get it done as well.
As I reflected on that incident, I realized that the issue wasn’t that he didn’t know how to work the pump. Instead, it was his unwillingness to ask for help. And, while it happened to him in this instance, it could just as easily have happened to me in another context.
It is natural for all of us to want to demonstrate capability – even in seemingly inconsequential things. However, that desire gets in the way of learning and progress.
Helpful reminder that becoming is more important than being in the long run.
