The Crooked Bookshelf

Last week, I was visiting with a friend here in the Trenches.  She and her assistant were busy putting together a new bookshelf, one of those lovely particleboard, assemble yourself, ones.  I was content to loll around on her couch, answering emails, and heckle cheer them on.  As they finished the box and prepared to attach the backing to the unit, it appeared that the darn factory had given them a crooked backing.  Undaunted, they attached it as best they could, then stood the unit up.  You know what's coming next, don't you?  The backing wasn't crooked; the unit was.  I decided to put that lovely associates degree in interior design to work, and got off the couch.  The assistant went to the gym.  We took the unit apart.  Putting it back together, we checked the corners for plumbness.  We put pieces together a bit differently, at a different angle.  Amazingly, the second time through, the backing was straight.  We attached it, and Voila, straight bookcase.  My friend dared me to make this experience a Trenches post.  Here you go.

Putting together the bookshelf is so like the Trenches, it's almost painful.  The manufacturer gave my friend all the pieces necessary to put together a lovely bookshelf.  The box included all of the structural pieces and the hardware.  It came with directions.  My friend and her assistant followed them; it didn't work.  The bookshelf was wrong.  Some marriages are like that.  People come together with all of the right parts to make a marriage work.  They approach it methodically, and with enthusiasm.  Sometimes, it just doesn't come together, and the marriage fails.  If those same people look at their marriage, think about what went wrong and what didn't.  If they decide what parts need to change, and what can stay in place, then the next time they embark on making a marriage work, they have a good chance of succeeding.  Kind of like the second time we put the bookshelf together.  The problem with the bookshelf and with some marriages is that crooked is good enough for some people. For others, crooked isn't acceptable, but they're unwilling or unable to put forth the effort and the insight necessary to make it straight, with the result that the next bookcase or marriage is just as crooked as the first.  If clients learned enough from their experience in the Trenches to not make the same mistakes again, I'd be thrilled.  It's what I try to help them to do.  Sometimes, I'm successful, and sometimes not.  It's all up to them.  Here in the Trenches.