IT has just occurred to me that teachers have stopped entertaining excuses, like, for instance: The dog ate my homework. Instead, what they now accept is: I don’t know what happened. After I added more RAM and inserted the graphics card, I turned to say something to my mom, and my hard drive crashed and erased everything!
Just the other day, I heard my 14-year-old brother, Omer, use the excuse.
Actually, I don’t doubt him. But the level of details he provided — mom, graphics card, etc — reminded me of the excuses I make when something goes wrong. They are just as long and detailed, and sometimes I listen to myself as I make them, and think, “What an interesting story. Why am I telling it?”
Not too long ago, a friend of mine needed a few extra days to complete and submit her assignment at the university. She asked for an extension in the deadline. Typically enough, instead of saying, “I need some more time,” to her professor, she said, “I’m sorry, but midnight Monday I had a computer problem, and then I got a pain in my jaw. So, I took the computer to the shop and then went to the dentist, and he said I needed emergency root canal. And you know, I asked both the computer guy and the dentist why had this happened, but both of them leaned back and said they didn’t know. And then I came home to a call that a close friend’s mother had died. And then ....”
What puzzles me is why she didn’t just tell the teacher, “I’ll have it for you Thursday, all there and done.” Why did she have to play the whole drama?
But I know my sweet little friend is not alone in doing the if-I-failed-it’s-because-of-fate thing. A lot of us believe we have to establish that only something really, really bad can keep us from coming through. But if we’ve been reliable in the past, why would we need to establish that?
As for the story-telling part, I think we see it as one part offering of evidence, and one part sheer pleasure; we want to share a narrative — to make a connection and hear the other person say, “Oh no!” and “You’re kidding.”
It’s better than the other person knowing that you couldn’t make it, you know, the excuse-making style, “If I fail, it’s the other guy’s fault.”
For instance, you bring the car into a garage because it keeps breaking down. The mechanic pokes around and sees that the transmission is completely shot. He shakes his head and says, “The last guy who fixed this was an idiot.” Meaning: “I hate to tell you, but this is going to cost you a bundle and I’m not sure I can do it right. But it’s not my fault, it’s the other guy’s.”
You hear it from the plumber: “He put it in a plastic pipe?” means: “You’ll be without a toilet for a week. Are you friendly with the neighbours?”
Perhaps this is just human nature. There is a thing inside us that says that somehow our work won’t be recognized as good unless the other person is as wanting.
Author Gore Vidal touched on this when he said, “It’s not enough that I succeed — my friends must fail.”
Both the excuses — “It’s fate!” and “It’s all his fault!” — seem to me to be outer showings of an inner lack of faith in the fairness and generosity of the person to whom you’re making excuses, to say nothing of a lack of faith in yourself.
I know what I should do: Stand up straight, stop crying and say, “I’m not done, but I’m working hard and you’ll have it soon. I’m sorry.” And what the mechanic should say: “The car’s in bad shape, but I’ll do everything I can to get it running again.”
We should take responsibility and let someone else do the commentary. In any case, finger-pointing doesn’t work. It won’t make people think you’re good at your job when you say it’s the other guy’s fault; it will make them wary of you. I know. Once I was criticizing my younger sister when my dad shared an observation with me, “When you point your finger,” he said, “there are three fingers pointing back at you.”
IT has just occurred to me that teachers have stopped entertaining excuses, like, for instance: The dog ate my homework. Instead, what they now accept is: I don’t know what happened. After I added more RAM and inserted the graphics card, I turned to say something to my mom, and my hard drive crashed and erased everything!
