# Bring Me a Rock By:: [[Ross Jackson]] 2023-11-19 A unique form of frustration comes from working for another person. When a person in the upper echelon asks a subordinate to do a given task, what is provided doesn’t always satisfy the person’s request. That person will then redirect the person to do it again but slightly differently. If this occurs more than once, it likely reflects an issue. This situation falls under the “bring me a rock” category. Under this category, someone says, “Bring me a rock.” When one does, the person says, “Not that rock, I wanted a different one.” This can go on indefinitely. The purpose of the “bring me a rock” label is that the person directing the action isn’t providing enough information for the task to be completed successfully. If there is a specific “rock” one wants, one should explain that. Perhaps one won’t know which rock one wants until one sees it. If this is an exploratory task, the person should clarify that initially. This could be accomplished by saying, “I have a vague appreciation for what I want, but I won’t know for sure until I see it. I know it is frustrating to iterate on something like this until I find what I want, but I would appreciate your help working through it.” One can imagine how infrequently this occurs. Instead, those in the upper echelon direct and redirect action until they get what they want and expect that the person doing the iterations is grateful for the job and opportunity. It would be a radically different situation if labor could respond, “It seems like you don’t know what you are doing yet. When you do, let me.” One might argue that labor has a much better idea of what it wants management to stop doing than management knows what it wants labor to be doing. If in doubt, look for the pile of rocks outside the manager’s office. #### Related Items [[Management]] [[Work]] [[Uncertainty]] [[Action]] [[Frustration]] [[Business]]