Last year, I took my car in for a repair. The mechanic fixed the one exact thing I had asked, charged me an exorbitant amount, and sent me on my way. A week later, my check engine light came on, because there was an issue that had gone unnoticed when the mechanic went in to fix the one single thing I had specified.

It was annoying and expensive at the time, and of course I think of it whenever I get car maintenance done now. And lately, something similar happened to two other people I know — and in one of those situations, they were lucky no one got hurt. It’s surprising to me that this happens, because:

1) there are potential serious consequences (at the very least, potential financial consequences to both driver and mechanic), and

2) shouldn’t it be part of their job to look at the whole car?

I know we’re all burned out now. The Baby Boomer generation is retiring, COVID is a thing, every job is somehow short on both staff and money for wages. I don’t blame anyone at any job for feeling like the work they’re required to do is overwhelming. But, see point 1. (I have a lot of thoughts about high-demand jobs and the consequences of mistakes versus the well-being of employees, but that would be a whole post on its own.)

On a separate-but-maybe-related note: I start in a writing critique group tomorrow. The group has been around for a while, but this will be my first meeting with them. I just read the pieces and took what I hope were helpful notes. I see a couple of the pieces submitted are revisions of pieces from earlier months — I wish I had more context for them, but maybe it’s helpful to the author(s) to get some feedback from someone coming at their work completely new to it.

I can’t submit a piece for critique yet — I won’t be eligible to do so until December. But I’m sure once I do, I’ll want to come back to the lines of thought in this post and think about fixing the prescribed issue versus looking at the vehicle as a whole. But right now I’m just continuing to cross my fingers that the check engine light doesn’t come on.