Following the Rules
This morning I was at the post office bright and early. Usually, I'm there late and using the automated self-service machine so it was a nice change. The postal clerk had issue, though, with me calling a 5x7 envelope an envelope. Because it lacked flexibility, it should not be called an envelope but instead a parcel.
"Those machines don't know all the rules," he told me when I explained I'd been mailing as envelopes for 25 cents less on the automated self-service machine. "It would take two days to teach a human all the rules so there's no way that machine could know."
I wanted to tell him I totally related: I spent 20 years in school learning the rules of the English language and it drives me nuts sometimes that people just use spellchecker instead of talking to an editor. Okay, not really. But I thought about how we're all rule keepers in our own fields: as an editor, as a postal clerk, as an airline gate agent.
What I thought of then, though, was that people are mostly concerned with the rules that really don't matter. Rules that, frankly, are left to individual interpretation. Even grammar rules are open to interpretation. It seems like there's very little in life that really, truly matters. If I use lay instead of lie you'll still understand the sentiment. If I misuse a comma very few people will care. No one will die. If I mail an envelope as an envelope instead of parcel, it still gets to the destination.
So in the face of an interpretation of a rule I didn't interpret similarly, I decided to follow one of the rules that does matter: respecting another person's interpretation. Even though it did cost me 25 cents per parcel. I think I'll stick to the self-service machine next time.
"Those machines don't know all the rules," he told me when I explained I'd been mailing as envelopes for 25 cents less on the automated self-service machine. "It would take two days to teach a human all the rules so there's no way that machine could know."
I wanted to tell him I totally related: I spent 20 years in school learning the rules of the English language and it drives me nuts sometimes that people just use spellchecker instead of talking to an editor. Okay, not really. But I thought about how we're all rule keepers in our own fields: as an editor, as a postal clerk, as an airline gate agent.
What I thought of then, though, was that people are mostly concerned with the rules that really don't matter. Rules that, frankly, are left to individual interpretation. Even grammar rules are open to interpretation. It seems like there's very little in life that really, truly matters. If I use lay instead of lie you'll still understand the sentiment. If I misuse a comma very few people will care. No one will die. If I mail an envelope as an envelope instead of parcel, it still gets to the destination.
So in the face of an interpretation of a rule I didn't interpret similarly, I decided to follow one of the rules that does matter: respecting another person's interpretation. Even though it did cost me 25 cents per parcel. I think I'll stick to the self-service machine next time.
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