Perfecting

Once, I had an assistant for about 4 months. It was really an experience. I shall call him Dash. He was a 30-year-old albino. When Dash came for his job interview, he really made a difference. I was not biased and I did evaluated him based on his capabilities, although he was quite new to the nature of the job requirements. He did impressed me, because he was confident, outspoken and seemed like an extrovert, a go-getter. Albeit being a bit clumsy and quirky in his dress sense. However I thought he could induce some creative juice in my department. He got the job.

From then on, everyday was a new discovery to me about this guy. Everyday was a shocking revelation to me. Every assignment I gave him, he gave me a positive "Ok! No problem!". Yet almost every assignment he did not deliver. He tried to impress me with his antics, his knowledge of "the market" situation, he bragged about his pretty girlfriend. For a 30-year-old man, he seemed to get more childish by the day.

In a middle of a meeting, a colleague remarked about a contact he knows, Dash would, out of the blue, stood up, dashed right out of the room in super speed, his foot steps thundering through the entire office, and he came back, holding a name card of someone he "used to know who might know that contact". My colleagues just stared at him in bewilderment.

In a seminar event, he suddenly stood up, his face all screwed up, and came running to me "I think now I need to go do my big business in the toilet!".... Shocked, I said "you could have gone anytime you know". To which he replied "My principle is never to shit when I work!" and dashed out. I was utterly shocked. Un-comprehensible.

Once he sent a completely non-professional letter to clients which I did not approved and he did not enclosed the important documents which he was supposed to send. I received many complaints after that. There were many many mistakes he commited at work that were non-forgivable. I did not want to judge him, so I gave him many more chances, gave him many counselling sessions but each time he left me totally disappointed. He turned out to be the exact opposite of what he had us believed him to be. He turned to be a very negative person, who could not focus on his job well, he kept talking and promising but yet never deliver. He wasted lots of time doing the unnecessary.

I often told him there was "no need to give me the whole world, just give me what I want", I told him he can make a difference if he tries to give himself and others a chance, try to focus in his job and all would be well. Even after he left, he did not seemed to have changed, and seemed to get himself into trouble and more trouble.

My only piece of advise for him:

We might always be falling short of perfection in our thought, word and deed at the moment. But we can fall short less and less. This is the meaning of "perfecting" - it is not perfection itself yet, but it perfects in good time. And what is "good time"? It is the rate of improvement which you are at ease with without any hint of regret of not being diligent enough. (quoted from Unknown).