Sound of a Problem

Just to digress for a day ('again', I hear you say!). A friend approached me the other morning in a slightly vexed state of mind. "I have a dilemma", she began. " I immediately jumped in with what I saw as an immediate situation requiring a stern warning and a cautionary example? "You, don't want to keep a dilemma", I began, "They have a voracious appetite...and if they get their way, they get completely out of control"! I continued enthusiastically. "Did this start as a minor problem? Or did you simply adopt a worry and let it grow out of proportion through over feeding with concern". I continued the thread logically. "I hope you didn't feed it?", I enquired fearfully. She looked at me pityingly (She has known me for some twenty years, so I have received many such looks from her during this time). Then she burst out laughing and said, "You know, you've helped me already" (Now I knew she was lying to my face).

So ask yourself, why is it we are so often prepared to work so hard to help other people, when sometimes we have enough on our plate. I have heard it well explained as, what I can only call, "the monkey principle". This involved the idea of using monkey's as a metaphor for issues. Someone comes to you with a monkey. Just to show you. They tell you they are having a few problems with their monkey. You (foolishly perhaps), make the comment along the lines of, "but it such a nice monkey?" They immediately jump on this and suggest that you look after it for a while. You, of course (inspired by challenges), accept the offer and start looking after the other persons monkey. 

Now, here's the tricky part, and the part where it usually goes wrong. Other people see you taking care of someone else's monkey. Not only do they see how we'll you are doing taking care of the other persons monkey, but they believe you have a real skill for it. Before long they bring you their monkey to look after. This often happens within an organisation. When a senior officer finds a lesser member of his staff (for lesser member read lesser mortal, such is the opinion of many managers). That manager may decide you are the best monkey wrangler in the group and will start to leave all the monkeys in your care. Regardless of how well you were doing with the first monkey, before long you are the wrangler of a menagerie, a troop of monkey's. Before long, bigger problems start to occur because everyone has left their monkeys in your care, without providing any support or assistance (or possibly even any form of sustenance for their monkey). The boss starts to question your abilities if you can't keep them all fed and cared for. The other people who have left their monkeys are of course, only thinking of their monkeys, and not all of the monkeys left in your care. You have simply become the monkey dumping ground. Responsible for the monkeys' well-being, but gaining no qualifications. And no benefits.