When I was a kid, one evening my mother asked me to take out the trash.
SHORT STORIES
When I was a kid, one evening my mother asked me to take out the trash.
I did it without thinking much about it.
The next day she said, “You haven’t taken out the trash.”
I replied, “Yes, I did. I took it out yesterday.”
She looked at me and said, “That was yesterday’s trash. What about today’s?”
And just like that, taking out the trash had become my job.
Organizations sometimes do the same thing.
Someone is overloaded, so you offer to help. You stay late, take over a task, solve a problem, or cover a responsibility.
The first time, it is called support.
Then you do it again.
Eventually, people stop asking.
They simply expect it.
And perhaps this is one reason people sometimes learn to “look the other way” when someone asks for help. Not because they are unwilling to support others, but because experience has taught them that temporary help can quietly become permanent ownership.
A good system should be able to distinguish between helping someone carry the load and transferring the load to them.
Support should not silently redefine responsibility.