Lesson Learned #26
The two founding partners of Carpedia first met while working on a project in a potash mine. Each morning at 7:00 a.m., they would travel underground about 3,000 feet, (roughly two times the height of the Empire State Building). Over a number of months they learned many interesting things about living underground. For example: although it was winter and icy cold on the surface, it was about 80 degrees F in the mine. This was caused by the frictional heat created by gradually shifting earth (a somewhat unsettling fact of life in these particular soft-rock potash mines).
This is also where they learned why miners carry their sandwiches in metal lunch pails. One of the consultants on the project innocently asked this question one day after noticing none of the consultants had metal lunch pails, while all the miners did. A burly, seasoned miner looked down at him and patiently explained that if you don’t use a metal pail of some kind, the stope rats will eventually steal your lunch. A stope, incidentally, is the open space left behind after the extraction of ore in an underground mine.
So the next day the consultants all showed up the next day with brand-new metal lunch pails (a few tried to intentionally scuff the surface to reduce the shiny glare). One of the things you learn as a consultant is to fit in. You may never be mistaken for a seasoned miner, but you also never want to be mistaken for someone who can’t adapt to their environment. You try to subtly find out how to dress, how to act, and even how to speak (every industry has its own mysterious jargon). This allows you to gain both social credibility and assume a certain humility, so you can minimize the anxiety and distrust some people naturally have for “outsiders.” And besides, tales of stope rats would cause anyone to adjust their daily habits.
On seeing this, the miners nearly fell over backwards laughing. It was a full two or three weeks later that the consultants learned that the miners weren’t laughing at the shiny lunch pails. They were laughing because there was no such thing as “stope rats.” The lesson learned? There are probably a few here, but certainly it’s not a bad idea to check your facts before implementing changes.
