Responding to Problems: The Unaware, the Accepters, the Complainers and the Solvers

I like coming up with arbitrary ways to categorise people in oversimplified manners. Today I found a new, quite general one.

Pretext

There are problems everywhere all the time. That’s part of life. What matters is how you react to those problems. To me it seems like there are four general responses to problems. Those who don’t notice the problem in the first place, those who just accept them, those who complain, and those that actually try to solve them to their best ability, and if necessary go out of their way to do so.

group 1: The Unaware

Many times these people don’t even see things as a problem. They might not have the experience and lack a reasonable comparison to realize that a certain situation or aspect is not normal. As such, there isn’t really much blame on them.

Group 2: the accepters

The people in this group notice that something is off or wrong, but they don’t do anything about it. They just accept it. Perhaps out of fear, comfort, laziness, sloth, or because it just isn’t their priority, or in their ability. There need to be additional differentiations though. There are small local problems, that can be solved directly. Perhaps a broken fence, wobbly chair or dirty workspace. Simple problems that can be fixed. Other problems however, might be larger and out of ones hand. Here it’s still possible to solve them however, by changing certain things. We can’t fix trains being late, but we can use something else instead. And this brings me to the next group.

Group 3: The complainers

This group, unlike the accepters, not only doesn’t try to solve the problems, but it also complains about them. Over and over, for as long as the problem exists. Sometimes they’ll spend more time complaining than it would take them, to just fix whatever is wrong. I think this group in a sense is the worst, because they’re not only aware of the problem, but also spend actual effort with the problem… just not by solving it. So they have what it takes to solve it, but they don’t do it. It also seems like these people stick together. A sense of community from complaining and being upset about the same things. And this way, those who could fix the problem are busy not fixing it, whilst also annoying people around them, who in turn might start disregarding the problem altogether as a result of it.

Group 4: The Solvers

This group is many times overlooked, because it’s not noisy, too common, and many times taken for granted. These are the people that see a problem, and think: “Is it really a problem? Can I do something about it? What can I do? Is it worth it?” and “Can it be prevented in the future? And if yes, how?”. They don’t waste any time talking or arguing over it. They get right to action. Desk gets cleaned, even if they didn’t even trash it. Fence gets repaired. Chair gets fixed. They appreciate the improvement. They appreciate the practice and training. They know that problems happen and just deal with them. They know that others will cause problems for their benefit… and deal with it. They’re not shy to walk away from things or use different things when they find something isn’t good. They’ll go out of their way to look for better alternatives. They’ll accept flaws in those if it’s better overall. They change what they can and don’t try to change what they cannot change.

Bonus: The Observers

This Group usually has an overlap with the Solvers. They see these categories, or at least subconsciously perceive them, and see what works. Some people just solve out of intuition. This group observes and looks at the respective outcomes. The observer group is a common group in multiple Categorisations.