This is a tale about a letterbox and my attempt to fix it.
When I fix or repair things I assume they get better in the end, but better doesn’t necessarily mean the result is actually good. Making things less bad, still means the result is bad – right?
The letterbox fitted to our garden gate.
The story begins last Summer, when I painted the fence and gate. I noticed how the letterbox was attached to the gate with an intricate construction that surely must have taken one of the previous owners a couple of weekends to build.
I was on one hand intrigued be the attention to detail and on the other hand concerned how some of the intricacies may create problems in the future.
Slots, hinges and other hacks from the past that serve no purpose.
It didn’t take long before one of the future problems arrived. The lid of the letterbox had a slot that should prevent rain water coming in.
Side view of top lid: a slot to prevent rain water coming in.
Part of the slot was rotten and long gone, leaving a gap that allowed rain to pour in.
The previous owner had fixed that with some duct tape. It worked, but obviously didn’t meet my aesthetic standards. I took off the tape when I gave the letterbox a fresh coat of paint and then forgot about it.
I was reminded of the issue when the first shower arrived after a three-month drought and our mail got soaked. I fixed it temporarily with some tape, like the previous owner did.
When the weather got better early Spring this year, I decided to fix this leaky letterbox problem, for once and for always.
I found a piece of pine in my pile of scrap wood that had the right thickness. I cut it to the right proportions, bevelled the edges…
… and glued a strip of wood to the bottom to make sure no water could creep in.
Fitted a couple of brass hinges – they look fancy, and more importantly, they don’t rust – and thus causing issues in the future.
Then I gave it a coat of paint, and added a rubber strip to make sure our mail stays dry.
And yes – for the OCD readers among us – I made sure all slotted screws were perfectly aligned.
So, then… when this job was done, I reflected on my ‘improvement’ and realised that the rubber strip is basically a better version of the (duct) tape that I – and the previous owner – had used to solve this issue of a leaky letterbox. The rubber strip looks much better than the frayed tape, but somehow it didn’t feel as if this was an elegant solution either.
And after giving it some more thought, I started to think about the bigger picture. I started to see that the letterbox was basically a collection of solutions on top other suboptimal solutions that amounted to some sort of weird Frankenstein letterbox of weird fixes. And why should this letterbox be mounted to the gate anyway? Fitting it to the fence would have been a better idea perhaps, it’s simpler and easier to make, install and maintain, and less prone to unforeseen issues.
I think the issue here is about fixation, I only saw the problem that needed to be fixed and didn’t look at the function and design of the letterbox as a whole. A total redesign may have a better option in the end.
I believe I have mentioned this in one of my other blogs – or it may be a blog that I haven’t written yet – woodworking for me isn’t just about the enjoyment I get from creating new stuff, or improving our house, it also allows me to
reflect on my day job.
While I was reflecting on my leaky mailbox, I started to see more clearly that in organisational life – and particularly in
bureaucracies – we tend to fix things that are often already poor fixes to solve other poor fixes etc. Organisations are in a way a web of poor fixes that just work well enough to stay afloat and continue operating. But how often do we take a step back and reflect on what the organisation has become after years of fixing things… and start looking for more elegant redesigns that could help make an organisation being more fit for the future?
