A Matter of Trust

Technology. It allows us to do many things quickly and efficiently. Still, I have trust issues with it. Or, rather, technology has given me trust issues with, uh, me.

At one time I would add up a list of numbers all on my own. No help from a calculator was necessary. Years ago a customer might come into the Shop and want 6, 7, 10 items, and I'd write out an invoice, add it all up, multiply the total for the sales tax, and Bob's yer uncle, land on a figure which I completely trusted. I completely trusted it because I could do basic math.

In my defense, I still can. Yet now that we have calculators everywhere, even on our cell phones, I have to pull the program up and do the math, well, I suppose mechanically. Hell, if it's one cutting tool I still get out the calculator to multiply the price by .06 for the tax.

I can still do the math. I'm still pretty good at it too. But I no longer trust me. I fear the mistake which might cost me or the customer money. Thanks, technology.

Destroying Trust

Teachers sometimes distrust students. Students sometimes distrust teachers. Perhaps that last bit is my fault.

I taught for 26 years. Needless to say, and please forgive my going on and saying it because whenever you preface something Needless to say you have to go ahead and say it anyway (it's a law), I lectured with some regularity. It's a teaching standard. During one lecture, I went and threw my students' trust in me under the bus.

While teaching a section of American history on the labor union movement I was speaking of a few early union leaders. One of whom, Samuel Gompers, was an organizer for the American Federation of Labor, or AFL. Rambling along in talking to the students, who were actually eagerly taking notes that day as I droned on, I said something like, "Then we have Samuel Gompers, the founder of the AFL, the American Football League." The pupils dutifully scribbled that down.

A minute later I paused to explain, "Gompers was not the head of the American Football League. He started the American Federation of Labor."

The sighs and the "Aw mans" were audible and exasperated. I must confess that I was far too proud of myself.

Unfortunately I caused an entire generation of learners not to trust instructors. I'm sorry.

Pops Had the Power

For the last thirty five or so years of Joe Cosgriff's life, me Pops, his son, had full power of attorney over him. What that meant was that Dad could make any and all decisions about my grandfather's person, property, or business arbitrarily and unilaterally, without Joe's permission or even knowledge. Me Pops could have sold his house, his cars, drained Grandpa Joe's bank account, anything.

That's all stuff Dad would never have done, of course. But Grandpa wanted Pops to be able to make business decisions for him whenever Joe was on the road, which was often. He figured that with no easy ways of communication back then, sixty or seventy years ago, he'd set things up so that me Pops could immediately do whatever was necessary to run the family welding rental business. Joe figured that giving his son full power of attorney was the easiest way to do that: decisions could be made by Dad on the spot.

The lawyer setting it all up was aghast. He vehemently advised Joe not to do it. "It's dangerous to give someone that kind of power over your person and property, Mr. Cosgriff!'" the man argued.

"Hell, if I can't trust him now, when can I trust him?" Grandpa Joe shot back.

Joe and the old man had a good relationship, I tell you what. A good relationship.

The Ballad of Marty's transmission.

It had begun so innocently. I was trying to get to a bon voyage party for a curling friend who was leaving Canada for an overseas teaching position. I crossed the border and my car stopped 'pulling', that is, going forward. A hose had ruptured in a transmission line, spewing transmission fluid everywhere and leaving my van immobile. C'est la vie. It happens.

That issue was calmed soon enough. A friend on that side of the river recommended a mechanic who could fix the problem. And he did, for $325 Canadian, including the tow from the Roseland Curling Club where I left my van to his repair shop. A good price, honestly.

I drove her from July until two weeks ago, when my van again stopped pulling near Muncie, Indiana. But two quarts of transmission fluid later, C'est la guerre, she pulls once more, all the way to home to Detroit.

Then she, my 2000 Chevy Venture, stops pulling right as I was about to get onto the ramp in Detroit from where there was no re-entry into these United States. I managed to get her off the expressway and onto a side street, where I might have her towed to my mechanic. He, my mechanic, found the same hose had ruptured as before. He fixed it, and all seemed well.

Then last night, for it is last night now, as I returned from my Monday night curling game, I could not pull away from the customs booth on the US side as I returned from curling. Now as I've complained much about US customs, it is only fair that I give them credit as due. They cleared me, quite succinctly and deferentially, as I hoped. But then my van would not move. And the guards saw that I had a transmission leak. And they pushed me beyond the toll booths so that I might have an easier time with a tow.

That tells me that the border patrol are not really bad folk after all. I'm not so ready to think the NSA evil anymore. They rushed to help a US citizen obviously innocent of any crime to simply get home.

And that is why I am dismissive of the fears of my libertarian and progressive friends. Innocence breeds trust. It's as simple as that.