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The mystery behind the missing left glove

By |  June 3, 2019 0 Comments
A missing left glove (Photo: iStock.com/imacon)

Photo: iStock.com/imacon

In October, I found myself once again digging through the two compartments of my golf cart. I lift up the seat to look in the battery compartment, hoping to find what I’m looking for. I take one last hopeful look in and around the irrigation parts that collect in the back of the cart. Through all this, the best I can come up with is three right-handed gloves. So, I flip one right-handed glove over, slip it on my left hand, pull it tight, grab a shovel and start in on the irrigation fix.

In 17 years of marriage, I’ve lost my wedding ring once. I got back to the shop, started washing my hands after an irrigation fix, looked down at my left hand and my ring was gone. I headed back, dug the hole back up, and in the bottom of the hole was a lone left glove with a ring inside.

In January, I was about to head out for a little tree work. My cart has now been replaced by my desk, and I’m looking in and around it for, yes, a left glove. And again, I’m baffled to be holding only three right-handed gloves. Is one of my coworkers playing a joke on me? I don’t really know, but I’m going to get to the bottom of this.

Left glove option No. 1

It’s rare that any of us have just one thing on our mind. In fact, I just flipped over to check an email as I finished this paragraph. I continually am working on the next thought, the next idea, the next task, what home project to tackle next, what work project needs to get done, what the family will do for fun this weekend. It’s a nonstop process in my head, and I assume the same is true for you.

The people closest to me likely would describe me as absentminded or a scatterbrain, as I often forget simple tasks or items in my life. More often than not, I pass this off as a byproduct of trying to be a multitasker, as my life’s basics can get lost in the shuffle like a left glove.

I’m a multitasker, and if you are too, we should stop. Research around multitasking continues to show that it’s not worth our time. You probably are not multitasking, even if you think you are. You likely are just moving quickly from one task to the next, shifting focus and attention, which drains productivity.

Here are some examples of my multitasking fails at the course:

  • Hand watering greens, cutting cups and setting tee markers with 7 a.m. split tees.
    Issues: Cups are crooked, greens are not watered properly and I always skip moving the forward and back tees.
  • Any irrigation work in combination with anything else — that includes talking on the radio.
    Issues: A routine 50-minute head replacement ends with a piece of plywood put over a hole, left to finish tomorrow.
  • Filling up a third tank in the sprayer and setting the job board for second jobs.
    Issues: There’s a 90-percent chance I forget about the sprayer and the tank overflows on me.

You likely can add to this list of fails because like me, you don’t have the brain power, and thus are resigned to being … a monotasker.

Suspect No. 1 in the missing-left-glove mystery: multitasking.

Left glove option No. 2:

If my inability to multitask is not the answer to keeping a grip on my left glove, maybe it centers around the crazy-busy world we live in. My brother-in-law, who also happens to be my pastor said it best in a sermon, “People wear their busyness as a badge of honor.” It was a pretty powerful little phrase for me when I heard it. For today’s workforce — parents, spouses, siblings, grandparents, retirees and golf course employees — this could not be more true, and often is the answer to the simple greeting, “How’s life?” “Busy, but that’s a good thing, right?”

But is it?

In the past few years, I’ve tried to rid my life of distracting little tasks. It started with fantasy sports, where I wasn’t even a full-blown fantasy fanatic (triple F), but it was distracting enough that fantasy football, baseball and hockey had to go. Next was the news, a huge time suck that seemed only to make me feel bad or angry.

After that, it was the black hole that is the worldwide web — internet searches are streamlined. ESPN, some type of weather source and Home Depot or Menards form 90 percent of my activity.

Suspect No. 2 in the missing-left-glove mystery: busyness.

Left glove option No. 3

I’m always in a hurry, even if I’m not busy. I drive too fast (although I’ve not had a speeding ticket since September 1997), I respond to most emails and texts as I hear them speeding over the Wi-Fi, I drink a can of Coke with the same sucking force of a vacuum and my hurried-up life can be summed up by my two boys saying, almost nightly, “Dad, slow down, you’re eating too fast.”

Much of my hurriedness occurs because I try to accomplish too much. I always have. My daily plans at the golf course are almost always too ambitious, which does not help with 7 a.m. split tees Monday through Thursday mixed in with the more-than-occasional 7:30 a.m. shotgun events. This puts me in constant hurry-up mode, which is worse than being busy.

Suspect No. 3 in the missing-left-glove mystery: hurriedness.

We work in a time-oriented industry. Tee times always heading our way, a three-hole gap quickly getting smaller, even the irrigation window not being enough to put down what is needed. So, we try to cram some more in before the morning tee times. We all have to multitask because we are too busy and always in a hurry to get completed what is required of us.

As I look down at my desk, I realize that all three of the suspects I’ve mentioned explain my missing left glove. There are no real answers to be gained by reading this, other than to embrace being a monotasker, streamline as much as possible and take a breath between bites.

My left glove likely was found recently when I took a Predictive Index Behavioral Assessment test. The best line for me in the summary of my behavioral assessment went like this: “Matt has a distinctly low level of interest in details that are not pertinent to the goal.”

Mystery solved. My brain has deemed the left glove a detail not worth spending time on. However, if you happen to have an abundance of left gloves, please send one (or three) to me.

This is posted in Maintenance

About the Author: Matt Cavanaugh

Matt Cavanaugh is a research scientist at the University of Minnesota where he collaborates with fellow turfgrass scientists on a wide range of turfgrass research projects. Cavanaugh can be reached at mattc@umn.edu for more information.


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