Blog 2625 – 01.05.2023
Inspections
Yesterday I got my pick-up truck inspected and it passed so I got my registration renewed and have a new sticker on my windshield that says I am good till the end of January 2024. In Texas, vehicle owners are required to have a yearly safety inspection of their vehicles before they can get their state vehicle registrations renewed. Once during a particularly lean time in my life when a car that my parents had given me was damaged beyond repair in an accident, I bought an old car for a hundred and fifty dollars just to have transportation back and forth to the two jobs that I was working trying to support a family of five. It was a POS vehicle (You folks offended by some words will not want to look that one up.) It would have never passed an annual inspection without a financial investment far greater than the price that I paid for it, but fortunately for me the guys in the body shop where I worked one of my two jobs kept me in current state inspection window stickers that they carefully peeled off damaged windshields that were replaced. I drove that car several years without a ticket. As I was never able to get a clear title on the vehicle I just gave it to a friend who needed an extra work car. How he got inspection stickers I never asked.
Tomorrow I go for my annual wellness visit doctor appointment. I won’t be getting an inspection sticker, yet I do need my daily prescriptions refilled so I have to go. I feel like I am in pretty good shape for my age, but as with all inspections there is the chance that they will find something that needs attention. After over forty years in inspection, quality control, and quality assurance I know well how that works. I have known many inspectors who keep looking till they find something wrong.
Doctors and vehicle repair shops have a vested interest in finding things wrong. Their livelihoods and financial success depend on it. I used to always get an oil change at the same time as my annual vehicle inspection figuring if they made a little extra off me at the time of the inspection they might be less inclined to look too hard to find something to repair or replace.
In the same way in the military when we had the big AG inspections the sergeants would have us leave a few little details amiss on purpose so the inspector would have something minor to write us up for instead of looking too closely. It is human nature to look for the low hanging fruit.
As an inspector, chief inspector, quality manager, health safety and environment manager, and lastly as a third party welding and utility inspector I have conducted and been a part of many inspections over the years. I have found the best way to improve quality is to look for things right instead of looking for things wrong. We always seem to find what we are looking for. Scientists postulate that mere observation changes things.
The old quality adage is that if you want to improve things take a closer look. Instead of being afraid of what we or they might find if we look we should always be on the lookout for the highest and the best in others, ourselves, and everything. That is how we see good, how we see God. “I mirror you, I admire you, I worship you.”
Your friend and fellow traveler,
David White
Everything
theencouragingword 