Pet Peeves

Today I embarked on a very special journey: the annual Oakland litter index. It was a lot less complicated than I thought; there were no graphs or charts. We merely drove in designated areas and then assigned a number to that area, ranging from 1 (no litter) and 4 (extremely littered).

Each team has a leader who is supposed to inform her members what area they are in, and when to start and stop scoring. The scorers are not supposed to talk about their scores, as they can influence one another. Each bus is supposed to work from the farthest point and converge at the meeting spot.

I thought the directions were clear-cut. But apparently very few people follow directions. This bothered me, but then I became frustrated that an entire neighborhood--each block with its own degree of cleanliness--got only one score from us. Once I accepted the inherent inaccuracy of this survey, I felt less compelled to dwell on our disregard for the rules. I reminded myself of the organizational purpose: we needed to do this in order to remain an affiliate of Keep America Beautiful. I converted my personal purpose: free breakfast, free lunch, free tour of Oakland (my very first visit to the Mormon Temple!).