Control - And Desire for it as a Reaction

For quite a while now, I have been consciously recognizing how my natural desires for control manifest themselves.  My last two days at the office provided a pretty clear example of both the benefits and problems presented by that reflexive response.  We have a storage problem at work, in that we never throw anything away, and don't reserve space to store the things we have, in any organized fashion.  We have a lot of technology items that we no longer use, but that are still valuable, at least in some sense.  I know every piece of gear we own, and usually keep track of (or control) where they are located.

I returned to the office yesterday, after being away for a few weeks, to help with some major expansion.  I also discovered that our two 40' shipping containers had been replaced by a single 20' one, albeit a little more densely packed.  My office trailer had also been totally removed, and the previous contents split across four separate locations.

So not only did I not know where any of the items I needed were, but I had no way to find them.  And the only reason we even keep them is for times like this, when we are expanding into new spaces.  I basically spent the entire day searching for things, and nearly gave up on the original task itself.  It would have been faster to send someone to buy the things I was looking for, than it was for me to search for them.  I was pretty frustrated by the end of the day, emotionally affected much more so than I usually am by unexpected obstacles.  I probably would have thrown in the towel and told them I was done until they sorted this and a number of other issues out on their own, but that was already happening anyway, based on my upcoming schedule.  So I had no real outlet for my anger at the lack of control I had over the situation, and definitely had an impulse to withdraw from the situation that I couldn't control.

That evening I came to the basic conclusion that: "if I don't know where their gear is, they might as well not have it at all."  Now there are two interesting things to note about this conclusion.  One is that it reeks of the impulse to totally control one's surroundings.  On the other hand, it is also totally true in an objective sense.  I accumulated those items over the last five years, and I am the only one who really knows how they fit together.  The next person in my position will have to build up his own collection of spare parts and gear, for them to really be relevant and useful to him.

So I decided last night, that it would be better for the company, to throw most of the stuff away, instead of paying to move and store it. (This isn't the first time we have hired an army of PAs to move truckloads of stuff between different spots)  So I took my team this morning, and emptied the container, which had been packed to the brim to the point of being comical.  We tossed over half the contents, and carefully sorted and organized the rest.  The items in question were worth thousands of dollars, but nothing is really worth anything if you have no use for it, or can't find it when you do.  I don't like seeing useful things thrown in the garbage, since that is wasteful, but luckily we had a variety of construction workers on hand who sorted through our pile at lunch.  They salvaged most of the items that were still usable or sellable before the garbage truck showed up to dispose of the rest.

My bosses were all gone or unavailable today, so I didn't clear that plan with them, but I will explain it as soon as they notice that something is missing, which is never going to happen.  But the items remaining are much more likely to get used, and we can actually access them when needed.  (And I know exactly where they all are now.)  So in this case, my desire for control ended up improving my company's position, but my reaction was more emotionally draining than it should have been.  And while many practical situations can benefit from that level of overt control, relationships usually don't respond as well to that approach in dealing with problems.