Stephen Robbins here.

Welcome to the get it done guys, quick and dirty tips to work less and do more.

Bernice Melvin and I were going camping for the weekend.

Camping is great fun, just like meetings, only with dirt and worms and bad food.

It was 7 a.m.

Birds were chirping in the treetops, and Melvin and I were

ready to hop in the car and go. Bernice, however, was not. I am making an offering to the goddess.

We may not leave until the goddess is appeased. Melvin and I paced. Bernice calmly shredded

some strange-looking root,

placed it in a small bowl and began chanting.

An hour and a half later, she was done.

We hopped in the car, pulled onto the freeway,

and spent the next two hours caught in rush-hour traffic.

We missed the ferry out to the island where we were camping

and had to wait six hours for the next one.

As we were setting up our tents in the dark, in the middle of a patch of poison ivy, but

we didn't know that until the next morning, we asked Bernice what was so important that

she had to spend an hour and a half doing her ritual?

I was performing an offering that would ensure fast, speedy travel to our campsite,

she serenely replied.

Imagine how late we would be if I hadn't done the offering.

Bernice is simply demonstrating the human condition.

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