Socks, Six-Sigma and Salvation (Army)

I disappeared from these pages (or rather, from these pixels) for a couple of weeks. Given the time of year, you might have guessed—if you noticed at all—I was on a summer vaca.

Nothing of the sort.

• A dedicated grad student, I was writing my finals.
• A devoted husband, I attended my wife’s week-long series of graduation parties.
• A consummate American-dreamer, I was moving from one home to another.

The psychotherapists say that blocking out bad memories is a common coping mechanism. Self-preservation kicks in, or self-delusion. I likely blocked out all memories of past household moves, since I wasn’t particularly anxious about this one.

By the time my focus shifted away from finals and all the rest, and turned to packing, time was running thin. I began with the socks, and started feeling worse about myself from there. There were mismatches, obsolete styles, dorky holiday socks, worn-out socks, and socks I hadn’t worn in years hidden away in the corner of the drawer.

Four trips to the Salvation Army later, I’d given away much (socks and more), but also gained much (satisfaction and this week’s blog topic).

My house was an operations disaster! I wondered how in the world I had accumulated so much, and how I had failed to realize it. Where did it all come from? Having read about Little’s Law (among other takeaways, “Inventory = Throughput × Cycle Time”), I knew all this stuff had to be coming from somewhere. But where?

Was there a sock-knitting gnome hiding under my stairs?

My head ran wild as I computed average inventory, throughput, inventory turnover ratios— but then I stopped myself before I became a walking example of grad-school studies running amok. I felt stuck in the time of an Ionesco play. This WAS truly absurd!