More and more things in this world get scripted.
We all know how we need to go through a phone menu before we actually get to speak to someone when we call our insurance company.
By transferring part of the work to the customer, the company can save quite a bit of money.

Also what happens when you get to talk to a person is often scripted. The person you talk to first can take care of 80% of what needs to be dealt with by the insurer. When they can not solve it, the matter is transferred to a higher authority.

The way in which this stuff is scripted is actually similar to how mass production of goods is organised. Every worker does a small and well defined part of the entire process. This makes for effective and cheap production.

But there is a form of scripting here in Holland that I feel threatens the well being of the country in the future. It is government scripting.

Last week I saw a worker busy in re-paving part of the sidewalk. In Holland most pavements are layed with concrete tiles which makes re-paving easy.

The ground had been dug up for laying cables so it needed to be compacted. Normally a machine is used for this that whacks the ground until it can not be compacted any further. But this guy did not have a whacker.

So the guy got creative and used a weight that is part of a temporary street sign system. He lifted this 15 kg/ 30 lbs weight and dropped it, compacting the soil nicely. A very creative solution for this very small piece of side walk.

Unfortunately doing it this way put his employer in danger. Why?

In Holland we have gone crazy with health and safety regulations.
The government sets rules that go so deep in to the running of businesses and organisations that it is becoming impossible to start up a new organisation.
The rules are so numerous and strict that the risk you need to take to start a business are higher than any sane person would take.

In the case of whacking the soil, a piece of equipment was being used in a way it was not designed for. If the worker had broken something or even worse, the employer would have been responsible for the injuries. Not the worker, no, the employer.
The employer should have provided a suitable tool
The employer should have told not to use anything for another purpose than intended
The employer should have learned the worker how to work safely.
The employer should have learned the worker to ask for proper tools when they are not available.
The employer should have told the worker not to do anything other than what he had been told to do, absolutely nothing more!

You see where this is going?

If we carry on like this we will breed a society where no one will dare to be creative. We are becomming way to preoccupied with rules so in the end we will be without the creative people that build new successes for the world.

Do not try to script the world unless you want to strip the world of creativity.