Should we fix it or should we do away with it?

Most of us in India are not perfectionists. One may argue that most humans are not perfectionists, but my hunch is the percentage of perfectionists is especially low in India. While imperfection is very easily apparent in construction/manufacturing projects, it is not difficult to observe this in pretty much any area of life. Yes, software engineers included :-) Road project are completed but some stones and mud are left behind on the road. Lists, like electoral lists are compiled with spelling errors in them. Vehicles are serviced without fixing that nagging squeaky sound coming from it. Metro train pillars collapse. Race conditions in code get 'fixed' with strategically placed sleep() statements.

Sometimes some of these imperfections end up having a big impact. It is interesting to observe how people react when such impacts surface. When something is found to be not working perfectly, the ideal way is to fix it and then ensure that such things don't happen again. However, the easier way is to just remove the facility itself. I see the latter approach employed in a number of occasions. Often the public too find this more appropriate. It is much harder to fight for doing things correctly than not doing it. This is more interesting when I explain with some examples.

Specimen 1: A cement bench in a park collapsed backwards because it had not been constructed with a good enough foundation. Ideal solution: Ensure this never happens again by ensuring quality in constructing such benches in future. Implemented solution: No more benches with backrests.

Specimen 2: Many thermal power plants in our country don't handle flying ash properly. Ideal solution: Fight to ensure power plants comply with environmental guidelines. Implemented solution: Nobody wants a new power plant in their district any more. (They all want 24x7 power, btw.)

Specimen 3: You build a good highway. People want to travel faster on this road and that is one of the reasons to build a good road anyway. However, the people from the little cross roads that join the highway cannot understand that the traffic on the main road is pretty fast. This leads to accidents. Ideal solution: Educate the folks who enter the highway indiscriminately. Implemented solution: Speed breakers on the highway.

Specimen 4: This is quite good. The coffee machine in my office had a steam nozzle. It wasn't cleaned very often, so it would often be dirty. Some of the employees complained about this. Ideal solution: Keep the steam nozzle clean. Implemented solution: The steam nozzle on the coffee machine was just removed :-)

What do you think? Are there even better examples?