Years and years ago I came across a book titled, “The Official Rules”, which compiled all sorts of “laws” similar to Murphy’s Law (“If anything can go wrong, it will.”). Since then, I’ve always had an interest in these “laws”, and I’ve finally come up with one of my own.
Now, I was going to call it “Osborne’s Law” (Osborne being my last name), but then I remembered that “The Official Rules” already included an Osborne’s Law: “The tire is only flat on the bottom.” (Though, really, more of an observation than a law.)
So instead, I’ll call it “Mister Rik’s Law”:
“Exception becomes Expectation.”
Some common examples of Mister Rik’s Law in action:
You’re at your job, and you find that you’ve finished your own work for the day. Looking around, you notice that one of your coworkers is a bit behind, so you kindly step in and do some of their work for them. Next thing you know, that task you did for them has become “your job”, and you get yelled at if you don’t do it.
Your store closes at a certain time, but one day a customer arrives a few minutes after closing time. Taking pity, you let them in so that they can make their purchase. Thereafter, that customer will never arrive before closing time again.
You cook in a restaurant, and you kindly agree to prepare a dish that is not on the menu, because it’s slow right now and you have time to do it. Thereafter, the customer you prepared the dish for will show up every day, during the busiest part of the day, expecting you to cook that not-on-the-menu item for them. And they will become irate if you tell them you can’t do that right now.
So, what’s your law?