A few days ago I was driving my family to some place when I took a wrong turn. Turning left would have (I know now) placed us right at our destination, but instead I found myself in the wrong lane looking wistfully at the turnoff I wasn’t making.
We wound up heading down a highway that quickly dropped us into a town that didn’t look even remotely familiar. We had no map available (not that maps do any good when one is completely disoriented) nor an easy place to stop to get directions.
To get us found again, I realized I used the following maxims that felt remarkably like something I’d use at work:
- If you’ve never seen the place you are in, keep on driving until you see something that looks more familiar. It is better to continue to move even though this may take you further from your real destination. It increases the chances you’ll actually get some data you can use. Staying put can’t help you because you are stuck with no data. No data leads to no further clues. No further clues leads to staying put. This eventually devolves into a Lord of the Flies situation.
- Big roads good. Big roads are more likely to take you someplace you recognize. Small roads are more likely to leave you off in someone’s backyard or at the closest closed auto repair/oil refinery/plumbing supply store.
- Follow someone else. Anyone else. I think I got this tip from Douglas Adams or Helen Cresswell. The basic theory is to follow another car that appears to know where it is going. It really doesn’t matter if they are going to your destination, just that they are going some place intentional. Like #2, this increases your chances of getting some place marginally more recognizable.
- Act like you meant it when you do find out where you are. Ehemm.
As surprised or even more surprised than anyone else in the car, I managed to get us to the landmark I was hoping to find for getting us back on track. Once there, returning to our original road was easy. Unfortunately we couldn’t actually turn at the right place on to the road when coming from that direction, but that’s a story for another time.