Introducing the Fret

In my line of work, we do things called “projects”. Not so long ago, a colleague of mine asked me, “exactly how worried should I be about this project?” Hmm. I wasn’t sure what to say. Exactly? Who the hell knows? I mean, how should I even answer, _how_ worried? A lot, a little, in the middle? Not exactly exact. As I thought about this, I realized I couldn’t possibly answer without establishing a unit of measure for worry.

So I propose the “fret” as that unit. I envision frets ascending logarithmically – like the Richter scale! Each fret is 10 TIMES more worrying than the one before. After all, why mess around. You don’t invent new units of measure every day – they might as well have some oomf. So if 3 frets is like, “aw, fuck”, 4 is like, “aw, FUCK!!!” That’s about as far as you want to stray up the fret scale…

I like the “fret’ concept because in addition to the obvious, it evokes the idea of vibration. Someone who is worried can often be thought of as “vibrating at a high frequency”. As you move up the fret scale, look out, the vibrations are faster and faster, people’s voices are getting higher, and… louder….

Indeed, let us not forget amplitude. Some situations are just more sensitive than others. In fact, some situations amplify the smallest fret-inducing factor and like, jack it way up! If the volume is on 10, distortion may occur - even crazy, howling feedback storms – so look out!

Other external factors can influence the fret level. Any “high-strung” individual involved may “bend” the fret level artificially up! And, a skilled facilitator may be able to relaxthe fret level down a bit, by applying gentle pressure to the “whammy bar” of the project.

So after several days had passed, spent in quiet reflection on my discovery, I told my colleague with some confidence, “2 frets”. At last, he knew exactly how worried he should be. And, paradoxically, that made him in some greater sense, less worried. Because when we worry, we also have to worry, are we worrying the right amount, and about the right things? After all, we each only have so many frets. I could be worrying about the price of oil, when really, I should be allocating my worry to something completely different, like that weird spot on my arm! With the fret, at least we can take a quantitative approach to allocating our worry, and modern portfolio management techniques can even be applied.

Here is a quick attempt to document, or establish, various fret levels (NOTE: to parents, school teachers, and the generally squeamish, I couldn’t figure out how to describe different fret levels without resorting to blood-curdling obscenity):

1 Fret: Damn.
2 Frets: Shit. Shit.
3 Frets: Aw, fuck. (as previously noted)
4 Frets: Aw, FUCK! (as previously noted)
5 Frets: Shit-ass motherfucker FUCK!
6 Frets: Sweet fucking fuck-ass motherfucking FUCK!
7 Frets: Sweet Jesus fucking shit-ass MOTHER-FUCKER! FUCK! Christ…

For 8 frets, I am out of ideas, but I am open to suggestions.