A small theater prepared its stage for a weekend performance. The director had Jina check the emergency lights, so Jina performed the action. He also had the damaged curtain repaired by a technician, so the curtain received the action. Later, a volunteer wrote that the director “had Jina checked the lights” because the event happened in the past. The sentence was wrong: had already carried the past tense, and Jina was the person doing the checking. In another note, the volunteer wrote “had the curtain repair,” although the curtain could not perform the repair. The correct form depended on the relationship after have, not simply on whether the object was a person or a thing. A person can receive an action, and a thing can sometimes perform one. The reliable test is to turn the object into the subject of a short sentence and ask whether it acts or is acted upon.