I actually feel sorry for George Bush. I know, he stole the election in 2000, got away with it again in 2004, started two wars based on lies, allowed the financial inmates to run the asylum and generally neglected everything a real President should pay attention to. Make no mistake, we can’t forgive him for that, and we can’t ever forget or it’ll happen again.
But, seriously, didn’t you feel just the slightest bit sorry for him during the last three months of 2008?
I did. As the economy grew worse, and as the truth about just how bad off we had it became clear, you could see his transformation. He went from a smirking, proud, vain peacock to a troubled man carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. No more smiles, no more aggressively ignorant ramblings. And this was in the prime of his lame duck period, when he should have been strutting like Tony Manero at the beginning of Saturday Night Fever.
But he wasn’t strutting. Because he knew that the debacle the American economy had become would be his legacy, he knew he’d be remembered for the impotence and mismanagement of the last six months of his office, not for the self-aggrandizement and hubris of the prior seven years. He’d tried so hard to make a name for himself, to cement his place in history as a do-er – as a decider – but it just wasn’t meant to be. George Bush’s legacy is to be remembered as the most corrupt, most incompetent President ever, a man who squandered the economic and military might of the United States. He stood revealed as what he was, the frat-boy President, unequal to the task of governing and unable to do anything but watch as his crony appointees rode the economy down the toilet like the stinking turd it was. You could see it in his face that October, November, and December, the realization that he’d been revealed as the fraud everyone suspected he was, an emperor with no clothes, a credulous marionette to corrupt puppet masters.
As much as I despised his policies and everything his administration stood for, no man should have to endure that kind of soul-wrenching realization in full view of the entire world. Of course, no man had failed so spectacularly or in such a public fashion either. But still…
It makes me wonder what my legacy will be. Right now I’m pretty sure there isn’t one, except for all these ramblings on this blog, which, I’ll admit, does not have a wide readership.* What is any man’s legacy, really? How long past his death will the average person be remembered? Ten years? Thirty? Who do we remember from the past? Why do we remember them?
Or are those perhaps the wrong questions? Being remembered by your descendants is kind of the first form of reality TV, after all. We only remember the bad ones. Wouldn’t it be better to create something good, something that makes the lives of others just the smallest measure more bearable? Shouldn’t your legacy be a contribution to society, whether your name is ever attached to it or not?
I don't know... maybe I'll build Stonehenge in the backyard, or maybe I'll write an epic poem that will be passed down for thousands of years. Maybe I'll try to make my corner of the world a little bit better, and not worry about anything else. We'll see.
* Except in Russia, oddly enough. Привет, друзья!
Thursday, June 28, 2012
Saturday, June 23, 2012
So Long, Puddin'
It's been eight years. I couldn't throw you out, but I also couldn't keep you in my house where I would see you and remember. So I put you into a box and took that box to my storage unit. Out of sight means out of mind, I hope. Sorry, but it's long past time to move on.
Good-bye.
Good-bye.
Sunday, June 10, 2012
Come On, Weirdos...
While cleaning my house and trying to stem the tide of a spider invasion, I had the TV on. NASCAR at first, but that doesn't last forever, so I tuned to the History channel. Which is, increasingly, less about history and more about the same dreck that drags down all the other crap cable channels.
Today the topic was 'ancient astronauts.' Not much history there, but tons and tons of uninformed speculation. It's one of those shows that assumes its own premise - that aliens did visit ancient cultures - and then spins every sentence to try to support that. For the pure science parts they have real scientists,* and these guys do not speculate. They just say, for instance, that the Maya lived in what is now Mexico. Fact. Provable. For the other stuff, the wacky 'ancient astronauts' stuff, the producers get other guys, you know the kind, crazy eyebrows, insanely-coiffed hair, oddly-accented English that you just can't pin to a real country, enthusiastic assertions of pure hokum.
Weirdos.
The kind of people who, if they weren't on TV, would be ranting on a street corner or begging for today's dose of lithium at the psychiatric hospital. They look tetched, like they might start babbling incoherently at any moment. The mad-scientist hair and wriggling eyebrows and wide-eyed, fanatical earnestness do nothing to help their cause. At least not with me.
You ever hold a conversation with a crazy person? I have. Many times. I may have told you of my experience with homeless people of all stripes, most of whom were a few nuts short of a fruitcake. There's a distance between you and crazy people, an emotional distance, even if you're standing side-by-side. You get the feeling they're not really seeing you, maybe they're seeing a talking dog or a shopping bag caught in an updraft, or a burning bush. You get the idea.
These UFO weirdos are the same way. They can't not be, because what they're asserting is crazy. They're starting out at a deficit. So why, why why why why why why why do they all insist on presenting an appearance that is so off-putting? I know if I were trying to convince someone that, say, an alien from another galaxy hid ghosts of dead aliens in Earth's volcanoes, I'd want to present as friendly and well-groomed a front as possible. Maybe I'd recruit A-list actors to my scam. But for sure I'd cut any wiry eyebrows I might have. I'd shampoo my hair. Repeatedly. I'd wash my face. I'd practice not squinting, or not screaming, or not giggling like a serial killer, or whatever tic I had that made regular people call the cops. And I'd learn how to present my batshit crazy ideas as if they were as well-reasoned and widely-accepted as trickle-down economics.
Come on, weirdos, if you're going to be on TV you might as well learn how to play the game properly.
* The scientists have initials behind their names like PhD or MD. The Weirdos just have labels like 'UFO Researcher' or 'Speculative Anthropologist.'
Today the topic was 'ancient astronauts.' Not much history there, but tons and tons of uninformed speculation. It's one of those shows that assumes its own premise - that aliens did visit ancient cultures - and then spins every sentence to try to support that. For the pure science parts they have real scientists,* and these guys do not speculate. They just say, for instance, that the Maya lived in what is now Mexico. Fact. Provable. For the other stuff, the wacky 'ancient astronauts' stuff, the producers get other guys, you know the kind, crazy eyebrows, insanely-coiffed hair, oddly-accented English that you just can't pin to a real country, enthusiastic assertions of pure hokum.
Weirdos.
The kind of people who, if they weren't on TV, would be ranting on a street corner or begging for today's dose of lithium at the psychiatric hospital. They look tetched, like they might start babbling incoherently at any moment. The mad-scientist hair and wriggling eyebrows and wide-eyed, fanatical earnestness do nothing to help their cause. At least not with me.
You ever hold a conversation with a crazy person? I have. Many times. I may have told you of my experience with homeless people of all stripes, most of whom were a few nuts short of a fruitcake. There's a distance between you and crazy people, an emotional distance, even if you're standing side-by-side. You get the feeling they're not really seeing you, maybe they're seeing a talking dog or a shopping bag caught in an updraft, or a burning bush. You get the idea.
These UFO weirdos are the same way. They can't not be, because what they're asserting is crazy. They're starting out at a deficit. So why, why why why why why why why do they all insist on presenting an appearance that is so off-putting? I know if I were trying to convince someone that, say, an alien from another galaxy hid ghosts of dead aliens in Earth's volcanoes, I'd want to present as friendly and well-groomed a front as possible. Maybe I'd recruit A-list actors to my scam. But for sure I'd cut any wiry eyebrows I might have. I'd shampoo my hair. Repeatedly. I'd wash my face. I'd practice not squinting, or not screaming, or not giggling like a serial killer, or whatever tic I had that made regular people call the cops. And I'd learn how to present my batshit crazy ideas as if they were as well-reasoned and widely-accepted as trickle-down economics.
Come on, weirdos, if you're going to be on TV you might as well learn how to play the game properly.
* The scientists have initials behind their names like PhD or MD. The Weirdos just have labels like 'UFO Researcher' or 'Speculative Anthropologist.'
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
How 'Bout A Job That Doesn't Suck?
I was in the corporate world for almost exactly ten years. Ten very long years. Very, very, very long years. And one thing struck me almost immediately when I took that first gig with a large insurance company.
Most of the jobs were pointless.
There were a few people who did real work: programmers, underwriters, phone service people, janitors, cooks (they had five cafeterias in the building), actuaries and... that's about it. Then there were an army of other people, project managers, supervisors, quality assurance people, and other mid-management types whose function I never really knew and whose performance I couldn't begin to measure because I don't know what they did during a day, let alone what they were supposed to do. I'd say it was an easy 1:1 ratio of people who actually did something during a day to people whose job it was to watch other people do something during a day. I suspect the ratio was really more like 1:2 real workers to parasites once you count in the execs and serious fuck-ups who inexplicably never lost their jobs. And this was in a business that didn't really produce any tangible product; insurance companies reside firmly in the 'financial services' sector, and we all know what a crock of crap that is.
No wonder that was such a miserable place, people were doing jobs with no purpose. I know it's a little much to ask that all people follow their passion - we can't have everyone on the planet trying to be a reality TV star - but I don't think it's too much to ask that when a company hires someone to do a job they make sure that job doesn't suck.
You can only do a job 'for the money' for so long, and admittedly for some people that's a very long time, but working for a paycheck is stultifying. Soul-crushing. And when you're working for a supervisor who's been there longer and has had all vitality drained from him by the mind-numbing tedium of his own job you're forced to carry some of his baggage on your journey. No wonder workplace satisfaction is way down.
So how do you do it? How do you create a job that doesn't suck? In my own experience a not-suck job comes down to three simple things:
1. Set expectations. People do good work when they know what they're supposed to do. Setting solid expectations lets your employees know their limits, and lets them realize their potential. It also makes it very easy to tell when someone isn't doing their jobs and needs a little 'coaching.'
2. Let your employees do their jobs. No micro-managing. You hired them to do a job, let them do it. Chances are good they're going to do it better than you could. People tend to rise or fall according to an employer's expectations. If you think you have a bunch of monkeys in the office, your employees will absolutely prove you right. If you think you have a bunch of professionals, guess what? you will.
3. Don't sweat the small stuff. And it's mostly small stuff. All those pointless jobs I was talking about? Those are positions designed to monitor the small stuff. Was your employee supposed to take a sick day instead of a vacation day? Who gives a flying fuck? It's their time off, let them use it as they want to.
Most of all, people want to do a job that they know matters. One that makes a difference. Why do you think nurses and doctors work in inner city hospitals for a fraction of the pay they could get somewhere nicer? Because they know what they do makes an immediate difference. Same with teachers anywhere, they could get a better-paying job, but for them it's really not about the money.
The dear, departed Ray Bradbury has a great quote: 'If you don't like what you're doing, then don't do it.' Sounds simple, yes? But almost nobody follows that advice. If more people did, then employers might stop creating jobs that suck.
Most of the jobs were pointless.
There were a few people who did real work: programmers, underwriters, phone service people, janitors, cooks (they had five cafeterias in the building), actuaries and... that's about it. Then there were an army of other people, project managers, supervisors, quality assurance people, and other mid-management types whose function I never really knew and whose performance I couldn't begin to measure because I don't know what they did during a day, let alone what they were supposed to do. I'd say it was an easy 1:1 ratio of people who actually did something during a day to people whose job it was to watch other people do something during a day. I suspect the ratio was really more like 1:2 real workers to parasites once you count in the execs and serious fuck-ups who inexplicably never lost their jobs. And this was in a business that didn't really produce any tangible product; insurance companies reside firmly in the 'financial services' sector, and we all know what a crock of crap that is.
No wonder that was such a miserable place, people were doing jobs with no purpose. I know it's a little much to ask that all people follow their passion - we can't have everyone on the planet trying to be a reality TV star - but I don't think it's too much to ask that when a company hires someone to do a job they make sure that job doesn't suck.
You can only do a job 'for the money' for so long, and admittedly for some people that's a very long time, but working for a paycheck is stultifying. Soul-crushing. And when you're working for a supervisor who's been there longer and has had all vitality drained from him by the mind-numbing tedium of his own job you're forced to carry some of his baggage on your journey. No wonder workplace satisfaction is way down.
So how do you do it? How do you create a job that doesn't suck? In my own experience a not-suck job comes down to three simple things:
1. Set expectations. People do good work when they know what they're supposed to do. Setting solid expectations lets your employees know their limits, and lets them realize their potential. It also makes it very easy to tell when someone isn't doing their jobs and needs a little 'coaching.'
2. Let your employees do their jobs. No micro-managing. You hired them to do a job, let them do it. Chances are good they're going to do it better than you could. People tend to rise or fall according to an employer's expectations. If you think you have a bunch of monkeys in the office, your employees will absolutely prove you right. If you think you have a bunch of professionals, guess what? you will.
3. Don't sweat the small stuff. And it's mostly small stuff. All those pointless jobs I was talking about? Those are positions designed to monitor the small stuff. Was your employee supposed to take a sick day instead of a vacation day? Who gives a flying fuck? It's their time off, let them use it as they want to.
Most of all, people want to do a job that they know matters. One that makes a difference. Why do you think nurses and doctors work in inner city hospitals for a fraction of the pay they could get somewhere nicer? Because they know what they do makes an immediate difference. Same with teachers anywhere, they could get a better-paying job, but for them it's really not about the money.
The dear, departed Ray Bradbury has a great quote: 'If you don't like what you're doing, then don't do it.' Sounds simple, yes? But almost nobody follows that advice. If more people did, then employers might stop creating jobs that suck.
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