Happy Holidays

Probably as a result of unfollowing people who consistently post idiotic things on Facebook,  I saw only a minimum of posts about how there's some ill-defined War on Christmas. This supposed war allegedly prevents people from saying 'Merry Christmas' or at least shames people who say it. The problem with this so-called War on Christmas is that it's entirely fictional. It's true that some retailers ask their employees to say "Happy Holidays" around this time of year, rather than "Merry Christmas", but it's to be inclusive, not out of some hatred for Christmas. Some of the few comments on social media that reflected a belief that this "war" existed were not from people with whom I'm personally acquainted. One guy commented that he was tired of not being able to say "Merry Christmas", another related questionable information about how in his neck of the woods, Minnesota, there's an all-out frenzy against all aspects of the Christian side of the holiday season. I guess I must be sheltered from the worst of this anti-Christian intolerance. In my whole life I have only once encountered someone who was offended at the words "Merry Christmas". This was about fifteen years ago when I was spending my Monday nights down at Duggan's Pub. A drinking buddy of mine, a devotee of Asatru, Norse Paganism went on a rant one night when I said "Merry Christmas", not because the words themselves offended him, but because he thought that I, as a pagan, was being hypocritical by wishing him, another pagan, good wishes in regard to a Christian observance. Literally no one else that I have met in person was offended by the words "Merry Christmas", and I know many non-Christians.

What I have experienced first hand, and heard about second hand, was people who have been offended at the words "Happy Holidays", or who, when hearing the words "Merry Christmas" from a businessperson, went on a rant about they're sick of no one being able to say "Merry Christmas". My youngest son, a convenience store clerk, has several times this year been the recipient of verbal abuse for saying "Happy Holidays". A few years ago I fielded a call at my place of business from someone who was so happy that one of our holiday ads said "Merry Christmas", taking the opportunity to disparage anyone who said "Happy Holidays". When I worked for UPS I encountered something similar. So, in my own experience, even saying "Merry Christmas" triggers some of these people into an often abusive rant about people who say "Happy Holidays". One of the stupidest things I've seen online was a tweet by the big-haired recent college grad who's claim to fame was posing with a semi-automatic weapon on her campus. This morning she posted a video of herself saying "It's 'Merry Christmas', not 'Happy Holidays' PC libs" and shot up a sign that said "Happy Holidays". Aside from the weirdness of shooting up a handmade sign, the mindset that thinks that It's "Merry Christmas" as if there are no other midwinter holiday observances tells you all that you need to know.

No one, outside of a few nut-jobs is literally offended at the words "Merry Christmas", is offended that you are saying them to him or her, is trying to ban them from store ads, or to stop people from publicly celebrating Christmas. What some people are doing is insisting that the religious aspects of Christmas (and c'mon, if you don't realize that Christmas has had it's religious roots largely commercialized out of it over the last few generations isn't paying attention or is living in a "Christian Nation" fantasyland) be kept out of official government displays and observances and that retailers consider other groups and be inclusive by saying "Happy Holidays".

Christmas, while still a religious observance for Christians, has become a secular holiday, and has become filled with secular and pagan traditions that have nothing to do with the birth of Jesus. The secular traditions have swamped the traditions and observances of other cultures (Hanukkah is a great example - Jewish parents have long had to battle the influence of Christmas traditions overshadowing Hanukkah observances - it's not "The Jewish Christmas") and even minimized the Christian core in favor of gift-giving, trees and Santa Claus. If you're going to get righteously indignant, get worked up about that.  

Managers Part XXI - The Holidays

One of the responsibilities of management is to be an example (a good one of course!) to the non-management employees. Managers have to battle the non-management employee's view that managers don't do anything, that they don't know anything and that they just get in the way. One way amateur managers try to overcome this bias is to be "Mr. Nice Guy", or to spend their day "in the trenches", doing "real work". There are one major problem with these approaches. Both types of managers tend to not manage, worrying so much about how they are perceived that they become ineffective. If the chief manager is spending all of her time sweeping the floor or stocking shelves, why do we really need a manager? A manager's job is not to do things, but to ensure that things get done. (Search through these articles for the 5 Levels for more explanation). Sure, a manager might gain some goodwill by pitching in with mundane tasks, but what's happening in the rest of his area of responsibility while he's stocking shelves or cleaning toilets?Unless the staffing plan includes "vocational time", a manager should be spending his time directing the work of subordinates. This brings us to the holidays.

There's a school of thought that maintains that a manager, by virtue of seniority or by having "made it" to those exalted ranks of bosses, should get the best shifts, including a day off on a given holiday. Most of my experience as a manager has been in the realm of retail grocery, so that's what I'll refer to.

Just as the by very fact of having accepted a job in retail you have also accepted the reality that you will be busiest and most in demand at exactly the time that you want to have time off, by accepting a position in management (especially in retail) you accept the reality that your managerial skills will be most needed during those times when you believe that your seniority earns you time off. The thing about holidays is that they are unusual. You are selling items that you hardly knew that you carried throughout the year. You are busier, with customers in a hurry and impatient. This is the time to make sure that someone whose job is to ensure that things get done is on the scene. This is the time to have people who don't need to be told what to do in the building.

A few years ago I was in a local grocery store at about 7:00PM two days before Christmas. For those of you who have never worked in retail grocery, December 23rd, along with the day before Thanksgiving and July 3rd, is one of the top three busiest days that a grocery store will see all year. As I walked through the store the only manager that I encountered was a harried cashier supervisor. The only person who was on the sales floor was a high school-aged boy diffidently facing the cereal aisle. The displays were close to empty as were the aisles. However the store was not, empty of customers. Every part of the store was thronged with Christmas shoppers, many of whom were disappointed to find that what they had come in for was sold out. Possibly the missing products were somewhere in the store, but since there wasn't anyone to get this done, the emptiness prevailed. Obviously all the managers adhered to their regular schedules and went home at 6:00PM.

Contrast this scene to one a few years earlier. At 7:00PM the store director was just leaving after a 12-hour day, the assistant store director was ten hours into his 12-hour shift, the assistant grocery manager and evening supervisor were both scheduled until 11:00PM. There were twice the usual complement of grocery clerks, all with assignments to keep their assigned aisles and displays full. Managers from various departments were still around, giving last minute instructions to their closers.

The difference in these two scenarios should be obvious. In the second, the senior managers saw that it was part of getting things done to not pretend that this was just an ordinary day and do what needed to be done to keep the store running smoothly. Why, if you took your position as a manager seriously, would you assume that extraordinary sales conditions warranted ordinary staffing?

I worked in the store described in the second scenario. While we may have worked six, or even seven, days during the week leading up to Christmas, followed by an almost as crazy New Year's week, with year-end inventory crammed in there somewhere, we planned for the insanity. We might work 60 hours or more for two weeks straight, but the weeks before and after the insanity might see us working only three or four days. And because the senior managers scheduled themselves to work late, or on holidays, they short circuited any complaints from "the troops" when they had to work on the holidays.

The point is that the title of manager shouldn't entitle you to special treatment or exempt you from the stresses of unusually busy seasons. If anything, it should be the time when you're spending more time and effort in your job.

Customer Service

Recently during a conversation about a situation where I had received indifferent, if not terrible, customer service, a former co-worker bemoaned the need to have to provide good customer service. Understand that, as someone who toiled for many years in the retail world, I have no sympathy for rude and unreasonable customers. My patience for people who are insulting and demeaning to retail workers ran out long ago. The flip side of that is that, as a customer, I don't expect retail clerks to be overly attentive, to fawn over me or even to pretend to like me, but I do expect a business to provide the goods or services that they are in the business of selling at the price advertised and for their employees to treat me with a modicum of respect. Part of this involves taking responsibility for what goes on within their four walls. Of course, there are things that happen that are outside a store's control: availability of stock, weather, dependability of suppliers and the like.

The specific incident that caused our disagreement involved a rebate offer. Of course I was aware that the product that I bought was supplied by a local distributor who in turn bought it from the manufacturer and that the rebate was processed by a rebate processing center. I bought several items based on the store's advertising that I would receive a $10 rebate for buying a certain product & mailing in the UPC codes and my receipt. My rebate request was denied. Since I had spent my money, not a the redemption center, or with the manufacturer or even with the distributor, but at the local store, it was the local store where I lodged my complaint. In over four months and multiple emails complaining I never once heard from anyone at the local store. To be somewhat fair to them (even though I'm not naming them) they evidently had contracted the manufacturer since eventually I received by $10 (plus some free stuff) from the manufacturer. However, I shouldn't have had to wait four months and be treated as if this was not the store's problem.

Good customer service starts with assuming, not that the customer is always right, but that an individual customer, when presenting a complaint, has a legitimate grievance and that it is the duty of the retailer to "fix it". Good customer service continues with taking total responsibility for what goes on in your store, not by passing the buck to suppliers or delivery agents.

Years ago one of my supervisors pointed out the tiny percentage of sales that refunds represented, and assuming that refund requests that weren't legitimate, i.e. scams, were a small percentage of that, we concluded that the odds were overwhelmingly small that a refund request was a "rip-off" attempt. Unless we were absolutely sure that what the customer wanted was fraudulent, they got what they wanted. We reasoned that getting stolen from occasionally was a small price to pay to avoid making angry a customer who had a legitimate complaint.

Another idea that this same supervisor had was to guarantee that our shelves would be full during the holiday season. The easy way was to just accept the excuse that "the warehouse was out", instead we called every other store in the chain to see if they had any excess of what we needed and even went to competitors to clear out their shelves!

If you're in the customer service business you shouldn't be resentful that you "have to" honor your commitments to your customers. By all means be angry that you have to put up with the rude people, the nasty people, the people who treat you like an indentured servant - no one should have to put up with any of that. But if providing people with the goods and services that you say that you're providing is a chore, perhaps you're in the wrong business.

Sports

One of the things that has long perplexed my allegedly rational mind was the way sports fans looked upon team loyalties. Most people root for their home team, or the team representing their local college. If there are multiple teams in one area, however, things can get interesting! When a sports fan moves to another city, their loyalties go with them - even thousands of miles away. To use a hometown example, a Nebraska football supporter will still cheer for the Huskers even after moving to Texas, California or North Carolina. But a strange thing happens when die-hard fans encounter people who have moved from elsewhere into their city: the outsiders are expected to jettison their out-of-town fandom and become cheerleaders for the local team. No one seems to notice this inconsistency.

Another item on my "sports fans mystify me" list is the fact that it is socially unacceptable to not be a fan. I encountered this the other day. A man whom I had never met asked me if I "was going to watch the game". Besides growing up in another state and not having absorbed the local football fever and fervor, I'm just, in general, not a sports fan any more. There are several reasons for this, none of them particularly earth-shaking, but I just don't care about sports any more. Well, I replied to this stranger with "No, I'm not a fan". You would've thought that I had impugned his mother's reputation or shot his dog. Some years back I turned off a game at work because people weren't working, and ended up getting an ugly phone call from a customer threatening to shop somewhere else if the game wasn't on the radio at the store because I "was in Nebraska now".

Now I do understand the attraction and the fun of rooting for your team. I get that tailgating on game day and attending the game itself are fun experiences (I've done both). There's no harm in memorizing team statistics or expressing your opinion about the coach or players. (Yes, even college players - if they can accept the adulation and hero-worship when things are going well, they can accept the criticism when things are going badly - and no, the fact that you yourself cannot perform at that level of athleticism should not prevent you from venting about shitty football). What I don't understand is when fandom (and I'm not just pointing fingers at Nebraska football fans, I'm sure that in Texas, fanaticism begins at the high school level, or younger) becomes the most important thing in a person's life. I've worked with people who, without a second thought, would have quit their jobs if forced to work on a "Football Saturday".

Being from somewhere else does not preclude me from understanding why people are sports fans; guess what? We had sports fans where I came from too. Whether your team is Husker Football, or Creighton Basketball or the Chicago Cubs, you're not unique! There are sports fans everywhere and they're all similarly crazed in their support of their team. There are also plenty of us who just don't give a shit.

Managers Part XX - Delegation & Assignments

One of the core concepts of getting control of your time as a manager is learning to delegate. Before you can do that, you have to understand what delegation is and how it's different from assignment. One way to look at assignment, or assigning tasks, is that it's the manager telling people what to do. They complete one task, then are given another, or are given a list of tasks to be completed in a set time frame. Delegation, on the other hand, occurs when a manager communicates her expectations, draws the big picture, and gives her subordinates the freedom to make it happen in their own way. There is a continuum of assignment/delegation, with a new employee figuratively having their hand held as they go through their day, being told what every step is. This progresses to asking for assignments and then to knowing what to do, but checking with the boss. Eventually, the subordinate is able to self-assign without checking with his manager.

Delegation is not to be confused with abdication of responsibility. I have seen plenty of hands-off managers who are loved by their employees because they "let them do their jobs", when closer inspection would reveal that they aren't doing their jobs, they're doing something but the manager is too conflict-averse to actually manage them. These employees might benefit from some direction from their manager, but in its absence they set their own standards. These standards might be convenient for them, but also might be out of sync with the standards and goals of the company. In situations like this neither delegation nor assignment is taking place. The employees who realize that they have the freedom to do spend their work days however they like will become resentful when some manager higher up the chain of command tries to correct things, or a new manager, who knows how to manage comes on board. The employees who expect to be assigned tasks will, in the absence of any direction, badger the manager for instruction, ironically tying up his day micromanaging. Thus the management pyramid is turned upside down.

This morning I entered a local grocery store and immediately became aware of two things that were out of place. One was sign on the front of the building announcing that a fundraiser was taking place. The problem was that this fundraiser was yesterday. The second was overflowing trash cans in the lobby of the store. Of course trash cans get full and people forget to do things like take down signs, but I frequently interpret little things like that in light of management or in some cases, customer service.

Why was that sign still up? Perhaps whoever was supposed to remove it simply forgot. But my management brain looked at it differently. Most likely no one had been assigned the task of removing that sign when the event was completed. It wasn't on anyone's to-do list, so it didn't get done. The store director, or department manager, whoever had set up this event, did not think to add this to "the list". Which brings us to delegation. There were likely several managers, including the store director, the evening supervisor, perhaps the front end manager, who were overall responsible for the store being fully staffed, fully stocked and clean. All of these people should have been trained as to what state the store should be in and had been delegated the responsibility of making sure that those standards were met. Surely this included walking outside periodically. By the time I arrived several manager shifts had come on duty and walked in the front door since that sign became outdated. Same with the overflowing trash cans. My guess is that whoever is specifically assigned to empty trash had clocked out between 6:00 and 9:00pm and the next person so assigned had not arrived yet. In between, no one thought it was their job and the manager in charge hadn't followed up.

These may seem like small things, and they are, but they are indicative of a larger trend.

Management isn't about doing things, it's about getting things done. If you don't train and delegate, you'll be doing it all yourself, and if you don't follow up, things might get done, but they'll be the wrong things.

Lack of Consequences

Why do people do horrible things to each other? Why do people treat other people as things? Most people have moments that they're not proud of, but what about people who are continuously and barely consciously dismissive and contemptuous of their fellow human beings? There are undoubtedly many reasons, but one stands out to me: lack of consequences.

One of the prevailing headlines this week is the accusations of attempted rape against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, events that are alleged to have happened when he was in high school and later in college. Let's establish that I believe his accuser Dr. Ford, as well as the subsequent accusers that have come forward. You may disagree with me, and I may be proven wrong, but why are these accusations so credible to many of us? Granted, some do not find them credible, basing their incredulity on their perception that Kavanaugh is a "good man" and "would never had done those things". But back to why I find them believable.

Why would someone wait 35+ years to level an an assault accusation, an accusation of attempted rape, on someone? The attacks upon the accuser, here in post "#MeToo" 2018, and the united disbelief and personal attacks from men in power, should shed some light upon the reasons why some women don't report sexual assaults. The risk that they won't be believed, that their own lives will be put under a microscope, that their attackers will be portrayed as the victims and that in the end the rapist will escape consequences.

And many of these predators know that they will evade consequences.

Boys from well-connected families, with access to effective lawyers and enough money to buy silence are brought up knowing that they have a highly functional safety net that will catch them and protect them if they get into trouble. Of course this doesn't mean that every rich kid is a rapist or that every wealthy family's lawyer's time is mainly spent keeping the kids out of jail. But it does mean that those who do choose to become abusers know that they will be protected and likely escape serious consequences.

Pair the perception of invulnerability of the rich with the systemic bias against rape victims, and actions such as those which Kavanaugh is accused of become all too believable.

So what if Kavanaugh is known or believed to be a good family man, sober and serious? That's now. It's not beyond the pale of possibility that someone who acted the way Kavanaugh is alleged to have acted when in high school and college could become more circumspect as he got older and considered the repercussions to his judicial career if he continued to be a drunken rapist.

It remains to be seen what the consequences of his actions will be. There appears to be only one or two Republicans who are wavering on his appointment and Kavanaugh could very well escape any consequences and become a Supreme Court Justice. 

September 11th - Why Are We Really Observing This Day?

It's September 11th again. What was, for the first few anniversaries, a solemn remembrance, has become an opportunity for political posturing and chest thumping pseudo-patriotism. That, and an opening for all the crackpot conspiracy theorists to trot out their idiotic slants on 9-11 that the rest of us have mercifully forgotten. I have grown weary of all the reminders of how tough New Yorkers are, how brilliant Giuliani was, how the Saudis betrayed us, and most of all, how invoking that horrible day becomes an excuse to push whatever agenda the politician du jour is braying about.

Then, of course, there's our embarrassment of a president.

An exclamation point? It's like he's announcing a celebration. Then the video of him double fist-pumping as he arrived at Shanksville, like it's a campaign rally or a victory party.

Every year we say "Never Forget", but have we actually learned anything in the last 17 years? We've been mired in a series of conflicts in the Middle East ever since. In Afghanistan we were supposed to drive out the Taliban and foster a democratic government. We toppled the Taliban government, but have managed to install a series of corrupt national leaders and encouraged the resurgence regional warlords, who run much of the country, the parts of it's not run by Taliban commanders anyway. We have lost a significant number of soldiers to attacks by Afghan soldiers and police; our alleged allies. In Iraq we intervened based on a purposeful misreading of the intelligence, and got sectarian fighting and ISIS for our trouble. We intervened in Libya with the result being no central government and a dead ambassador. We talked tough and supported rebels in Syria, and bombed a few airfields, but the Russians and Iranians have propped up Assad.

We've increased our military involvement around the world and curtailed civil liberties at home, but we have done nothing to address the root causes of the attacks in 2001.

We say "Never Forget", but we have.

Managers Part XIX - Good Leaders CAN be Bad Managers

Reading a novel the other day I came across this quote "People often confuse leadership and management, you may be an effective leader, but terrible at minutia". It was in reference to a pilot who was promoted to a position where she no longer flew, but planned the missions of her subordinates.

So often we hear the traits of leadership praised while those of management looked down upon as inferior, as if a manager is someone who somehow failed to be a leader. I have always taught that leadership is just one trait of a good manager. But this quote made me want to take it further. A leader is someone who can inspire others to follow, and I've always thought that someone who had leadership qualities in a management role was by definition a good manager, but I am rethinking that position. Effective management is, in part, a function of effective leadership. Inspiring one's followers to the point where they can have responsibility delegated to them is a mark of a good manager. But that part of the quote about minutia is the key. A person can be an inspiring and charismatic leader, but lacks the skill at analyzing, organizing and planning that are essential ingredients that go into the makeup of a successful manager. Visualize a manager who is well liked, whose subordinates will follow any orders, but cannot put together a schedule, or properly budget, or order the right amount of product; who cannot articulate the needs of his business unit to corporate headquarters. He wouldn't last too long, despite his popularity with "the troops".

In this series on managers, I have concentrated mostly on the people management aspect of being an effective manager. What has been the unspoken assumption all along has been that, in order to manage the people, you first need to be proficient at the other management skills - the minutia.

But The Dark Comes back

One candle they say
Causes the darkness to flee
But the dark comes back

The candle burns out
The Sun sets every night
Flames turn to ashes

And the dark comes back

And casts its shadow

You can't avoid dark
What if the dark's not evil?
What if it just IS?

Not Everything is About "The Troops"

Support the troops! Don't disrespect the troops! Love the troops! I am so sick of (in certain contexts) hearing about THE TROOPS!

Before you get your lederhosen in a bunch, I want to clarify that I'm not sick of the troops. I'm grateful to them for stepping up, and that some of them put their lives on the line, and many of them lose their lives, carrying out the policies of our government. I think that whatever their motivation, they deserve a heavy dose of respect for the jobs that they do.

What I do object to is how certain politicians make every single issue about "the troops". And it's not just politicians. What got me going on this subject was a Facebook meme that I saw yesterday. It had four pictures, one of a grieving widow bent over a flag-draped coffin, a second of a paraplegic veteran in a wheelchair with the caption "This is why we stand for the anthem", the third was a military cemetary, possibly a Civil War era one, with the caption "This why we don't erase history" and fourth was an American flag with a caption stating that we are not white, black etc, we are Americans, start acting like it". What got my attention first was the "erase history" picture. This was obviously a reference to the enthusiasm for tearing down memorials to Confederate soldiers and politicians, with those opposed to it hiding their racism behind a so-called concern for preserving our history. This gave me a good idea of the mindset behind this post. But the first two pictures, with their suggestion that the "kneel for the anthem" protests were disrespectful to "the troops" was the main point.

Growing up I never associated the National Anthem with the military, despite its martial language. To me it was just a patriotic song. But those who were opposed to mostly black athletes who were attempting to bring attention to the rash of police killings of black men, many of them unarmed, made it about disrespecting "the troops". Why? Because we have come to a point in our society where members of the military are not only respected, but revered.  We can't criticize the invasion of Iraq or Afghanistan because that derides the troops. We can't question the military budget because that means we don't care about the troops. A Congressman can't express doubt in the fitness of a Veterans Administration because that will deprive the troops of an advocate. Sarah Sanders claims that it inappropriate to question a retired four-star general, John Kelly. Kelly himself suggested that lawmakers "shut up and support the men and women on the front lines". He later said he felt sorry for those who haven't served and refused to take questions from anyone who didn't have a connection to a Gold Star family.

Kelly is just the highest ranking representative of the changing military culture in our country where military men and women are a warrior caste, superior to the rest of us. And think about the term "warrior". We hear it all the time in reference to soldiers. It makes me cringe. Technically it's accurate; a warrior is someone engaged or experienced in war, according to Merriam-Webster. But when I hear "warrior" I think of someone whose main purpose isn't defending the country or its interests, but a conqueror, someone whose whole life revolves around war and death, not someone who does a job and then comes home to civilian life. Our military is supposed to answerable to civilian authority. That's why the President is also the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, it's why we don't have a separate position as head of the military. And most of the time the head of the Department of Defense is a civilian, not a recently retired general like we have now, in addition to having another recently retired general as chief of staff of the White House. While military people may have a point that we civilians don't understand them, it's an equally valid point to suggest that a career "warrior" doesn't really understand what civilian life is about either.

But there is one group that can criticize the military, and that those on the right wing of American politics. You may be thinking of President Trump, and you'd be right, but it predates him. Former Secretary of State John Kerry served in Vietnam as a swift boat commander. Unlike most Naval postings in Vietnam, a swift boat wasn't anchored miles off the coast, lobbing bombs, or launching planes. A swift boat patrolled the internal rivers; rivers that were fenced in by jungle on both sides, jungle that could likely conceal the enemy. In my opinion, this had to have been the most dangerous job in the Navy, notwithstanding the many Naval pilots who were shot down and captured. Yet Kerry had his military record muddied and was called a coward by the opposition, who happened to be George W Bush, who was safe in the National Guard while Kerry was putting his life on the line.

I guess my whole point is, unless you're specifically addressing a military issue, keep the military, and respect for the troops, out of the discussion. It's nothing but an attempted guilt trip.

Confronting Rudeness

Sometimes, when some one is rude to you, or acts like an asshole, the best thing to do is ignore it. Treat it as unimportant and move on. But at other times, the way to handle it is to firmly, yet civilly, point out to the other person the error of their ways. Even though discussing anything on the internet can quickly turn into mud-slinging, even online conflicts can be defused if both sides have an interest in keeping the lines of communication open, or even if they are invested in not looking like a jerk. This can take place if the two combatants know each other "in real life", or even if not, when keeping a forum conflict-free outweighs petty point-scoring.

There have been several situations lately where I decided to not just let it go.

My personal policy, whether in face-to-face conversations, or online encounters, is to never engage in name-calling or questioning of the other person's intelligence. This includes correcting grammar, although I make exceptions for people who call other people stupid or uneducated, people who correct other people's grammar, and the President of the Unites States.

In an online discussion on a Facebook wedding vendor page the other day Susie gave her opinion about how to handle a certain situation. Now this wasn't a political discussion, it wasn't a religious discussion, nor did it involve the "correct" toppings for authentic pizza. She gave her opinion, which was the informal policy of our wedding officiant business. There was nothing shocking about what she posted, yet another commenter, rather than just posting her own approach, attacked Susie's; and corrected her grammar.

I had Susie invite me to this group just so I could respond! I admit that I was a bit biting in my response, but didn't stoop to name-calling, although I did find a misspelled word (offiiciant) and pointed it out to her. The next morning she posted a comment that she was out of line and deleted her comments; later Susie received a message apologizing. (It wasn't a real great apology, but we'll take what we can get).

But the point is not to be the avenging angel, striking down the rude, but to give rude people the opportunity to see that they are rude, and the chance to change.

Hrast

You can’t trust the damn groundhog. And why would we ever think it was logical to even consider having confidence in the meteorological predictions of a rodent from an unpronounceable town in Pennsylvania? Six more weeks of winter was bad enough, but here it is, another seven weeks past that, May first, and the sleet is pounding down like half melted Italian Ice. What was worse than the cold and wet was that the likelihood that Teg’s ride would never arrive. Teg had not yet figured that out.

Some events moved linearly, some cycled over and over again, some lives resembled a spiral. Teg’s life, insofar as romance was concerned, was more like one of those graphs that purported to show how the economy was recovering even though no one was able to find a job. Or maybe it was more like a muddy road that never gets graded, with the ruts just getting deeper and harder to avoid. The provider of Teg’s missing ride could be described as the love of his life. Not by anyone with even a hint of objectivity or possessed of rational thinking skills, but this is how Teg described her. The fact that they had never gone out on a date, never had coffee together, never “hooked up” in a drunken stupor, never friended each other on Facebook, or most importantly, that she did not know Teg’s name or that she was the love of his life…none of this fazed Teg. Or was it that he wasn’t phased? Homophones, damn pain in the ass.

On Thursday afternoon Teg, whose real name may have been Joe, sat at the bar where the alleged love of his life worked. He did not know her name, but he imagined that it must be something exotic, like Ariadne, or Manila, or maybe even Svetlana…or Joan. As usual, Teg sipped at one of a succession of Hrast- on-the rocks, Hrast being a brand of Slovenian whiskey that had somehow made its way onto the cheap bottle shelf. Maybe one of the out of work Bosnians got it off one of the Ukrainian hookers and traded it for some Kosovar cigarettes. It was cheaper than any of the more conventional brands and tasted just fine if you had somewhat negotiable standards of quality. After enough Hrast-on-the-rocks, Teg, who kept his bravery about ¹/₃ of the way down the bottle for safekeeping, began his usual conversation with the bartender. It was only a conversation in the broadest sense of the word, since Teg was talking and the bartender was as far away from him as was possible while still technically in the bar. From the bartender’s point of view, the words swirled around like rain-sodden clouds on a windy day. Or maybe it was like dishwater-soaked dishrags after a particularly wild night of dishwashing, dropping sodden onto the linoleum; pick your own overwrought metaphor. At any rate, she wasn’t listening; not really listening. It wasn’t that there was anything objectively offensive about Teg; he didn’t have body odor, halitosis and didn’t wear black concert t-shirts or crocs©. He didn’t play annoying songs on the jukebox and truth be told, he wasn’t anything close to ugly. But he barely rose to the level of visible, let alone interesting. At that end of an especially long ramble that could not even rate the excitement of a monotone, she heard, just on the precipice of hearing…”So, you’ll be there, right?” – She mumbled off a response and a nod, barely wondering where “there” was, and continued to search for tasks that would take her anywhere in the bar other than within earshot of Teg.

What was likely to make getting a ride from the love of his life, or from anyone else, statistically unlikely, was that Teg, not only hadn’t told anyone where he was, but he also didn’t know where he was…other than in very general terms. Hrast did that to him. Shit, Hrast did that to anybody stupid enough to drink it. Teg has a plan. Maybe “plan” is too strong a word for what was going on in Teg’s head, but there is a certain procession (or is it precession? – homophones anyone?) of loosely connected envisionings of potential actions that lead from the bar stool to a future point that included clean clothes, transportation, regular meals, and an address.  But the plan involves being out of the flow that he unfailingly goes with. Because letting the flow take him, with the Hrast, he’ll always be who he is. He’ll always be the guy standing out in the sleet. But at least with the Hrast he can picture a future without it.

Once he was someone different, once he had never heard of Hrast, once he was Josef Tarteglione-Kovač, once he was respected, once, once, once…but "once" was gone, and it’s not coming back. You take a lot for granted when you have money. The safety net that a bank balance provides gives you the illusion that you’re Master of Fate, that all of the good in your life is the natural result of your own drive, your own grit, your own greatness, because the bad can be made to disappear, drowned in a wave of cash. Josef Tarteglione-Kovač had always had money. Not Warren Buffet money, not Mick Jagger money, but enough money that he’d not needed to ever check his bank balance before making a purchase, enough money that problems ceased to be problems for him, enough money for him to be everybody’s friend. But now, now nobody knows you when you’re down and out. And he was, despite his inability to see it clearly, was down and out.

Don’t be fooled by the previous paragraph into believing that Teg thought about any of that. What he did think about was that the sleet had stopped, and that there was still some Hrast in the flask. And that surely the love of his life would be arrived soon to give him a ride home. 

Truth

At one time in my life I worried a lot about Truth, yeah, with a capital "T". In my late teens I was beginning to question my family's religion, not because I thought that there was anything particularly wrong with it, but I had begun to be exposed to other religions: other Christian denominations as well as Judaism, Buddhism, and Taoism. There were a lot of options, and no one was doing an effective job of explaining to me why our religion was the ultimate truth, or even best of the bunch. It was about this time that I encountered a group of Christians who claimed that they could explain why what they believed was the ultimate truth.

This group literally interpreted the Bible, at least when it suited them. They documented everything that they believed from the Bible. For quite a few years I was pretty confident that I knew the truth, or if I didn't know it right off, I could figure it out with enough Bible study. What I didn't know at the time was that these guys were pretty shitty Biblical researchers. They acted like they understood Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic, the Biblical languages, but, other than a tiny minority, knew just enough to transliterate the Greek & Hebrew characters and how to read definitions in a concordance. Even then they made unwarranted leaps of illogic and defined words in a way that would have surprised anyone who actually spoke those languages. Their understanding of English grammar, syntax and definitions was shoddy as well (they thought "research" meant to "search again"). It took me many years, but I finally figured out that their answers were bogus. But my big mistake wasn't that I was taken in by people who didn't properly interpret the Bible, but that I was taken in by the idea that the Bible was delivered in some fashion by God.

One of the "Big Ideas" to come out of the Protestant Reformation was sola scriptura or 'scripture alone'. This was the concept that what we know about God does not come from man's teaching, but from the pages of the Bible alone. This makes a certain kind of sense, it provides a written standard by which we can ascertain whether what we believe is true. We then are free from men's opinions about what is true. Or are we?

The early Christians saw the problem with this. By early, I mean the Christian Church as it existed from 200 A.D. and following. Back then there was no "The Bible". Sure, parts of what we now call The Bible were being written as early as 50 A.D.; other parts were written over 100 years later. But so were other books, letter, treatises, gospels and apocalypses that were treated by some Christians as equal or superior to what ended up being included in the Bible. Many of these writings, including (in my opinion) many  that are now considered scripture, were written to either back up a particular point of view or debunk some other faction's point of view. And there were a lot of factions. As one faction gradually gained ascendancy, its leaders had to devise a way to promote and codify their own doctrine while casting the opposing views as heresy. This is where apostolic succession came about. It was assumed that Jesus transmitted truth to his apostles, who faithfully passed on the teachings to their followers who in turn accurately taught their followers. The unbroken line from one generation of leaders to the next was the guarantor of truth, not what was written. The leadership several generations removed from Jesus was deciding what Jesus said and what he meant and how it was to be applied. Far from being an inerrant "Word of God" it was a collection, at best, of what various men wrote about their experience of the divine; at worst it was a collection of factional pamphlets. Maybe it was inspired by God, but maybe not, there was really no way to know for sure.

So much for Truth.

The group that I had belonged to was of the opinion that you just had to read the Bible, and it would interpret itself (I'm oversimplifying). But what this group and so many others who believe that they have The Truth because they read the Bible fail to address is why, if just reading the Bible is all it takes, there are so many versions of The Truth. Well, some address it by claiming that these others aren't real Christians, or they're not actually reading the Bible, or demons are involved somehow. But what's really happening is that the Bible is so confusing and contradictory that it would be surprising if there weren't variant interpretations. People handle the contradictions in various ways. Some, who hold the view that the Bible is without error, will attempt to explain away every error, sometimes in ways that are reminiscent of pretzels. The Bible becomes literal, except when it's inconvenient, then it's metaphorical; irregular definitions are given prominence, and interpretations are shoehorned in to make them fit.  But most people don't think this way; they actually don't think about the Bible all that much, except as something that they vaguely think of as the source of their vision of God.

While the fundamentalists and evangelicals and literalists are, as I was once upon a time, very concerned about Truth, the average Christian doesn't give Truth much thought.  They "believe in God", they pray, they're pretty sure that they're going to Heaven when they die (although some people brag about going to Hell, because they're such rebel bad-asses), maybe tack on a few extras like going to church or "being a good person". They either don't know or don't care about things like the wrathful God of the Old Testament, and certainly don't want to hear about it, and might tell you "that's not the God that I worship". For the most part, their picture of God, Jesus, the afterlife, etc. is based on what they think it ought to be, not on any actual part of the Bible. For example, how many times have you heard a person refer to a deceased loved one as "looking down on them" or as their "guardian angel". Where do those concepts come from? Not the Bible. What about the gyrations people go through to explain how prayer works (or doesn't work)? People invent the God, the Jesus, the Heaven that they want, that fits into their worldview. People even get mad at God for allowing suffering, even though suffering is clearly part of our lot in life...according to the Bible. Most people make up their own religion; they just put familiar labels on it.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

As long as you're not claiming that Christianity is The Truth when you're not even following any interpretation of  the Biblical version of Christianity, but your own made-up version, and  looking down your nose at non-Christians because you think that they are following man-made religion or philosophy, then I have no problem with you. What most people who gravitate to alternative religions, or to no religion, are doing, is thinking through what worldview works for them, whether that is Atheism, Buddhism, Humanism, Paganism or Pastafarianism, and making it their own. Most Christians are doing the same thing, only with a designer label on the home made hand bag.

There is no One True Path. If following a certain faith or philosophy makes you a better person, or helps you to make sense of the world, then that is your truth, and may or may not translate into a truth for someone else.

How Not To Debate: Part 1

Since I have yet to post a Part 2 to the last 'Part One' post, let me say that the implication that there will be subsequent parts is at best optimistic. I'm addressing in this post the propensity of some people to start posts, points, arguments with variations on this phrase "You'll probably hate me for this", "The moderators will surely edit this or delete this" or "flame on". What's being done with these statements is setting up any opposition as short-sighted and/or stupid. Rather than simply presenting one's points and letting the argument stand on its own merits, this strategy is a preemptive jab at those who disagree, an attempt at shaming those in opposition to refrain from expressing their variance of opinion as if to say "No, not me, I'm not ignorant!". In my observation, very few people know how to conduct a logical, rational argument and resort to name-calling, personal attacks and jumping to wild conclusions. There are many websites out there, such as this one http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/ which lists many logical fallacies and talks about how to conduct a logical argument.

Managers Part XVa - Leverage

I just now realized that I had titled this post, but never wrote it. Since I initially numbered it 15 in an 18-part series and subsequently numbered another post as 15, we'll call this 15a.

What is leverage? Basically it's the ability that you have as a manager to influence your employees. It's how you get them to do things. It's also the amount of work that you can accomplish by convincing multiple employees to do things in quantities that you could not do if working by yourself. Let's look at the how first.

Most amateur managers know that they have the power to fire their employees. This is the most basic, crude and rudimentary leverage that you have. Most employees understand this instinctively and will follow a manager's direction, even when they don't want to, disagree with it, or just think it's stupid, because they know that refusal to obey the boss's will can result in an opportunity to find a new job. The problem with this, from a manager's point of view, is that even though you will get compliance, you won't get enthusiasm and you certainly won't get independent action or innovation. To refer back to an another article in this series, you will have employees forever stuck at Levels 1 and 2. Some managers are satisfied with this, and are happy with just basic, mindless obedience. They'll never get their people to Level 3, let alone 4 or 5, and may have to settle for Level 1.

I got my real-life lesson in leverage when I was an assistant store manager. I had been schooled in the wisdom of the Five Levels, of monkeys and left- and right-leaning trapezoids, but hadn't really learned how to properly leverage my employees. As an assistant store manager, I had a lot of responsibility. I often describe the unofficial job description as "All the stuff that doesn't fall into anyone else's job responsibility". All that responsibility, however, didn't come with any matching authority, not any official authority anyway. I threw my weight around, waved my title in people's faces, but no one was impressed. I wasn't making any serious attempt to gain leverage by winning these people over, and I lacked the foundational piece of leverage: the ability to fire someone, and everyone knew it. I hadn't made an effort to convince people to do what I wanted them to do, and they knew I had no real authority (my store manager at the time was a "nice guy" who undermined me quite often, so I had no reflected authority from his support). It was after a few incidents where run-ins with employees that resulted in a reprimand from my boss that I began to employ the lessons that I had learned years before and little by little began to gain leverage, not from blunt force, but from precision use of tried and tested management techniques. I have to admit that I was given a new lease on management life when my nice guy boss was replaced by a guy who more of a bull in a china shop than I was. This enabled me to start fresh and stop my attempt to bludgeon people into obedience.

Grammar: Shit That You Shouldn't Oughta Sweat (i.e. the small stuff)

Lest any of you think that I am a grammar Nazi, here are a few grammar rules that, assuming that you even care about clear communication in your writing) you can safely stop worrying about. (Please remember that the "i.e." in the title is pronounced "that is" if you are reading this aloud, which your probably aren't)

Split Infinitives
An infinitive is, in English, the form of a verb that begins with "to", e.g. the infinitive of the verb "run" is "to run". The rules say that you shouldn't "split" an infinitive, adding a modifier is the way it's usually done. "To quickly run". Why is this a rule? It's hard to say, but sticking to it certainly does nothing to guarantee clarity, in fact it often clouds meaning, or at best makes you sound awkward. In Spanish the infinitive is helpfully indicated by the additional of "-ar", "-er" or "-ir" at the end of the verb, making splitting infinitives difficult. One of the most famous examples of a split infinitive in popular culture is "to boldly go" from Star Trek. It would be more correct, but likely more awkward to have proclaimed "to go boldly...". You decide, but try to obey this rule all the time and you'll see what I mean.

Ending Sentences With a Preposition
Prepositions are parts of speech that relate one word to enough, e.g. "to", "in", "after", "before". The rule is that a sentence should never end in a preposition. Why is this a rule? Because grammarians in the 17th century, educated in Latin, opined that since you didn't end sentences with prepositions in Latin, you shouldn't do it in English. This is another instance where following the rules tends to make for awkward sentences. "The pitcher glared at the spot on the outfield wall that the batter aimed at" becomes "The pitcher glared at the spot on the outfield wall at which the batter aimed"; or "Who should I give the payment to?" becomes "To whom should I give the payment?". Insisting on this rule can make your sentences more formal, but too much formality results in stilted language. Don't worry about this one either.

There are more, but that's all that you're going to get today!

Back to the Future

Anyone who really knows me knows that my favorite sub-genre of science fiction is time travel fiction. My favorite time travel movie is Back to the Future; and I include Back to the Future II & III - viewing them as a kind of continuing story. But recently, as I, for geeky/nerdy reasons, was mapping out the various time hopping trips, I realized that there was a discrepancy in how time travel was portrayed within the series.

Before I get to that, let's look at the concept of "willing suspension of disbelief". In order to enjoy any science fiction, fantasy or superhero movie, you have to accept the premise that time travel is possible, some people can fly or dragons exist, despite the evidence of physics and other real science. People who enjoy these genres are apt to not blink an eye at a teenager inventing "web slingers" and using his "spider sense" to fight crime, while scoffing at how quickly some toast pops out of the toaster. I'm one of those people. But even if one is willing to accept the impossible in order to enjoy the story, the non-real aspects must be internally consistent, in other words, the impossible physics, super powers et al must always be treated the same way. In Back to the Future II, the internal consistency is broken.

In the first movie, Marty, due to his presence in his past and his interaction with the teenage versions of his parents, was making changes that had immediate affects in the future (the "present" that he had traveled from). This is illustrated by the family picture that he carries: as his parents' romantic encounter becomes less and less likely, he and his siblings begin to fade from the picture, implying that changes in the past propagate forward in time without delay. When the timeline is repaired, Marty's picture is restored.When he returns to 1985 his present is changed in several ways as a result of changes in the manner in which his parents met.

In Back to the Future II this rule seems to have been skipped over. Marty & Doc (and Jennifer) travel to 2015 to save Marty & Jennifer's future kids from making a decision that will land them in jail. While there Biff steals the DeLorean, travels back to 1955, gives his teenage self a book that enables him to predict the results of fifty years of sporting events, and comes back to 2015, with Doc & Marty none the wiser...until they return to 1985. They find that Hill Valley is a dystopian society due to Biff's malign influence, a change made when Old Biff gave Young Biff the sports book. The change, like in the first movie, happens instantaneously, except for one detail: why didn't the change propagate forward to 2015? When Biff returns to 2015, it should have been a time 30 years after the nightmare Hill Valley, with him as top dog, head of a gambling empire, but nothing changed! Doc and Marty don't notice any changes either.

Some time travel fiction portrays the changes as so instantaneous that a person who is aware that time travel is occurring will actually see reality change around them. An example of this is the Netflix remake of Frequency. Changes to the timeline made by one character in a second character's past  are shown as a quick blur, with everything subsequently different. One scene has a detective being led into the station, under arrest for an execution of a suspect; then time changes, and between one step and another she is not under arrest, but is being briefed on the case.

Another oddity, but internally consistent nonetheless, is how time travelers, when returning to their native time, are unchanged, even when everything else is. Marty is exactly the same, even though everyone around him has changed. In the changed timeline from Back to the Future he would have had a completely different upbringing than in the original timeline. In some time travel fiction the returning time traveler holds two sets of memories, pre- and post-change. The Butterfly Effect is a good example of this. In Back to the Future II it's a little more extreme since in the "Biff Timeline" Marty was in military school (or something like that) and Doc was in a mental institution. That's a tough one to make work, so I'll cut them some slack!

Mind Your Own Business

"Mind your own business" is one of those phrases that we throw out when we feel that someone has crossed a boundary, is "telling us what to do". I know I don't enjoy unsolicited advice: I don't want people suggesting to me what I should photograph, or what kind of writing I should do, what foods to cook, or what books I ought to read. Like many people, if I want your input I'll ask for it. However, the few times I ever hear someone tell me to mind my own business is when I have intervened in a situation where someone is being violent or abusive. I inserted myself into a situation recently that could have gotten physical, a man aggressively harassing  a woman on the street; he was aghast that I was interfering with him. On several occasions over the last few years I have spoken up when I saw a customer treating a retail employee badly. I've always replied that I had just made it my business.

Contrary to the mindset of abusers, no one has the right to use their power over others to treat people badly.

And that's what it is, misuse, abuse, of power.

We've recently, rightly, cast a spotlight on powerful men sexually abusing less powerful women. One of the reasons that it continued for as long as it did (and let's not be naive, still continues) was that those who saw it happening, heard about it happening, had it reported to them, did nothing. But the opportunity to speak up, to step in, to intervene, occurs every day in a variety of situations. Schoolyard bullying, nasty customers, martinet bosses, it doesn't always, or even often, happen behind closed doors.

It's everybody's business.

Dragons

There may be a reason
that the road less traveled
is less traveled
What's over the hill
or around the bend?
'Here there be dragons'
isn't seen on maps
anymore
but the dragons
are still
there

Grammar: i.e & e.g.

There's a scene in the move Get Shorty where Chili Palmer is being threatened by Ray "Bones" Barboni and his bodyguard. They get into a discussion about whether Ray has correctly used the term "e.g.", Chili correctly suggesting that "i.e." is correct.

Both of these terms come from Latin. "i.e." from id est, which means "that is"; "e.g." from exempli gratia, "for the sake of example". "e.g." is used whenever you are providing an example: "States that grow a lot of corn e.g. Nebraska, tend to be rather flat". "i.e." is used as a clarification: "States that grow a lot of corn tend to have little variation in elevation, i.e. they're flat.".

One thing that is true of both of these abbreviations is that you don't say "i.e." or "e.g.", you say "that is" or "for example" while writing "i.e." or "e.g.".

Prayer...Again

1. Do I care if you pray? - No
2. Do I care if you pray for me? - No, although it depends somewhat on what you are praying to happen to me
3. Do I think anything bad will happen because you are praying - No
4. Do I think prayer is effective - Also NO

And I'm defining prayer specifically as someone asking the deity of their choice to perform some action on their behalf. I realize that there are other definitions of prayer, but I am not addressing those in this post. I also realize that some people maintain that prayer for something is not "true" prayer. Okay, you're welcome to hold that opinion, but millions believe that it is. 

I'm also defining "effective" for the purpose of this post, as "getting the results that were asked for in all particulars". Notice that I am not using the term "answered prayer", since so many people, when confronted with not getting the results that they asked for, trot out "the prayer was answered, the answer was no", which I believe is a cop-out. I'm also including "in all particulars". Because if you're dealing with an omnipotent entity, why would you get the job that you prayed for but not the pay rate that you needed? 

The reason that I do not believe that prayer (as defined above) is effective is that, when observed objectively, the positive results do not appear any more often than one would expect without prayer. True, anyone can point to specific incidents where the result equaled the prayer, perhaps even as I specified, in all particulars, but how often does this happen? What percentage? How often is the result disastrously different than what was prayed for? No one really knows, because people who believe in the effectiveness of prayer don't keep track, while those who don't, don't pray! As a skeptic however, I can come up with numerous examples of people who I know prayed for certain outcomes and unequivocally did not receive what they prayed for, or received part of what they prayed for. It's not effective if it doesn't work all the time, so even a handful of negative examples should indicate its non-effectiveness. 

Confirmation bias is something that we all are subject to. It's the tendency to remember, or even simply notice, the things that confirm our preconceived beliefs, while ignoring or explaining away those things that are at odds with those beliefs. We see this in politics all the time, we give credence to the news stories that bolster our position; everything else is fake news. Nowhere is this more prevalent than in religious beliefs. People pray for years for certain outcomes and come up empty, yet they still believe. 

In the beginning of this post I listed a few things about prayer that I didn't have a problem with, however there are a few things where do have a problem. One is the self-righteous crowing from certain quarters when they survive a natural disaster, a plane crash, a terrorist attack, or even a medical condition. It's kind of humble-bragging, look at me, I survived because my deity loves me so much, as if everyone else in town who died in the floods, or lost their homes in the tornado, or died a gruesome and painful death was unloved or somehow skipped praying. Either praying is ineffective or your deity is an asshole. 

The other issue I have is when people pray for me to change some part of my life, such as my religion (or lack of it). My beliefs are as valid as yours and as worthy of respect, don't pray for me to change into what you think will get me into Heaven or deliver me from Hell, doing so shows an utter lack of respect for who I am. Stop it!

So other than that last thing, pray away, I won't be offended, I won't judge you, and unless you ask me what I think about it, I won't even talk to you about it. In fact, if you didn't want to hear my thoughts you probably wouldn't have gotten this far, or even clicked on the link!

Can You Verify...?

You're at the bank, or calling the cell phone provider to make some changes, the person on the other end says "Can you verify your ID number?" (or SSN, or any other piece of identifying information) - I have taken to responding with "Yes I can", then pausing. Sometimes adding, "Go ahead, tell me what you have there so I can verify it". Of course this confuses them. What is really happening is that they are verifying that you are who you say you are. They should probably say something like, please give me your ID number so that I can verify your identity. I am not verifying anything. I am giving out identifying information so that they can verify me!

The last time I posted something like this on Facebook I received a lot of responses purporting to educate me as to why a bank or online service company would need to verify who I am. Yes, thank you,  I know why they need this information, I am glad that banks don't freely give out my account information to just anyone. But that is not the point that I am making. (I am freshly amazed almost every day at how people answer questions other than the one that you asked, or respond to scenarios other than the one that you described). The point that I am making is that the request is inaccurately stated, not that the request for information is illicit!

I doubt that anyone will change their ways due to my irritation at the question, but for the time being I will be feigning ignorance at what I am being asked.

Fate

What is fate? One definition is

the development of events beyond a person's control, regarded as determined by a supernatural power.

This definition, the acceptance of which is called "fatalism" suggests that we are on a path from which we cannot deviate. "Destiny" is a similar concept. This concept exists in tension with freewill. Freewill is the belief that we decide and are fully responsible for everything in our lives. There is considerable overlap in what people believe about these concepts - someone who believes in freewill might say that meeting their spouse was "destiny", a religious person might say that it was "God's Will". An agnostic might say everything is a result of choices that we made; some people claim that everything, good or bad, is a result of our mindset. It is my observation that it's not really one or the other, but a combination.

Most people believe in freewill, but aren't our decisions constrained, hemmed in by previous choices? For example, my employment options were limited by my decision, in 1980, to not continue my college education but to participate in a "missionary" program for a year. At the end of that year I chose to get married to a woman with two small children, a choice that would make going back to college financially difficult. Any broad horizons that may have been open to me when I was 19 became straitened by those decisions. This phenomena can be compared to a funnel, broad at the entry, narrowing as the choices pile up. As life goes on the exit end of the funnel becomes increasingly narrow and the meaningful choices that can be made decreases in this scenario.

This would be bad enough if we all started off equal, as the Declaration of Independence suggests. But we don't. People who have wealthy parents start off with a much bigger funnel than someone born to poor parents, or to drug addicts, or criminals. Whites start off with bigger funnels than blacks; men start off with bigger funnels than women. Even with those relative differences, the size of the funnel can vary. Did that poor, black single mother sacrifice everything to send her daughter to medical school? Did the rich man, who could have given his son every opportunity, instead allow him to squander his advantages. The funnels go back generations.

But once we start on our own funnel, and start making our own choices, are we doomed to a pre-ordained end? This is where the funnel analogy breaks down. A different analogy might be that of a car on a highway. You might have decided early on that you were going to drive from Atlanta to Boston, but early in your trip you headed West instead of North, in fact, now your in Mexico. It would have been a lot easier to turn around when you were in Huntsville Alabama and head North. The car didn't have so many miles on it, but now you're in Baja California and you decide that you're going to turn it all around and get yourself up to Boston. It's not going to be easy - the car needs new tires and an oil change - and it's going to take a long time to get up to Boston - but it's possible.

Of course life is more complicated than a funnel or a car trip. There are very real obstacles if you have made enough counterproductive choices, if you started life without any advantages, if your bad choices resulted in incarceration of damage to your body or mind. Often other people's choices impact your own options.

Sometimes life is more like the funnel than the car trip, even if you've got a good map.

To me fate is the limits that the combination of your initial circumstances, your own choices and just plain random occurrences, have placed on your options. But very seldom are there zero options, very seldom is there no way forward. You, due to a variety of variables, are in a world of shit; what are you going to do about it? The solution may not be simple, the solution may be time-consuming, the solution may be painful, but it's another choice. 

There's no divine or supernatural force pushing you to a predetermined destination.  That's an excuse to accept the unacceptable. Find the solution.

Managers Part XVIII - "Good Managers"

What makes a "good" manager? That's where we started this series almost a year and a half ago. I don't think that I'd be going out on a limb to say that what makes a good manager and what makes a good person are two sets that don't completely overlap. Granted, someone who is a bully, a thief, lazy, abusive, etc...things that might describe a "bad" person, would probably also describe a "bad" manager. But the traits that make someone a good spouse or a good buddy don't necessarily translate into the traits of a good manager. A manager must inspire trust in her subordinates in order to fully leverage the abilities of her staff. One might think that being a buddy to subordinates or rolling up the managerial sleeves and pitching in, stepping back and "letting people do theirs jobs" or passing out rewards like no-questions-asked time off or ignoring the dress code makes one a good manager. This type of manager might be a popular manager, but in all likelihood for every employee who thinks Goodtime Charlie is the greatest, there will be one or two who resent the lack of support, the chaos and favoritism that go along with the alleged positive traits. Other employees, seeing Charlie's willingness to do their work with them, will soon be expecting the manager to do their work for them.

A good manager is the fulcrum, balancing the needs of the company, along with upper management, with the needs of the employees. This means that the manager is responsible for maximizing the output of his employees, not by working them to death or by cutting staffing to unsustainable levels, but by training subordinates to function as independently as possible. This means retaining the best people, not by holding them down in positions where they are unhappy or they are paid less than what they need to be, but by giving them the support and resources to advance in the company...and sometimes even outside the company. As I've said before in this series, the job of a manager is not to do things, but to get things done.

If you try to do everything yourself, you can only do the work of one person. Lets say that you have 40 units of work to do and you are scheduled for 40 hours. What happens if the workload increases to 50 units? You'll probably have to work 50 hours. How about 65 units? Settle in for 65-hour week. Your business is pretty much capped at 65 units. But what if you have trained two assistants to take on 20 units each. They'll be slower than you are, being trainees, but they can do 20 units each. So now you have freed up 40 hours. You can drop back to 40 hours: 25 hours to do 25 units of work and 15 hours to train your assistants. Once they are fully trained, their ability to take care of 40 units each also allows your business to expand to 80 units, with you spending 40 hours on managerial tasks. You can add additional assistants as business grows, or promote your assistants to supervisors and staff another level. Of course all of these people need to be fully trained and able to work independently or you'll be spending your 40 hours fixing substandard work or giving out assignments rather than delegating responsibility.

Management is a skill set separate from the actual work of a given industry. Just because you're a good widget-maker doesn't necessarily mean that you'll be a good widget-maker's manager. In most businesses the only way for an employee to make more money is to become a manager, and in most businesses, managers are not chosen for their management ability, but for how well they performed as a subordinate. 

Do you want to be a manager? If so, be passionate about the art of management; if you want to be effective as a manager, you have to be in it for more than the money. Think about it: would you apply for a job as a mechanic if you had no experience, even if it paid double what you were making now? Would you apply for any position that you had no aptitude for, just because it paid well? Of course not! If you had a goal of becoming a mechanic you'd go to school, or become an apprentice, or even go to YouTube for instructional videos. Why then, do so many people apply for management jobs when they have no experience or skill in management? Because our culture doesn't view management as a profession, but as an extension of the underlying profession.

Do you want to be a manager? Find out what it involves and educate yourself!