dagblog - Comments for "Possibilities"

I don't think I am

EmmaZahn — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 20:39:54 +0000

In reply to My personal experience leads

I don't think I am overgeneralizing. Maybe you are overspecializing. :)

Our current social model has lead us afield in overemphasizing an individual accomplishments by failing to reveal the societal foundation on which they are built. As wild and chaotic as we may seem, there is (maybe was) a degree of cooperation at our base that empowers us and enables us to achieve as individuals. Without it, we really would live in a free, dog-eat-dog market and then we would find out who is truly a tall poppy. I feel like that foundation to our society is crumbling just like much of our physical infrastructure. When it goes, so will some of our freedom to be or become or self-actualize or whatever .....

Anyway, the jobs I write about sharing are the foundational ones. The ones that are necessary to enable and empower us all to pursue our individual interests. Personally, I believe our society is big enough to accomodate both IF overweening status can be stripped from some of the less necessary 'jobs'.

Mostly my thoughts on jobs evolved from supervising a staff of single women, many of them single parents as well. The thing about single parents is that they often have family things to deal with that interfere with their job performance. Often the single non-parents take up the slack even to the point of giving up their own scheduled time off which in a way penalizes them or makes them a kind of non-custodial parent however you prefer to think of it. Maybe because we were all women, we knew the interests of the children took precedence over all our jobs even if we did not really like the mother. The ethical and moral considerations of supervising that group were not abstractions; they were regular in-your-face dilemmas and decisions.

I am discovering that thinking about this stuff is a whole lot easier than writing it down. Thanks for the exercise.

My personal experience leads

Verified Atheist — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 19:51:24 +0000

In reply to One reason incompetents are

My personal experience leads me to prefer redundancies and a deep bench when there is real work to do. There should always be someone to take up the slack when a worker is out whether planned or not. No worker should be considered indispensable.

Although this is probably true more often than not, we need to be careful about over-generalizing. I work in a field that values the deep bench (it's a feature of agile programming), but in a subfield that values my specific knowledge (I have advanced degrees in physics and computer science as well as a strong background in the neurosciences). If I were to quit working, the work I'm doing would most likely no longer get done. The only thing that makes me not indispensable is that my company could exist without the work I do (although they would lose a revenue stream). I think this might not be the rule, but I'm definitely not a solitary exception.

One reason incompetents are

EmmaZahn — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 19:35:22 +0000

In reply to I realize we're just thinking

One reason incompetents are rarely fired is the social stigma attached. Add in the extra difficulty of firing a friend or relative for incompetence and the result is a bureauacracy much like what we have now both private and public. Remember The Peter Principle?

Our current social model teaches us to self-identify with our jobs, to own them and to embue them with their various statuses. We treat them just like we do other personal property. Often we end up embroiled in office politics that make the UN look like kindergarten. My question is whether or not we should continue with that model or try to think of a new one.

My personal experience leads me to prefer redundancies and a deep bench when there is real work to do. There should always be someone to take up the slack when a worker is out whether planned or not. No worker should be considered indispensable.* All workers should have sufficient reserve capacity to deal with an emergency, that is, they should not routinely be worked to their absolute limits.

Shorter version, I would prefer a new social model that separates much of the status and territory elements from 'jobs' so their true functions and values can be recognized.

* I think it was DeGaulle who observed that cemetaries are full of indispensable men.

I realize we're just thinking

Verified Atheist — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 17:28:42 +0000

In reply to I agree in general about the

I realize we're just thinking aloud, but I think term limits is not at all a good idea. What's needed is an easy way to fire incompetents without creating an easy way to fire "troublemakers" (i.e., those who are working too hard or are too honest, etc.). Unfortunately, this distinction is incredibly difficult to maintain and usually requires on having good, intelligent people in charge (which also translates to a certain amount of luck, IMO). Term limits, however, fire competent experts just as easily as they fire incompetent dawdlers.

It reminded me of this:

EmmaZahn — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 00:22:14 +0000

In reply to Related post from the Wall St

It reminded me of this:

Hummm...reminds me of a Woody

cmaukonen — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 22:07:25 +0000

In reply to Related post from the Wall St

Hummm...reminds me of a Woody Allen flick. Sleeper.

Dr. Melik: This morning for breakfast he requested something called "wheat germ, organic honey and tiger's milk."
Dr. Aragon: [chuckling] Oh, yes. Those are the charmed substances that some years ago were thought to contain life-preserving properties.
Dr. Melik: You mean there was no deep fat? No steak or cream pies or... hot fudge?
Dr. Aragon: Those were thought to be unhealthy... precisely the opposite of what we now know to be true.
Dr. Melik: Incredible.

A Key Lesson of Adulthood: The Need to Unlearn

For adults, one of the most important lessons to learn in life is the necessity of unlearning. We all think that we know certain things to be true beyond doubt, but these things often turn out to be false and, until we unlearn them, they get in the way of new understanding. Among the scientific certainties I have had to unlearn: that upbringing strongly shapes your personality; that nurture is the opposite of nature; that dietary fat causes obesity more than dietary carbohydrate; that carbon dioxide has been the main driver of climate change in the past.
I came across a rather good word for this kind of unlearning—"disenthrall"—in Mark Stevenson's book "An Optimist's Tour of the Future," published just this week. Mr. Stevenson borrows it from Abraham Lincoln, whose 1862 message to Congress speaks of disenthralling ourselves of "the dogmas of the quiet past" in order to "think anew."

I agree in general about the

EmmaZahn — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 18:09:38 +0000

In reply to So are Federal government

I agree in general about the contradictions although those are not exclusive to the liberal blogosphere. The degree of cognitive dissonance from reading the conservative/libertarian side is much worse.

Also, you may recall how much I dislike the endless stream of ineffective and inefficient rules and regulations issued to placate some silly public interest group that end up punishing the innocent more than anything else. Again both sides of the political divide do this. Examples: drug war, anti-smoking campaign.

That said, I do not think the 'pigs at the trough' meme and bemoaning civil service incompetence (or worse) are the same thing at all although there may be some overlap. How much depends on how many civil services jobs result from political spoils, nepotism or cronyism. It is those jobs that tend to gum things up especially if a status-seeking person holds them.

So, yes. Maybe it is time to throw out the senority system and share the 'work' with others. Term limits for civil servants!

Disclaimer: Trying to change a single aspect of a fubared system will not make things appreciably better. Term limits on government jobs would have to be part of a whole new paradigm.

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Addendum: Maybe thinking about issues outside the total system is what causes so many contradictory thoughts.

There's a lot of grey area,

Donal — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 15:15:04 +0000

In reply to So are Federal government

There's a lot of grey area, of course, so it's not really either-or. As with teachers, there are some great, hard-working, dedicated public employees and some who are just showing up. If there is an easy way to clear out the dead wood I'd be glad to hear it. My experience in watching a private firm downsize is that the first to go are the outspoken, creative types, the socially unpopular and people who have pissed off an empire builder. Middle-management empire builders want people who are loyal, and layoff survivors are often simply good at keeping their heads down.

I'd be dead set against throwing out GS because then we'd open government to even more industry flacks.

Oh and it's past 5, you can

cmaukonen — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 14:45:14 +0000

In reply to So are Federal government

Oh and it's past 5, you can stop being snotty now.