Let's start with the easy and “stupid”
point of frustration: How do “jobs” work?
It doesn't matter where you go. Whether you are flipping burgers, or case-managing families, it usually takes 5 whole minutes before someone, somewhere, puts voice about how to do something differently. It isn't always clear that it's “better,” but dissatisfaction is always just beneath the surface. The burger place employee says they shouldn't be so understaffed, and it would help not contaminate food ping-ponging between doing the dishes, and assembling orders. Well, yes, you filthy idealist, but the company is concerned about the bottom line, and yours costs a lot.
Invariably, you'll have the person who's “been doing it” for many years. They actually have more than a few good insights on how to do what they do better. Some, I would say exceptionally few, companies have open-door easy communication up and down the chain. Moreover, when the idea is actually a good one, they may put it into practice in days or weeks instead of years, if at all. I've never worked at a company like this. The status quo, in my experience, is to not or never bother to offer some kind of improvement. No one there is trying to improve, they're trying to get paid and move on with their lives.
This posture I feel is part of a larger frustration at the base of lesser-worthwhile existences. If and when you can identify the better thing, and what's stopping you from its implementation goes beyond personal preference, pragmatism, or access, and you don't, I think that lived damming contradiction eats away at you. At least, for me it does.
Little things. We live in the future. We're accessible. Email should be responded to sooner than 10 days. I know you're not that busy, we have the same job. Just as you should respond to texts and abandon the memory of the word “fax.” Pretending people are reading and digesting ever-changing “policy.” Destroying your leadership and promoting people out of desperation instead of value and vision. I guess that's a big thing because I don't fret too often over the small stuff. You'll spend millions on software that functions worse than pen and paper.
It's not just that there's no real question about why I feel compelled to create my own thing, it's that this is the new categorically imperative thing. You have to do better than this. We have to talk to each other smarter than this. We have to react quicker. We have to be held more accountable to our downtime and the reality about what we can and can't pull off. It HAS TO exist. I don't care about the mean. I don't care about the happy stories here and there meant to prop up the artifice of value and morality. Every venture has it's peculiar problems and nature? No, you only develop specific kinds of problems when you allow things to be build around the wrong focus.
This is why, practically, you can never fix things. Large organizations exist as a confluence of forces well beyond your initiative and do-gooder spirit. They mean too many things and the rust can't be buffed away. The question for them becomes whether they are more living or dying. The “change change change” is rarely accounted for as good or bad unless it meets a target set relative to what many started to consider “too far.” We're down 34%! Okay? So, that's good? What if tweaking this instead of that, it would have been 70%? Should we be proud of running a quarter mile on broken feet, or decide to put away the gun we've been using to shoot them?
Thank me I've never quit. Thank me I found the land and had mind enough to save up for it. Thank me I've never stopped working at things I hate because I revel in the ideas and future that will account for them all. Thank me I can still recognize what I would never ignore if I had the means, method, and opportunity to fix and do better NOW. Increasingly, that “better” wants to get selfish and ignore the irony, no doubt a symptom of the system I'm entrenched in. The better idea is there, and captured, and struggling. When it gets its day, I hope to erase the stain of what existing like this has left on me.
It doesn't matter where you go. Whether you are flipping burgers, or case-managing families, it usually takes 5 whole minutes before someone, somewhere, puts voice about how to do something differently. It isn't always clear that it's “better,” but dissatisfaction is always just beneath the surface. The burger place employee says they shouldn't be so understaffed, and it would help not contaminate food ping-ponging between doing the dishes, and assembling orders. Well, yes, you filthy idealist, but the company is concerned about the bottom line, and yours costs a lot.
Invariably, you'll have the person who's “been doing it” for many years. They actually have more than a few good insights on how to do what they do better. Some, I would say exceptionally few, companies have open-door easy communication up and down the chain. Moreover, when the idea is actually a good one, they may put it into practice in days or weeks instead of years, if at all. I've never worked at a company like this. The status quo, in my experience, is to not or never bother to offer some kind of improvement. No one there is trying to improve, they're trying to get paid and move on with their lives.
This posture I feel is part of a larger frustration at the base of lesser-worthwhile existences. If and when you can identify the better thing, and what's stopping you from its implementation goes beyond personal preference, pragmatism, or access, and you don't, I think that lived damming contradiction eats away at you. At least, for me it does.
Little things. We live in the future. We're accessible. Email should be responded to sooner than 10 days. I know you're not that busy, we have the same job. Just as you should respond to texts and abandon the memory of the word “fax.” Pretending people are reading and digesting ever-changing “policy.” Destroying your leadership and promoting people out of desperation instead of value and vision. I guess that's a big thing because I don't fret too often over the small stuff. You'll spend millions on software that functions worse than pen and paper.
It's not just that there's no real question about why I feel compelled to create my own thing, it's that this is the new categorically imperative thing. You have to do better than this. We have to talk to each other smarter than this. We have to react quicker. We have to be held more accountable to our downtime and the reality about what we can and can't pull off. It HAS TO exist. I don't care about the mean. I don't care about the happy stories here and there meant to prop up the artifice of value and morality. Every venture has it's peculiar problems and nature? No, you only develop specific kinds of problems when you allow things to be build around the wrong focus.
This is why, practically, you can never fix things. Large organizations exist as a confluence of forces well beyond your initiative and do-gooder spirit. They mean too many things and the rust can't be buffed away. The question for them becomes whether they are more living or dying. The “change change change” is rarely accounted for as good or bad unless it meets a target set relative to what many started to consider “too far.” We're down 34%! Okay? So, that's good? What if tweaking this instead of that, it would have been 70%? Should we be proud of running a quarter mile on broken feet, or decide to put away the gun we've been using to shoot them?
Thank me I've never quit. Thank me I found the land and had mind enough to save up for it. Thank me I've never stopped working at things I hate because I revel in the ideas and future that will account for them all. Thank me I can still recognize what I would never ignore if I had the means, method, and opportunity to fix and do better NOW. Increasingly, that “better” wants to get selfish and ignore the irony, no doubt a symptom of the system I'm entrenched in. The better idea is there, and captured, and struggling. When it gets its day, I hope to erase the stain of what existing like this has left on me.
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