A little competence goes a long ways

Competency is, unfortunately, somewhat of a rare thing. Some people are immediately recognizable as being very capable the moment you meet them. One of the first clues is often that you can tell they are listening when you talk to them, and they can provide proper feedback or guidance when necessary. If you work with them, they acknowledge that they are there to do a job, and as soon as it is explained to them, they will go about completing it. When they say they’ll do something, you can expect it get done. If they make a mistake, they’ll take responsibility and take steps to fix it. These are our true leaders, and at the very least our good worker bees.

On the other side of the spectrum, there are people who are for all practical purposes useless. They have no drive, and are seldom dependable. Make excusing or covering up a mistake take priority over fixing it. Although they are perfectly willing to stand there and allow the compressed air waves emitting from your vibrating vocal chords to move the small bones in their inner ears and produce electric signals in their brain, there is no promise of making any practical use of those signals. The main problem is that these incompetents will not distinguish the difference working towards a goal, and simply being there while the clock counts down.

My first experience with the competence/incompetence issue on a large scale occurred as a teenager working at the Food Mart. (Ahh, the Food Mart). It was a typical small town grocery store with a number of full time adult employees and a number of high school age kids to fill in the nights and weekend hours. Some of the kids were the competent type, many weren’t. The adults, well, lets just say they worked at a grocery store. At the time I thought that a handful of us were probably the smartest employees at the store, including the management. Looking back now, I’m even more in agreement with that statement.

The competency divide was established very clearly after any new employee was hired. They either got their work done, or they didn’t. In many cases it was the later. There usually wasn’t much of a middle ground, and worse, this was generally just accepted; no probation, no reviews, and no firing. It was just a fact that another person would now be showing up, getting paid, and accomplishing nothing. Although I admit we were minimum wage labor, and that this wasn’t exactly rocket science or saving the world stuff, just stocking shelves and carrying out groceries, still, a lesson was learned. Some of will do, some of us will not. Some of us will build, while others will just consume. Some of us will live, and the remaining will merely exist. (We still get paid the same though.)

If you’re lucky, you’ll have an employer that appreciates competent people. This was not generally the case at the Food Mart. I think that the first manager knew at least on some subconscious level, that half of the stockers were smarter than he was, and he took petty joy over being able to control us. Needless to say, the store was run pretty poorly. In later years, a different manager took a different approach. He realized that he was sitting on a goldmine of competent labor that would work at slave prices, and had no problem using that to all our advantage. He gave us more power and responsibility along with a small raise, and in exchange he got a much smoother operating store.

Years have passed now, however the lesson still remains. What I thought was a problem isolated to a bottom labor force of which some in it would raise above to bigger and better things later in life, is actually a problem that persists elsewhere. Although I work at a great company that has a work force of talented and diverse people, incompetence is still noticeable if you look between the lines. Since it’s a more educated field, the number of people who come from middle class suburban families is drastically increased. I don’t know of any other recent college grads that are first generation college educated. They have the education, some ambition, and even some responsibility, but many often still lack the drive. To many, this is the only job they’ve really had, and have no idea how good it is. To others, they are simply good quality worker bees caught up in a queen’s world. Luckily, we have a very formal review process every 6 months to weed out any non-contributing staff.

One of my points though, is that the managers I had for the first 12 months at my job love me simply because I was competent. All I had to do was be dependable and think a little bit about what I do, and suddenly it’s hard for me to screw even if I try. Although I have no problem staying at work late, or coming in early, I’ll often purposely sleep in if I’m tired, or leave early. Although I do consider myself somewhat of a better worker relative to others, I’ve been preoccupied a lot, and wouldn’t grade myself that great on an objective level, or compared to what I’m capable of.

A good example of a situation that should have made me look poor was two weeks ago. I was wrapping up some reliability data for product qualification that was just about due. Gathering the data had taken a couple of weeks because the collection process was menial and tedious. We’d usually have technicians do it, but are short staffed, so I was fitting it in between other work. As a result I was already a few weeks behind the completion date I had originally indicated. When I handed the data all in, it was all wrong; the units hadn’t been setup properly from the beginning. As far as I’m concerned, this was my fault. Even though technicians did the setup, I should have checked the patterns stored in the memory before hand. I knew that a bug in the setup algorithms had caused improper setup in the past, yet I didn’t even check one unit. More so, I should have noticed it while testing, and should have at least noticed it while wrapping up the data. I messed up, and immediately said that it was my fault. To remedy it, I aligned resources and put together a plan to complete another data turn in as short a time as possible. After getting all the data recollected, and submitted 48 hours later, I found out that I had now made another mistake, this time a simple omission in the spread sheet. Here’s where it gets even better.

I had left work immediately after emailing the spread sheet of data to the colleague in New Mexico who was doing more analysis on it. He had replied an hour later, pointing out my mistake. Since I had already left work though, I didn’t get the email until 11:30pm that evening when I took a study break to check my work account. The only reason I was checking my work account in the first place was because I was already planning on showing up late the next day. The mistake was a quick fix, and I re-sent the spreadsheet within a couple of hours. When I got to work the next morning I found that during an early morning conference call meeting, the colleague in New Mexico had stood up for our department in California, thinking that I had actually been working until 11:30 the previous night. Overall, I was treated like I had gone out of my way, when in reality all I had done was, well, my job. That should be expected. If I hadn’t messed up in the first place, I wouldn’t have had to push it so close.

This brings me to my final point. If you’re competent in your work, you can get away with so much!!. First off, people are willing to overlook minor things if they know that you have the important stuff covered, particularly if they trust that you’re not going to mess up anything that is going to cause more work for them, or make them look bad. Second, if you’re more productive in general, people will assume that you are working hard, and won’t question your actions, unknowing that you already finished your work and are simply screwing off.

Case in point, the Food Mart. I won’t go into details; those who were there in the glory days need no reminders. A while back at my current job I skipped out early of a department meeting to go to the lab to finish some work. It sounds dedicated, but in reality, I needed to get my work done then so I could go to a different meeting for organizing this years bike to work day, and then leave work early to meet a potential new roommate. What I didn’t know is that a group of us were getting recognized for a project we had completed last year. What happened though was that my name got left off the award list, which didn’t really matter any way since I wasn’t there. I didn’t find out about it until the next morning when my managers were apologizing to me not only for me having to work through the meeting, but more so for me getting recognized, a fact that means little to me.

Like I said, a little competence can buy a lot in the world.

Proclamations of Retardation

On the train ride home Wednesday night, I was on the verge of finishing an essay completely different from this one to post. The ride inspired me to write this instead. As usual, this article suffered from severe scope crepe, and ended up touching on many more topics than intended. Part of it is my need to potentially defend myself for statements I make. Not that that is a bad thing, one should be able to stand behind any statements you declare.

The train on the ride home was surprisingly packed, more packed than I’ve ever seen it in fact. Granted, this simply means that some of the small bench chairs designed to accommodate two average sized people actually have two (most likely larger than average) people in them. A “crowded” light rail car during rush hour in Sacramento isn’t anything like one in Europe or New York. As the car filled up, it became harder to ignore the people around you; everyone was forced to acknowledge the existence of other passengers.

As anyone who rides public transit in this country outside of New York, San Francisco, and to some degree Chicago knows, the passengers generally herald from the poorer side of the spectrum. Most of these passengers are every day normal people, and in many ways it’s actually hard not to respect them. Their reasons for taking the train are generally not because its more convenient, or cheaper than driving, or because of a moral dedication towards progressing public transit, but more likely because its their only option. There is no car at home for them to have to waste money on gas filling up. They do what’s necessary to take care of their family, even if that means taking public transportation to work at a cost of potentially adding hours to their day just to get to work. This is in stark contrast to many of the people driving down the highway that runs parallel to the light rail tracks. As I see many of the fancy SUVs go down the road empty except for the driver who’s wearing a suit and talking on a cell phone, I’d be willing to bet that if their car broke down, they’d probably call into the office and say they couldn’t make long before they’d consider taking an extensive series of busses, and trains to get there.

With that being said, however, there are also the “trashy” people on the train. These are the passengers who have no respect for others around them, talking loudly, and being rude in general. They will often also maintain an unkempt dirty appearance or smell that can immediately turn off others. Alcohol or other substance abuse is often apparent. Although there is most likely a correlation between the propensity towards being trashy and income level, it would be a gross error to confuse the two. You can be poor and still maintain respect for yourself and others. You can also be well off and still be rude in public. Unfortunately, many upper and middle class citizens fail to make this distinction, and instead find the concept of riding public transit somewhat insulting. Sometimes these thoughts make me feel judgmental. Who am I to say what is considered appropriate behavior? Maybe in their culture and background their actions are completely normal, and here I am referring to them as trashy. I recognize that these doubts can lead down the slippery slope of relativistic morality, however, and I take step back again. There are some standards that we should try to maintain, and being polite to those around you is one of them.

On a more empty train, people will choose seclusion while they sit in their own world, pretending not to notice what ever events take place. They’ll keep they’re head down, or staring out the window. It’s a natural response. By not acknowledging the run down appearance and lifestyles that can envelope the personalities on the train, they don’t have to admit that they might be part of it. When I’m faced with these situations, however, I instead try to embrace the atmosphere. Part of it is me feels the need to get by any subconscious prejudices I may have, and to see the people as just living their lives like everyone else. I condemn those who see themselves above public transit; therefore I must refute any negative claims they have about it. Part of it, though, is an egotistical side of me that wants to provide myself with a feeling of resilience.

So the train was crowded, and there was this kid sitting in front of me. (By kid I mean mid to late teens) He seemed pretty respectable, first napping, and then talking on his cell phone quietly. His conversation became louder eventually, and everyone around our half of the train could easily here it. It soon became evident that part of the conversation was revolved around some pot that a friend of the person on the other side of the line was trying to sell. It wasn’t in a real mischievous, dark, drug dealer kind of way, but more in the way a person might casually mention that a friend of theirs was selling a car. In a short amount of time, a couple sitting across the aisle from me chimed in that they would be interested in buying the pot, or “fire” as it was affectionately referred to. Connections were made, calls were placed, and everyone involved seemed much more excited the remainder of the ride.

Maybe I’m some what of a prude, but I think that kid was pretty retarded. Not only was he being loud (rude), but he was doing so while talking about drugs, which I would consider somewhat of a taboo subject to be discussing openly in public. Plus he was publicly getting involved in illegal acts, the selling of said drugs. Seriously, how stupid can you get? Although the chances of an off duty cop being on board is slim, what about a social service worker, or maybe one his neighbors? Here is the following information made available to anyone sitting around us:

his name
his brothers name
his brothers suppliers name
the buyers name
what was for sale
how much
where he lived.

Seriously, how stupid

As aforementioned, my first response was to just think how retarded he was. But then I realized that maybe drugs were just so much of his culture that it didn’t seem abnormal for him to be talking so openly about it. Kind of like speeding on the highway. Everyone knows its wrong, and you can get in trouble for it, but most people still do it, and its not that big of a deal. I wouldn’t think twice if I heard two people talking about how fast they drove to work in the morning.

In all honesty, it doesn’t surprise me to find that drugs are so ingrained in parts of our culture. They probably always have been, and always will be. Also in all honesty, I don’t think it’s as big of deal as everyone makes it out to be. Most drugs should be legalized, or at least be non-criminalized like in Holland.

Its not that I don’t necessarily think the government should have a role in regulating the sale of pharmaceuticals, although I do see personal freedom of choice as having a large part in the debate. It also isn’t that I think there aren’t huge social implications from having easy accessible drugs. It’s just a simple matter that the current drug policy DOES NOT WORK. Regardless if you think people have the inalienable right to live their lives in a hazy stupor, or if you are a straight edge republican demanding a god fearing, moral abiding society, it’s a stretch to say the war on drug has been much of a success, especially considering the side effects.

Drug abuse definitely hasn’t been stopped, although the illegal nature of it has risen prices so those afflicted by addiction are therefore also in increased financial difficulty. Drug related crime is also a huge problem. When I say drug related crime, I’m not talking about crimes committed by those on drugs, but crimes that result because the drug economy. I don’t know any statistics on it, but I’d be surprised if the majority of incarcerated prisoners aren’t there for drug related problems. Plus there’re the problems we’ve caused in other countries. Entire economies in South American countries have been affected because of the large power the drug cartels have do to their wealth.

It’s funny to hear the same people who proclaim the efficiencies of the free market then turn around and insist on trying to defeat the drug problem by eliminating the supply. (Making it illegal) Their own rhetoric says that as long as a demand exists, the supply will be created. Restricting it only makes it more profitable to get into the business, causing many problems to arise. Ugh, this is becoming another essay by itself.

Reply "Opposites"

This is a response I wrote after reading Pue’s Opposites. I don’t know if I actually had any incite to add to it, but it did make me think about a lot. Those thoughts are kind of rambled forth here. I tried to maintain some sort of order and flow. I wasn’t that successful.

The first thought I had reading it was of Readers Digest. Yup, the monthly variety magazine you see in the grocery store checkout. Although I find RD somewhat simplistic and banal when I read it now, I used to read it a lot when I was a kid. It was somewhat of a family staple; we had a subscription, and it was always a happy day when the new issue showed up in the mail. I credit with out doubt, that little book’s role in developing my literary aptitude as a child.

The particular article I was reminded of was labeled “Dueling Proverbs” and consisted of a page filled with pairs of contradicting phrases, proverbs, or tibits of advice. The pair that still sticks in my head today is “Throw caution to the wind” and “Look before you leap”. These have similar implications to the quotes listed in the beginning of Peu’s essay.

For some reason, reading things like this immediately conjure up images of what I imagine native American tribes as having been like. There would be an elderly old man with all white hair, some of it tied long strands of beads hanging along side his wrinkled face hardened from time. He would pass advice on to the inexperienced youth, showing him how to be patient in the hunt, only bringing forth the brunt of his full force when the exact moment arose. The youth would also learn to push aside doubt when he was afraid, and act without hesitation. The youth who began being inpatient and arrogant, would follow use the training to grow into a man. I obviously have a romanticized and idealistic view of tribal life, probably caused from reading too many “historical fictions”. This is especially the case when comparing my view of it to the modern day, where many parents lack values, and couldn’t truly define “integrity” if they had too; more or less pass it down to their children.

Regardless, the advice still remains valid. When you are weak, you must find strength; when you are strong, you must know restraint. The two proverbs which at first seemed contradictory are in reality complimentary. The irony is that learning when to use these skills is just as vital as learning how to use them. It all comes with experience.

Although there might be a link between these two balancing forces and the mental and physical strains that cause the mental condition commonly known as bipolar disorder, I won’t try to draw any conclusions to it here.

In the past, I’ve mentioned to friends that I notice a little bit of bipolar tendencies in my lifestyle. Weeks of extremely driven periods of time followed much more solemn weeks where I have little motivation, receive little joy from the “projects” I’m working on, and am more depressed overall. I kind of assume that most people are like this; at least the interesting people who have any kind of motivation to start off with. Most people I know usually lack the motivation aspect, although they might still meet the depressed criteria. In all honesty I’d rather have the ups and downs if that was cost to have the motivation to work on the interesting projects I do enjoy. I remember case studies from my college psychology class that would mention how clinically diagnosed bi-polar patients would describe as sense of loss for their manic periods after starting medication to curb the extreme nature of their problem. There’s obviously a difference between those diagnosed with severe bipolar disorder, and the average Joe who goes through emotional variance. A great book to read is The Unquiet Mind, by Kay Redfield Jamison. She’s a doctor of psychiatry who suffered from severe bipolar throughout school and into her career. I’m talking the real thing; going for ten days with out sleeping while repainting your entire house twice, and then two days later finding yourself on the living room floor in tears with a bottle of pills in one hand, and gu poised in your mouth with the other. (I made up these examples; its been a while since I read the book, but you get the picture.) She goes through what it was like going on lithium, and losing her creativity and emotional highs at the cost regaining her life.

I kind of assume that if you were to measure and somehow quantify the amount of bipolar tendencies present in the population, and map them out in a histogram, the end result would be normal distribution (a bell curve in lay terms). With exception of a couple of possible outliers, the extreme clinical cases would probably be from the small portion of the population lying on the extreme edge. This implies that any arbitrary line drawn to indicate the difference between a bipolar person, and a “normal” person would be just that, arbitrary. It would be a gradual and grey distinction. I’m no psychologist, but I think this is part of the problem we are having with too many people taking too many drugs to try to “solve” their problems. They see any display of what is actually a normal thing, as an indication that they are sick. It’s even sadder that doctors also buy into this.

I came up with another half baked up theory on explaining it. Scientists say the body cannot store sleep, but I question that position. There’s been plenty of times where I go for a couple of weeks only getting 5-6 hours of sleep a night until I finally just crash, and sleep it off for a morning. It’s almost like drive and determination is derived from a chemical that your body can only produce so much of. I’ll refer to it as “DRIVE”. If you burn it off faster than you can make it, you eventually deplete, and need to rest. Maybe you can build up your bodies efficiency in production and use of this “DRIVE” by practice. Maybe the more sloth like you become during your rest stages, the quicker your body can produce it. Maybe its also like an addictive toxin, if it builds up to much, you will feel the need to get rid of it, causing a restlessness, yet if you live with it built up to long, your body adjusts, and becomes desensitized to it. You will be able to remain at rest for longer periods of time with out feeling the need to purge your system of DRIVE.

The more I write this analogy, the more I like it. It reminds me of ancient Asain beliefs in things such as “chi” or “haragrei.” Although these beliefs often have little or no scientific background, they describe the system in such a balanced and well formed manner, that they can have more practical application than modern medicine or pscychology. In all honesty, though, I’m pretty much just talking out of my ass.

What if god.....

What if god just created existence as a school project? Remember what it was like to work on a grade school project? You didn’t always spend as much time on it as you should, and the final results weren’t necessarily what you had in mind when you set out. Regardless though, when you finished, you had something that you saw develop out of nothing, and were somewhat proud of the result. What happened to it after grading though? Did you keep working on it to fix that one small thing you couldn’t quite get right by the due date? Did you put it on a shelf to keep with you and admire into adult hood? More than likely, if it wasn’t thrown away immediately, it was stashed away somewhere, forgotten, to slowly degrade, and eventually get discarded years later in a cleaning frenzy. Maybe that’s what it was like with god. He created everything, took it in to be graded, showed how it all worked; the ecosystems, the climate, and how the people evolved and worshipped him. He probably lost a couple of points with the whole apple/serpent incidence. Things never seemed to quite work after that, and instead of everything running along smoothly and automatically, he had to keep intervening to keep it from falling apart. Afterwards though, he set it aside, and pretty much forgot about it. He still checked in every once in a while, but never really got involved much. Eventually he just let it to its own devices, and one day he’ll probably throw it out to make room for something more interesting.

What if god likes playing SimCity? Most of us have seen the game, if not played it. You build up the infrastructure, and watch the people come and grow. Its fun starting out, but eventually, you often get bored with it. Towards the end, it isn’t as exciting anymore, and unless your city works out perfectly as you planned, most games end up the same way; with total utter destruction. It might start with a random natural disaster that decimates all your beloved plans. You’re not quite sure if it can recover this time though, and after the smoke clears, you just don’t have the energy to do it all over again. Instead you hit the tornado button, to watch further destruction, then the fire button, then the earthquake. Watching everything get leveled provides you with a small amount of joy that the game hadn’t been providing recently. This analogy doesn’t need to be taken any further; maybe god just likes playing SimCity, and is starting to get bored.

What if god was one of us? (da da da da da da da)
Then he’d be over weight, lazy, and have a really big TV. Oh yeah, you bet he’d have a big TV; flat screen, plasma, 120 inch, surround sound, all that stuff. I mean come on, its god.

What if god is really just an asshole. I don’t mean the average run of the mill schmuck either; I mean the real twisted fuck that gets his jollies watching others live in pain and suffering. Remember that time your puppy died when you were kid? Oh yeah, that was god, and it was on purpose, just to watch you cry. And you know what; it was no accident that you were the one to find it as you came running into the room to put on its shiny new blue collar.

What if god didn’t create existence, but instead stumbled onto it. He was roaming through the universe and he came across the planet where this interesting thing called life had developed. Not having seen anything like it before, he was immediately intrigued. Despite the fact that none of the creatures were nearly as advanced as him, they were all quite interesting. The most sophisticated of them had even developed a rather elaborate language, which allowed him to communicate with them far past the basic emotions portrayed by the lesser animals’ verbal communication. They were in awe of his greatness, and trembled in fear at his displays of power. He soon became addicted to the worship bestowed by them, and in return started demanding it. Eventually he even started to believe their primitive religions proclaiming him as the most powerful force in the universe. He became more and more reclusive, surrounding himself only with those who were most adamant with their adoration. Sometimes he would reward those who worshipped him the most, and other times he would punish those who showed indifference. His powers were limited though, and his vision not all seeing as many thought. He couldn’t do all that was asked of him, and would become frustrated, lashing out at the entire world. In the end, many people began to live their lives out of his shadow, just as life had originally begun. He tried for a while to stop the decline, but eventually gave in. He now only focuses on the small things that make the world a slightly happier place; making butterflies and flowers simultaneous appear in Spring time, keeping summer rains exactly the right temperature, and having the perfect snow at least once a season.

What if god is a woman? I bet she’d be really hot. Plus it would explain a lot of things; the mood swings, the irrational behavior, platypuses, and how it’s possible to go 10 miles east, 10 mile north, and 10 miles south, only to end up in the same place. Only a woman would make directions like that possible.

What if god is a man? That would spread light on the whole war thing at least. It would also explain child birth. Seriously. Bowling ball size object. Golf ball size hole. You do the math. No one would sign off on that design plan unless he knew for damn sure that he wouldn’t have to be the one dealing with it.

What if god just took a brake; not a long one, just a real, real, short one? If the million of years it took to create the universe were only 6 days to him, then stepping out for a few thousand years would be nothing more than turning his head aside for a moment, or taking a quick trip to the bathroom at most. That would explain why no one’s heard from him in a couple of millennium. He’s not stupid though, and I doubt he would leave mankind to its own devices, even for just a second. That’s why he sent Jesus down to keep an eye on things while he was gone. Damn, I definitely don’t want to be around when he gets back. Just look at the place! There’re beer cans floating in the ocean, most of the plants are dead, half the animals are gone, and someone poked a hole in the ozone layer! Plus I’m sure he’ll just love Catholicism, and I’m not going to explain to him what we did to Jesus.

What if god is a goat? That might explain all the greenery. It doesn’t explain much else though, so it’s pretty unlikely.


What if god is nothing more than a chemical reaction? Synapses firing as dopine seeps between the interlaced fingers of adjacent cells. The sudden release of electrical current sweeps through the human brain, and awareness is awakened; a thought is born. Emotions such as love and fear begin to be realized, quantified, and analyzed rather than simply acted upon. Instinct is replaced with reason, and for the first time a question is formed. As the brain evolved generation after generation, these questions became more elaborate. Man struggled to explain the mysterious world he found himself immersed in. The concept of cause and effect became an underlying principle in explaining events happening before his eyes. When the question of existence inevitably came up, experience lead man to conclude that only a conscious being such as himself could have created the elaborate puzzles presented before him. The concept of god was born. The nature of being aware presented other challenges. The synapses fired more and more. Reason brought along with it choice. Following choice, came morality, and with it the need for a normative cause fundamental to any philosophy of ethics. Another need for god was found as he became more than simply the creator, but also the ruler. Not all people or cultures followed the rules of morality, but those that did prospered from its benefits, and the beliefs were passed down. Man’s inquisitive nature became his key to survival. The ability to think allowed him to conquer all other animals, and dominate even the most inhospitable environment. The seek for challenge became an inherent and necessary part of his life. Soon mere survival no longer satisfied him. Man’s knowledge of his own mortality caused him to question if there was reason to live at all knowing the eventual end. He sought more, he sought purpose. This final need completed the image of god, becoming God, not just the provider, or the judge, but the end to all means, the purpose necessary to complete a life capable of reason. The synapses fired again, and then were silent. The questions asked had found their answers.