Tom Walker wrote:
>
> THE OI VEY WAVE
>
> by Tom Walker
[snip]
> Corporate executives are hailed, not for their bold vision, but simply for
> possessing the venerated un-Oiing habits. These un-Oiing executives are the
> types who would spend a dollar to save a dime. But no matter
But isn't that dollar well spent if it helps damp down the expectations
of the
workers? If it helps make them more afraid of losing their jobs? On
the
other side: Isn't that dollar well spent if the executive and his peers
get
some ego gratification out of doing it? A friend of mine once
had a manager who said told me a story:
When I asked my manager why what we were working on shouldn't become a
product [quoting from imperfect memory], my manager said:
"I have no interest in the company's
business. I want to have fun." (Quote is not exact, but it is "pretty
close"!) Two ironies of it were: (1) We could perhaps have had even
more fun
had we made the thing into a product [which would *not* have prevented
the manager from having fun developing it further], and (2) *I* had *no*
fun, even though the project's aim was to use the computer to facilitate
human creativity: I was just supposed to make the manager's fun ideas
that
would also be fun for the users [who were all personal friends of the
manager...], happen. And my manager was all in favor of me
having all the fun I could make for myself --> insofar as it did not
interfere
with my facilitation of said manager's fun. My manager even said that
my paycheck was adequate compensation for my efforts, and that, if
I wanted to have fun in my work, it had always been understood that I
would
have to find employment elsewhere (which occasion was the first time I
learned about *that*!).
[snip]
> inherit the wind. You can bank on it.
Indeed. I walked into the local branch of "my" bank (which was National
Westchester NA when I started with it in 1983, and it now Fleet, and who
knows what it will be tomorrow...), and, over the old vault door, I saw
the
heavily engraved lettering in a solid block of stainless steel:
"Chappaqua
National Bank" --> and I thought: Gee! Our country used to be rich
enough
that we could afford small, local businesses, from which local
persons made good incomes for doing ordinary daily tasks. (When I
was a child ca. 1950, my father worked for a small, privately held
housepaint
company, the owner of which had a 95 foot yacht, a 2-engine seaplane,
etc.
This man was not Bill Gates, but he wasn't a "global economic player",
either.
And, had the company not merged at least 3 times, my father, who started
out mixing vats of paint in the factory [he eventually died of
liver cancer, 40 years later...], would likely indeed have
attained a position which not only had a managerial title (he got
that...)
but even what I would call a "Burgher-ish" lifestyle, in the sense of
the way
the businessmen of the Renaissance lived a life with culture as well as
busyness. I seem to remember that my father's manager (the
sales-manager
of this inconsequential housepaint manufacturer...) was a member of
H.L. Mencken's Sunday [Saturday?] nite supper group....)
If progress is defined as recursion (i.e., F of zero equals someting or
other,
and, for all T ["moments of *T*ime"] greater than zero, F of T+1 equals
G of X, for
some G, where X equals F of T...), then surely we are making progress.
Indeed, short of a "discontinuity" (something far more de-cis-ive that
that
meteor 65 million years ago, which permitted small mammals
and others to survive!), progress is inevitable!
QED / Enjoy!
\brad mccormick
--
Mankind is not the master of all the stuff that exists, but
Everyman (woman, child) is a judge of the world.
Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
914.238.0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua, NY 10514-3403 USA
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