Day #84 - Knowledge is power

I have a good friend who once had a tagline on his emails that read something like; "knowledge is not like money - you won't have any less if you give some away!". That always struck me as a pretty cool maxim but it is remarkable how many folks out there genuinely hide knowledge and resources for fear of loss. This sort of behaviour can be encountered in many fields of human existence. It is not uncommon coming up to exam time at the university for some students to hide books or remove pages from books to thwart the progress of others. I remember years ago I tried to get some help from a student at a college I attended but he just blanked me in the end. The preamble to it was a lot of BS and excuses about his availability for WEEKS but when it came down to it he just couldn't bring himself to help. Idiot. I also experienced the same sort of thing some time later at university. I really couldn't understand it, but then you need to be just like that to understand it and have some perspective. Like the old saying goes; "It takes one to know one!" I do not know if I really like that oft used retort but what I like even less is that sort of lobsterism.

When I was younger I used to do a lot of hitch-hiking around the country. I used to just take off with a destination in mind and hit the road. I used to find it pretty easy but back then people were more willing to help someone with a lift. Not so these days where giving someone a lift is tantamount to throwing money away. It seems to be a widely pervasive problem in modern Ireland, the whole "why should I?" thing. People feel that their quality of life is likely to be lessened by helping another. People are more likely to do something nice for others if there is some kind of assurance that they are likely to be SEEN by others to be performing some act of "selfless generosity" or "kind benevolence". If these folks are unlikely to be seen being virtuous then they are unlikely to be SEEN being virtuous. Years ago in Ireland you used to see a lot of these type of people at Sunday Mass, right up the front, praying overtly and making exaggerated gestures of piety and devotion. These people are of course, hypocrites.

I think that I am likely to spend some time thinking of ways to test the particular theory that people are more likely to be virtuous/generous/benevolent provided OTHERS get to see it. OR a mechanism exists where OTHERS will get to learn of the "virtuous" persons acts of "goodness". It is the modern preoccupation with OTHERS that has led to the cult of celebrity, the proliferation of "talent shows" and "reality" television. Strangely there are few things as overt as someone pretending to NOT LOOK or SEE YOU, be they the individual in a car with their eyes firmly fixed ahead or the vain and pretty person that always has one eye on the mirror. This is the practical, real time manifestation of LIVING a LIE.

This is certainly what Sartre was talking about when he asserted "L'en fer des autres" ("Hell is other people!"). But for a moment let us return to the guarding of knowledge, what is the "other" driven reason that prevents ordinary people from sharing knowledge? It is something that can be examined or scrutinised against the perspective of foresight combined with fear. People are afraid to share because they fear that at some point "down the road" that there is a greater statistical likelyhood that SOMEONE ELSE will bask in the glorious recognition provided by OTHERS. That some less deserving individual will attract the spotlight. This is one of the signs of a true lobster - someone that cannot bear to witness the success of another. James Joyce called these people "begrudgers". Lobsterism is clearly nothing new.

Day #77 - What a load of rubbish!!!

Down through the years I have often trawled in bins and skips (dumpsters) in search of interesting rubbish of the tech variety to hack/repair/re-use or just to salvage some parts from. I have managed to get quite a few really great things over time and once I carried a massive oscilloscope home on a sack truck to cannibalise it for parts. Today I was walking back from my physiotherapy appointment through the grounds of the University when I noticed a real gem dumped in the back of a truck along with other various items that were all destined for the dump. I immediately found the driver of the parked truck and the following conversation took place...

Me; Hi, are you the guy driving the truck?

Guy; Yes, what can I do for you?

Me; I noticed a piece of rubbish in the ba...

Guy; No!

Me; I just wanted to know if...

Guy; No!

Me; Could I just finish? I just want to...

Guy; No!

Apparently, and I would have known if I could read minds, the stuff that gets dumped by the college must get dumped INTACT and cannot be interfered with by anyone for...wait for it...HEALTH and SAFETY reasons. It seems that there is a worry that if someone takes some rubbish and harms themselves with it then the college may be liable. OK, I get it but it strikes me as a bit full-on doing things like that. The guy that was driving the truck reassured me that "everything gets recycled". Well, I sort of figured that one out for myself but why? In this age of hackerspaces and makerspaces as well as the proliferation of robot builders it could be a good idea to offer these bits to students and other interested people so that they can use the redundant plant for interesting projects. Rules are rules I suppose but it still rankles that some really choice hardware is getting dumped. It wouldn't surprise me if the 'scope still worked ok. The trouble is though that yes, it IS possible that somebody could get hurt messing withh a machine that may have some problems but if the person is a tech then surely they would have enough presence of mind to exercise all of the usual caution when dealing with a potentially dangerous machine. I really wanted to argue the point with the truck guy but there would have been little point. The thing that I found interesting was that when I said that the 'scope was worth a few hundred the guy REALLY changed his tune. Maybe I have opened up a new avenue in the electronics hobby for the guy though I doubt it. I resigned myself to not getting to hack the 'scope and tried to think about something else. I did though, take a photograph of it just so I could post the picture. It is sort of sad that those cool retro knobs will never find their way onto one of my homebrew projects. The thing seems WAAAY more desirable when it is just out of reach - hey, I'm only human. Here's the picture...

I need to get friendly with that truck driver I think.

The physio appointment that I mentioned earlier went quite well too. The physiotherapist was very encouraged by my progress and to be honest so was I. I have managed a 50% increase in my flexibility and improved strength too. I have a new regimen of exercises to do too so hopefully in a few weeks I will be even closer to being back to normal. I took another picture while I was in the hospital. It was of someone that spends a lot of their time in the physio department...

I've tried to format the image so that it appears the correct way up but my efforts so far have not worked. Sometime I'll get around to learning how to do it properly. Anyway dear readers, I will close for now owing to the fact that I am VERY tired. I will try to get some more writing posted soon but I have a couple of essays that need doing and IF I am ever going to submit them then they are going to have to be written first. I hope it goes ok. G'nite.

Day #71 - Sorry to bother you...(while you're at work)

A couple of days ago I went to a local DIY and hardware centre to try and buy a plastic garden chair. You've seen them, they are rounded at the back and injection moulded, usually found in white or green. There must be one in every home in the country. I walked up to an employee of this hardware shop and asked very politely; "Do you have any plastic chairs, the sort of garden furniture variety, like you might see on a patio?" - response; "I don't know. If you ask that guy over there or even try the customer services desk they should be able to help you." Well, I must be getting quite ornery in my old age because I thought that the whole purpose of having staff moving around a shop floor included looking after the people who are the very reason that the shop exists. Not so it seems. I know that jobs like the one that this chap is in are badly paid and tedious but that isn't really my fault. I've worked in some very badly paid jobs but of all of them one in particular stands out a mile. For legal reasons I cannot name the job or the chap that owned the company but I'd love to. When Michael Douglas' character in the movie "Wall Street", Gordon Gekko, declared that "Greed is Good!" I reckon more than just a few budding entrepreneurs took on this phrase as a mantra of commercial live-saving nous. They came to believe that by being greedy you were doing the right thing - you were living according to the zeitgeist that emerged in the late 1980's and continued unabated right up until the early part of this millenium. The interesting thing is that even now there are many businesses that follow the Gekko trajectory feeling that the characteristic of being greedy will grease the wheels on any commercial enterprise. I don't understand it.

Being driven is a good thing as is having ambition and a desire to succeed but letting greed be the governor of everything that you do erodes morality and undermines any true human virtue. It may be a profitable thing but it is not something honourable.

Day #67 - Road Rage

It may well be a primal thing, stemming perhaps from that old saying "A man's home is his castle!" or some such but I think that in a car people can get very territorial about space and time. They may also feel a certain right to foist their way upon another. I've had it a few times in recent weeks and it really has made me wonder. Now I'll be the first to admit that I am a bit of an elitist motorist - I learned to drive when I was VERY young - about 11 years old or so and was getting advanced instruction at the age of 14. I developed a few bad habits but these were owing to the fact that I hadn't had any tuition in about five years. I was lucky enough to be trained in advanced driving as an adult by a gentleman who had spent years working for the Metropolitain Police as an advanced instructor. I was under his tutelage for almost 6 months. I made my excuses in order to spend time with the guy - he was great. I have thankfully driven free from accident or incident for over twenty years. OK, I did prang my old Mini in London but that was owing to a brake failure and I did limit the damage by engaging first gear and almost pulling the handbrake out of the floor. Anyway, I'm digressing here.

My driving is always measured and meticulous though I have made some passengers nervous at what they think is a reckless approach. It is not like that really. I think that the only thing that makes me drive a bit "assertively" is other drivers that cannot drive. I cannot bear to see folks using their phones, not using their turn signals, disobeying fundamental rules of the road; stopping at green lights, being unaware of their right of way, running red lights, STILL using their phone (THAT makes my blood boil) I could go on (and ON) but I won't.

So here in Ireland we have some of the most unskilled drivers in the world. Many of them never actually sat a driving test but were granted full licences as part of an "amnesty" to clear the huge waiting list of people that had applied for their test and were waiting to do it. Some years back roundabouts were introduced to alleviate congestion and speed up the traffic flow. It was like introducing a time machine or Nintendo Wii at the Spanish Inquisition - total chaos. Many roundabouts are being replaced now with traffic lights. Traffic lights bring with them their own problems. Most drivers will run an amber signal and even a "just turned red" signal in order that they don't miss out on getting their space. There is one junction near where I live and if I were a traffic cop I'd be able to fill my month's quota in an afternoon. Drivers just skip the red and enter the clearway THEN they stare ahead forcefully ignoring the motorists that wish to travel onward through a green light to their respective destinations. The whole "logic" behind obeying traffic signals seems to be lost on a broad swathe of the driving public.

Then you get the "sleepers", these are folks that are barely awake at the wheel - they're so chilled out they are practically flatlining. Last week I spent several minutes behind a lady that must have been "on the tablets". I got a bit worried and at one point pulled along side to check if she was drunk or something. She turned and flashed an evil stare and then "invited" me to pass. I declined - much to her chagrin - deciding to stay where I was. This annoyed her no end and then, obviously on purpose, she carried on but at a snails pace to passively demonstrate her position. In then end I manoeuvred past her and carried on home.

Today I was unfortunate enough to be stuck behind a chap that was "relaxing" during his drive. He stopped at a pedestrian crossing and after the flashing amber light* commenced he just sat there with an open road ahead of him. I waited for a bit but there was no movement. I went around him and carried on. THIS was a mistake because he then raced right up behind me and sat on my tail for another quarter of a mile. Eventually I pulled in to let him pass but he stopped beside me to deliver a sermon on my driving. I just let him bawl and then moved on after he pulled away. It was then that he braked sharply to cause a collision - thankfully I stopped in time. I was quite angry afterwards mainly because of the hypocritical act of pulling up suddenly in order to cause me to hit him. Sadly it is most likely that he is totally unaware of his own dangerous driving. He just got pissed off that someone passed him and the giant ego that almost always accompanies insecurity suffered some kind of affront. I think that he needs to think about it all because that kind of behaviour CAN cause accidents.

Afterwards my mind rested on some of the best advice that I ever got from my advanced instructor so many years ago, he said; "It takes two things to be a good driver and a safe driver - common sense and good manners!" Sadly it is precisely these two qualities that this particular individual was lacking. Next time I might get out of my car and offer him a pillow - he needs a bit of a lie down I'd say.

I think that it might be an idea to test every driver that was given a full licence as part of that amnesty so many years ago. Then I might feel a lot better about shelling out hundreds for my insurance premium.

* Flashing amber light = proceed with caution provided the way is clear.

Day #61 - Helpful people are a nuisance

I expect that it is possible that upon first reading (or in some cases second or more) the phrase "helpful people are a nuisance" might elicit a quite negative response to the premise. How could it be that helpful people are a nuisance? Surely such people are good and kind. I do not believe this but it was not always the case. When I first encountered this maxim I was in my early twenties. I was of the firm belief that helpful people were great and it was a good thing to have them around. It was when I reflected on the thing and thought about it I realised that it was not the case. The premise was reinforced when it was presented to me with the additional clause; "better to be available than helpful". This statement has stayed with me for over twenty years and I hold a strong belief in it. If one were to consider it then it is easy to see how helpful people or a helpful person could be a nuisance. A helpful person can be as much of a hindrance than anything else whereas if someone is available then you can rest assured in the knowledge that should you require help then it will not be too far way hopefully. Some folks can actually delude themselves into thinking that by performing action "X" they are being of assistance in some way. When I was a kid I remember being surprised by the way that some of the other kids just littered their rubbish about as a matter of course. When they were finished with a crisp packet of a sweet wrapper they would just casually discard it and carry on without skipping a beat. After a while I felt comfortable enough to ask why they did that and the reply was; "sure, aren't I keeping someone in a job!" This to me was an admission of a most severe kind of ignorance. The rationale behind the totally uncivilised act of littering was justified with an explanation alluding to some kind of strange yet virtuous act of civic duty. I was really amazed by it. The "fact" that here, by littering they were creating employment. The  argument was almost universal and largely unanswerable in practical terms. It was something that I just could not understand.

Of course there are situations where helpful people are most welcome. In an emergency situation, rescuers are most welcome. Even when a child or someone elderly or infirm needs help then one should not hesitate if it is pretty obvious that the help is needed. Sometimes there are situations where the person that needs help may not be in a position to request it. It is then that we must present ourselves declaring our availability and willingness to assist and, if necessary, get in there and help. The phrase about the nuisance is when the helpful person just blunders in, foisting their "help" upon another. There is a phrase that can be found in many areas of human activity but is quite common in some branches of the services and that is that "assumptions get people killed". THAT is a very true statement indeed. There are cases  of people "greasing the wheels" to "help" a job along only to be surprised that things didn't work out according to plan. This is when the "plan" is based largely on assumptions.

In my life there are some really nice people that have been friends of the family for many years. Unfortunately to some of these folks, I am not part of my own family it seems. I meet some of these folks on a near daily basis and it strikes me as a bit sad that they harbour some kind of grudge and yet have to smile through gritted teeth maintaining a veneer of sincerity. They may even be indulging in "doublethink" when meeting me. I think that maybe they should get closer to their true feelings AND if there is a genuine problem then address it. Now, you may well be asking yourself; "What on earth has this got to do with helpful people and their predisposition towards being a nuisance?" Well, on the face of it, not a great deal, but there is one element that is a worthwhile connection in my estimation. That, by not being helpful when it is pretty obvious that a small amount of help would not only be useful but also be beneficial or even "counterdetrimental" to strike a bipartite neologism. That would be to heed the fact that the person that may need help is not in a position to ask for it. They could offer that help but it is more useful to them furthering their own aims to avoid doing such a thing lest they be morally obliged to assist. The act of neglecting to help is actually a positive thing to some of these people. That by not helping then the way is clear for further untoward events to occur and this suits these folks perfectly. The same kind of thinking that lies behind the obtuseness of those that "create employment by littering". Often when confronted by a moral arbiter that calls such obtuseness into question the defending utterance is; "Why should I?". Well, my response to that is "Why not?" or "Surely it is about doing the right thing". Some folks feel though that by helping another they are lessening their own chances of doing well. These folks are lobsters that hide behind their own grandiose self righteousness. I do hope that they don't ever need anyone to be of any help to them should they require it but they probably think that they never will need help from anyone, and THAT, is a truly foolish assumption. There are times when we all need help in one form or another. It is most reassuring to know that help will be available. It is depressing to even consider that it may not be. A truly hopeless - and helpless - situation.  G'nite.

Day #58 - Be nice to them, they're in charge!!! (Part 3)

Yesterday I wrote about a cultural malaise manifesting itself within an organisation. I want to turn now to those individuals that whilst - at least to themselves - they are doing their job properly, they still get a little bit "badge happy" so to speak. In the 1960's research was conducted to determine the moral flexibility of persons operating "under orders". The many conclusions that one could draw from study into the results of the research are interesting. It appears that if someone is working in a chain of command they will often become quite zealous about their "work". It is also possible that a sort of sadism can develop in individuals working under orders. They become capable, after a certain measure of self-delusion, that they are doing what they are doing under orders and consequently they absolve themselves of any true moral responsibility owing to the fact that they are acting on behalf of another. I believe that it is owing to the "convenience" of the relationship between superior and subordinate that a degradation of moral integrity occurs and an instinctive desire to exert control over another comes into play.

Often in jobs that are predominately routine and repetitive boredom becomes an unavoidable adjunct to the work being carried out. In order to alleviate boredom primal urges rise to the surface and left unchecked the consequences can be quite dire. Last year in a number of facilities in the UK there were several instances of care workers being cruel and neglectful of clients of care facilities. This is when idle hands began to work in a sinister fashion. It is a potentially very dangerous situation to have an unmanaged routine within a cloistered environment. If one turns their attention to this situation it is almost blindingly obvious - prisons, institutions, schools and other organisations all possess the potential to go wrong if not managed properly. But there is also the potential for an individual to become autonomously rogue in the absence of command and control. It happens frequently in areas of conflict and has done throughout history. Joseph Conrad wrote of just such a situation in his novel "Heart of Darkness". The thing that led me to begin writing about this was something a lot less drastic. It was a call centre operative answering my queries about a very large bill.

Sometimes in a boring job an employee can augment their role in an organisation with new duties that are not, strictly speaking, part of their remit. Sometimes the employee will grant themselves new powers to extend their own perceived responsibilities. This is often a result of boredom and their intellect remaining unchallenged by their actual work. Some folks like to overcomplicate things in order to cultivate enhanced feelings of importance or relevance in ostensibly straightforward situations. I once heard a tyre fitter bang on for nearly half an hour, more or less repeating exactly the same things, about the importance of recognising the polarity of the power supply to a car stereo. He also insisted on referring to the stereo as a "Blue Schpot" but using the definite article when referring to the object so as to accentuate it's importance and uniqueness in the world of car stereos. His job was fitting tyres but owing to the fact that he was a fairly intelligent guy doing a job that didn't really require much skill he deemed it necessary to embellish the situation with the unnecessary. This embellishment satisfied a need that the guy had, a need that wasn't being fulfilled by his actual work.

If we factor in the displacement from the customer that the phone creates, the largely (physically) "absent" management, the mundane environment  - doing and saying the broadly the same things every day, we then have a vacuum that will be filled by the needlessly creative employee. This can lead to a proliferation of "badge happiness" in many cases and this can be to the detriment of the organisation and is potential for a lost customer. It is often the little things that make the biggest difference. So remember, be nice to them - they're in charge!!! ;-)

Day #57 - Be nice to them, they're in charge (Part 2)

Today went quite well, I went to physio and the chap that is treating me was very pleased with the progress that I've been making. He went through a few new exercises with me and hopefully my recovery will continue. After that I had a decent meal at the college and had a brief chat with an old friend about microcontrollers. I guess that I must be a little obsessed by electronics but that is geekdom for you - no half measures when it comes to something with wires.

Anyway, I wanted to talk about "gatekeepers" and descision makers that have in their power, the ability to ruin or make your day. Now I don't want to come over like some kind of snob or someone with an elitist agenda but if that is how it feels to some folks there is little that I can do about it. I know that folks that work on the phone must be interviewed and go through an evaluation process before they get their job. I realise that they have a job to do and often that job can be difficult with awkward customers contributing to the difficulty. I am also aware that a person's environment can alter their thinking and that a "commercial cultural climate" will often have the unwanted side effect of conditioning workers to behave in a certain way. This can happen regardless of the countermeasures put into place to prevent it happening. In a boring job, folks get bored. A collective attitude can develop and that can permeate all areas of an organisation. It can be very subtle and at first or even second glance not appear to exist but further scrutiny and critical examination of certain factors within an organisation can be very revealing. This can often be to the detriment of the organisation and completely undermine its' commercial viability. It can lead to a laissez faire approach to customer care in some instances but in more extreme situations it can be life threatening. Public inquiries, internal memos, news articles all bear testament to this. It is not the final result of a boring job but it can be and managers ought be aware of this lest any stagnation begins to manifest itself which, in the best case scenario creates some miffed customers or at worst, no customers.

Once upon a time a I worked in a job that had such a bad attitude amongst the staff that there was open animosity towards others in the organisation that were doing EXACTLY the same job for EXACTLY the same client. You would hear folks blowing off steam about "those stupid wank*rs" that were standing in the same spot just hours previously. Their working conditions were so poor that they really felt that they had to let off steam against someone and so it was that they did - to eachother. The crazy thing about it is that they never for one moment questioned their superiors, that would have been a way out of a job. They accepted everything that the higher echelons threw at them and willingly. The sole object of their derision was "those stupid wank*rs" on another shift. They also seemed to have a bit of a problem with people that worked in sanitation for some reason as well as those that didn't speak English as a first language.

The company was run with all of the precision and operational flow that one might expect in such a situation but the one factor that could have prevented their ultimate demise was that they felt no need to brief the folks on the ground about the nature of the work that they were doing and the importance of good human relations. All that was presented were polemics on how vitally important the work itself was. I will not go into further detail but I will say that owing to their ineptitude and absence of foresight at a management level they cultivated a situation that led to events that culminated in the collapse of their host company and as a consequence a situation that made them untouchable in the industry. Thousands of people lost their jobs within a very short space of time. The bitterest part of it was that in the job market the company name was not one that made you a desirable asset to other prospective employers.

I will return for a moment to the phone support people. On the phone it can be very easy indeed to be either intimate OR detached. One can cover that ground very quickly in the relatively short duration of a phone call. How often have you been in contact with a person on the phone that you didn't know and found yourself engaged by their voice? How frequently have you found yourself veering towards flirtatious behaviour on a phone call to a stranger? It is easy for this to happen owing to the anonymity that the phone can provide. Of course we are not completely anonymous but we are sufficiently distant to make us slightly more daring. The inverse is also true. How often have you found yourself being more aggressive or rude to a person that you didn't know on a phone call? If we are to think about this we can safely say that it is owing to the fact that a degree of separation exists between ourselves and "the other" that we can become more assertive in our interaction. The level of reciprocity in either positive or negative emotions is enhanced by the loss of proximity. This may explain why many folks can return from a holiday with slightly more that they brought with them on their outbound journey. The loss of inhibition and increase of promiscuity is enhanced by anonymity.

At this point I am going to leave this topic but hopefully I will recall some of the other points that I wanted to make. Thanks for having taken time to read this and hopefully you will return to read another entry.

G'nite.

Day #56 - Be nice to them - they're in charge!!!

Last week the electricity bill arrived. I was expecting that it might have been a bit high owing to the cold spring weather that we had but I wasn't ready for what I saw when I opened the envelope. The bill is for almost €800. I thought that this may be wrong and so I got on the phone to try and determine why the charge was so high. After the usual trawl through menus and dodgy waiting music along with the sincere delivery that they were very busy and SO sorry to be keeping me waiting, I FINALLY got to speak with a real live person. The chap I spoke to was very helpful and politely explained that the reason for the high charge could possibly be due to... With that I felt somewhat reassured but still slightly miffed that I would need to pull almost a grand together just to pay for some electricity. The person on the phone must have detected some sort of exasperation as they quite helpfully gave me the number to the actual supply company itself. I thanked the call centre chap and made a quick cup of tea before I called the supply company.

I often wonder what it is about the sterile detachment of the phone that bring out the power craziness of some folks. The individual that I spoke to on the phone was without question a very "badge happy" lady indeed.  After the usual menus and options I got to speak with a person again. I explained the situation and that it might be a good idea for the supply company to send around a technician to check if the meter was working ok. Clearly I was ignorant of what it is to be speaking to the ultimate gatekeeper - I should have grovelled with thanks and fawning submissiveness. I even had the temerity to be in the middle of saying something when the lady on the phone decided to start speaking. Obviously my inherent bad manners and ignorance made it impossible to understand why it was I that was being admonished for the inappropriate actions of the guy from the billing company. For over five minutes I had to listen to the reasons why the previous chap should have stuck with procedure and never have given me the number of the supply company. Why they should have done this, that and the other thing instead of... It was very tedious. In the end I felt like I was being berated for some stuff that had absolutely nothing to do with me.

Following the quite unpleasant interaction with the lady from the supply company I set about trying to reason the absurdity. I only kept returning to the reasons such a profile of individual seem to inexorably and unaccountably end up in broadly similar positions across the board. I can feel a rather detailed post coming up so I am going to leave it for tonight but would encourage the reader to give this topic a little thought. It is a sort of social barometer of what it is to be stuck in the no mans land of "enhanced" service industry.