July 29, 2003
My company started a novel
My company started a novel project this week: an interactive message board-style discussion session that is designed to get the employees talking about the kinds of values that are important to us as a company, and ways we can manifest those values. For all the cynicism something like this might generate, I honestly do think their hearts are in the right place, and they are trying to leverage the collective feelings and creative input from their employees to make us a better company. The effort itself is pretty impressive, even if not much comes from it.
At least 95% of the people participating seem to have constructive comments in mind. They want to help. They want their voices heard, and they are making legitimate points as we discuss the kind of company we want to be. Most of the rest seem to want to air complaints about specific things in the bureaucracy or But there is a small undercurrent that has really struck me as I have read the comments. There are some people who seem to just want to complain that things aren't the way they used to be - that companies no longer offer lifetime employment, that pension distribution has changed, that you can't just expect to show up for your eight hours a day, put in your time and leave anymore... you're actually expected to work nowadays, and you're actually assessed on your performance. One guy in particular has bellyached away about the old days, back in the 70s and 80s, when things were different and "when the company actually cared" about it's employees.
How is it that some people can be so ostrich-like in their resistance to change? Is it fear? Is it laziness? The good old days -- the years that this guy is openly saying were better than now -- were years of lackluster and out of touch performance. There's no company anywhere in business that promises lifetime employment anymore; not in the United States, not in Canada or Europe, and lately not even in Japan. The world changed. And this guy just doesn't want to get it. He'd rather bitch about the fact that things aren't the way they used to be than try to make things better now. This is the kind of person who'll stand at a sunset and yell about the fact that it's getting dark. Things aren't the way they used to be, and they never will be again. Candy bars cost 15 cents when I was a kid. My parents bought the house I grew up in for five figures. The Rams played in Los Angeles, the St. Louis Cardinals were a football team too, and we thought OJ Simpson and Pete Rose were swell guys. Things change, and there's no going back. In some cases, it's for the best not to.
At first the guy was really ticking me off. But the more I think about it, the more I just feel sorry for him. How frightening it must be to be an embittered old man, out of touch with the world and so afraid fo change that he'd rather romanticize a "golden era" that was truthfully more like rust! How sad it must be to be so insecure about his place in the world that all he can do is complain about the advantages he no longer has. I mean, buddy, if it's that bad, then quit! No one is holding a gun to your head and demanding that you stay put!
Don't get me wrong. My company's not perfect... and to borrow a phrase from a children's book, "if I ran the zoo..." But even a cynic like me knows that the good old days weren't always so great, and that companies - and people! - need to change with the times. Furthermore, doing nothing more than complain about it instead of offering constructive alternatives is simply a waste of time by someone who has nothing real to offer anyway.
If I am ever so frightened by change and afraid of the world that all I have left is false nostalgia for days gone by, then I will have lost more than my ambition. I will have lost the very sense of direction that makes us dynamic, living beings on this planet, instead of those who merely exist. I don't ever want to be that afraid or empty. I will find plenty to bitch about in this world, both today and in the future... I've been around long enough to have seen just how many opportunities life provides to be cranky about something. But I either want to always have a constructive alternative in mind, or I just want to go off on irrational rants about *everything.* Inflating the past into something more than it was isn't even creative bitching. It's merely whining.
