Little By Little, Day By Day

Want to do something? Want to do something worthwhile? Something creative? Maybe something big?

Don't try to get it done this weekend. It doesn't work like that. Sometimes it takes your entire lifetime to get it right.

In fact, usually.

Writing is like that. Writers don't get older, they get wiser, creating great work only in the course of a lifetime, and you can't do a lifetime of work in a month. Much less if you plan on it.

• Item the first: You can't plan on it, it sort of happens.
• Item the second: Even if you wanted to plan on it, you wouldn't know what to plan on.

Anyway, doing anything worthwhile takes hours, days, months, years. It shaves away the decades from your allotted time, while you sweat and doubt and struggle. And along the way you also get to throw out most of what you do. Because most of it it is not worth keeping.

So why not just copy someone?

Because they did it, not you. They did it because they loved doing it, and you can't copy love.

Not by copying the product, or the effort, or anything else. You have to be an original, and you get to be an original by sweating away what isn't unique about yourself, over years of time. You become good at something only when you become good at something, and not before.

And you don't know when that will be. Or what it will be. Or who you will be.

Calvin Coolidge: "Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan "press on" has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race."

Where he doesn't quite have it is the "persistence and determination". Both important, in their way, but the real truth is, when you've found something that you can't keep away from, then you've got it.

Something that still requires the hours.

And it's fine to start small. You should start small. You have the time.

Use your spare time, free moments that you might otherwise kill. Instead of killing them, give them life by working on your secret. This is true persistence. This is passionate persistence, for a thing, a place, a person, a process. It cannot be copied.

In other words no copying, no frantic mega-projects, no frenzied "multitasking", no faking. Time must unfold in good time. Good time which allows you to become an expert at your own specialty, in a way that no one else can be.

And if you don't make it? You can't know if that will happen. You just have to try. At least if you are being true and following that passion, then you do have a genuine treasure. You have a calling.

Few will agree with what you are doing, or accord it full value, but like the Reverend Sydney Smith you will get to say "Do not assume that because I am frivolous I am shallow; I don't assume that because you are grave you are profound."

 

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Have anything worth adding? Then try sosayseff+nosey@nullabigmail.com
Me? Never too sure about myself.

 

Etc...

so says eff: sporadic spurts of grade eff distraction
definitions: outdoor terms
fiyh: dave's little guide to ultralight backpacking stoves
boyb: dave's little guide to backpacks
snorpy bits: nibbling away at your sanity
last seen receding: missives from a certain mobile homer
noseyjoe: purposefully poking my proboscis into technicals

I Was Once A Drone Too

Easy target. Gummint. Drones.

I heard one night that someone I knew was going to lose his job. He worked for the state Parks and Recreation Commission. They were getting hit hard.

He seemed to be an OK person. Didn't know him well. Didn't hear this from him.

The new state budget was announced about a week before I heard that. Everyone was figuring out what to do between the beginning of May and the beginning of July, when the new budget would kick in. Apparently some places had it figured out in advance, and were only waiting to hear the official details, like the Parks people. So they kicked in right away. They had to give 90 days of notice and all.

I can't say if this guy deserved to keep his job or not, but the Parks system was obviously not high on anyone's list of essentials. Not like schools, not like highways, not like law enforcement. Just one of those things that is so important until it becomes time to save money, and then it isn't important any more.

I spent a lot of years working for state governments. Two governments, about 20 years in all. In a way it was an advantage. I didn't earn all that much but over all it was more secure than some places, and I'm frugal. And beyond that, that kind of work gives you a great perspective on large organizations.

It's easy to criticize government but it's no different from any other large company. Not that much. Aside from never ever being in danger of closing completely, there really isn't much difference.

"If you take two parts pathological aversion to risk, mix it together with one part apathy and a jigger of laziness, what you get is the government workforce culture" applies all around. *

I've seen it.

Over the years I developed a rule of thumb. Of the people you work with, one third do the work, one third do nothing, and one third actively screws things up.

The corollary is that incompetence is rewarded and competence is punished. Do good work, work hard, be dependable, and you'll be given someone else's work to do as well. Management prefers to avoid those who are completely undependable or who cannot be awakened. So they pick up the work of those people and dump it on the good ones, who feel guilty that they can't get it all done.

And then those people get angry.

And then they get bitter.

And then they leave.

Guess who gets left on the job?

I have to say that I can sum up all of my experience and all of the problems of a large organization in two words: incompetent management.

I don't know if this guy I heard about was good or bad at what he did, but it wasn't his fault. When the governor at that time came in, she was planning to improve things. It wasn't all her fault. All of them are to blame. Everyone is.

The legislature meets for a month or two, passes laws, and goes home. The governor passes instructions to the heads of the various agencies, and then goes back to glad handing and planning for the next campaign. And whatever else governors actually fill their days with. Then the heads of the various agencies turn to their lackeys and pass the instructions along, and go back to lying to each other and continuing political knife fights. And so on down the line.

The best people in the system are at the bottom. They take things seriously. They believe in what they are doing and keep things running. And they make the least money and have no power.

After a while, a year or two, or five, everyone gets to a common level. No matter who you are, what your talents are, how good you are, how much ambition you have, how much education or training, all you want to do is to live long enough to retire. You just want to get through today, and tomorrow and so on, and get that never ending going-away basket of fruit and sit down and wait to die.

This is not good.

I've looked around a few times and decided that things could be run with almost no staff, compared to what I've been in the middle of. I realized this pretty clearly when I was in an office of 50 programmers and analysts and managers and so on for only one state agency, and heard that Borland Delphi was built and maintained with fewer than 10 people. A product that worked well and was sold world-wide.

All of us state boys and girls could barely keep our bag of rats working from day to day. It took weeks to get a meeting, and then no one made decisions. We had no contact with our customers or understanding of what they did. No training, no tools, no incentive. We were all hoping to get in enough years to retire, wave goodbye with one finger, and retreat to lawn chairs where we could finish our days swearing to ourselves about our wasted lives and talents.

So the next new governor came in and had a big plan and nothing happened. It could have happened but it didn't. Then the next election came. Then the economy tanked. Then the legislature met, and cut. Then people were wondering how long they could live in their cars, and when they would have to eat their pets or sell their children.

You can bet that almost everyone in management at any level of management, would stay. Because they are always so important. They have to keep the flame and pass along the secret knowledge about how to mumble, shuffle, obfuscate, intimidate, delay, and dodge.

The watchword was always "wait". Can't do that now — wait. Not ready for that — wait. We don't have the resources — wait. Not enough staff — wait. You're thinking way ahead of everyone — wait.

In 2003 I was pushing to switch to Microsoft's .Net technology. I ran an agency's internet site. Though web stuff was new to me I had experience in other platforms, and two college degrees. I taught myself HTML, CSS, ASP. I became good. Then I sent myself to .Net training and paid for it with my own money. And they didn't care. Six years later they were still running the web site on ASP. They didn't care.

If the budget collapses they just shed a few expendables. They don't care.

Things won't get done. They don't care.

A few children die. They don't care.

They never have.

Every six months or so a child does die in state in foster care, or from an abusive parent. Big news, big time. In all the papers. On all the broadcast stations. Gigantic fuss.

Six weeks later everyone has forgotten. Management waits. Wait long enough and every problem solves itself by being forgotten.

Then another child dies. Same story. Wait. Wait. Wait.

Everyone forgets. Nothing happens. System continues on autopilot.

I worked with some intensely intelligent people. People who knew the whole social-worker system, the laws, the right, the wrong, people who knew what was good and what was bad. Too bad they didn't run the place.

I had left behind a permanent job to come aboard starting as a temp just so I could make a difference, help to develop something. I worked hard. Did things no one else could do, or was trying to do, or wanted to do. We were on a project to rebuild the whole old mainframe system as modern software.

Then after a while we saw some contractors among us. Then more. Before too long the contractors were running everything. They didn't even talk to us. I managed to leave the original project and switch to web work, and after a while longer got on at another state agency doing data warehouse work.

The original project continued, ever inflating. Two of us, with another four or five well chosen people, could have finished a bare bones but rock solid implementation in a year. But guess what... Everyone liked all those contractors buzzing around, looking important, using big words, making $200,000 a year compared to our $40,000. Obviously, since we were making less we were not as good, so more contractors appeared and pushed out all the regular staff. One of them played online poker at his desk. Others read the newspaper and killed time, all day. And so on.

About two years after I left the whole thing collapsed. Only a small glitch, about $12 to $14 million wasted, I guess. Throw it away and start over for the third time. Or was it the fourth? No one cared. Too little money to fuss over.

So then, eventually there came a downturn and people began losing their jobs. Too many people, too little money. Same old story. When times are plush, you hire. Then later you lay people off, and never worry too much about really getting anything done. There is always time and money to start over, and start over again, as often as you like.

Nobody thought ahead. No one who was important. Funny how they never do. They just wait. Whatever it is, it blows over, and then they celebrate with another coffee break and hire more staff because they're all so overworked.

Right. It's true. They get so fatigued thinking about all the things they'll have to do someday that they want to go and take naps to recover in advance. To nap, perchance to dream. To dream, perchance to see all those fresh compliant staffers whose head count alone indicates how important you are. Just wait — they'll be flowing in the doors one day, and we'll all be important again. And then, after one last coffee break we get to retire and finally switch off for good.

Government work. All work, in any organization — it's one of those problems with, by, for, and about people.

 

References:

* From "The Register" (original link) or Internet Archive

 

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Have anything worth adding? Then try sosayseff+nosey@nullabigmail.com
Me? Not any more.

 

Etc...

so says eff: sporadic spurts of grade eff distraction
definitions: outdoor terms
fiyh: dave's little guide to ultralight backpacking stoves
boyb: dave's little guide to backpacks
snorpy bits: nibbling away at your sanity
last seen receding: missives from a certain mobile homer
noseyjoe: purposefully poking my proboscis into technicals

Generally Speaking

It's hard being right, it really is.

Not so hard as being wrong, but people who are often wrong usually don't know it. Most of them aren't bright enough. So maybe overall it's easier being wrong a lot. Maybe even most of the time. Because if you are you can't tell anyway.

Can't tell left from right, up from down, inside from outside, fur from feathers. Did you notice the worst singers auditioning for that "American Idol" show? Or the worst of anyone trying to do anything? They can't tell how bad they are because part of being bad is being so bad that you have no clue whatsoever. It's been proven by science.

Being right is frustrating but satisfying.

Frustrating because people don't give a flying fork. Tell someone where they're wrong and they'll turn on you faster than a pit bull on a baby. No perspective. Except the one that says my idea is right because it floated through my brain and if you prove it's wrong then I will have to hate you. Because you are wrong to tell me something like that. Where are your manners, fool?

So cool.

In that vein I once heard a brief interview with a woman who was virulently against Barack Obama. Her reasoning was that Obama had repudiated the statements of a longtime pastor and had parted ways with the man. Therefore, in her mind, he was faithless since she stood by her own Roman Catholic Church no matter what evil might be perpetrated by some of its staff, and Obama wasn't doing the same.

OK so far, if she really wanted to go there. None of my business. But then she said that if Obama would do a thing like that he would also lie about his true religion and therefore he was really an anti-American terrorist Muslim. In secret. And she hated him for that. Which is a prime example of both being wrong and being stupid.

I'm really not political. At all. It's part of being right.

If you are political then you are about power. About having power, or wanting it, or wanting to be near it, or wanting someone you think deserves it to then have it. But you don't get to be right. Because being right gets in the way. Being right means that you have to work to understand things, think them through, and often rule against yourself. In politics you never give an inch. Unless you give an inch today to become a snake in the grass and take a mile tomorrow.

The only power I really want is over my own life, and that starts with understanding it. With understanding me, myself and I. And my context. And understanding my own life turns out to be a lot more important than having power. Because you can't have any power at all of any kind if you're stupid and ignorant and keep your mind closed.

You don't get to be powerful and wealthy (two views of the same puppet show from different seats) if you are stupid and ignorant and keep your mind closed, or if you do you can't hold onto either one for long. You don't necessarily get to be either powerful or wealthy if you are smart, or well educated, or think a lot. But you do come to some conclusions. And can do whatever you want with some real chance of success.

And a lot of those conclusions are right.

No one is right all the time. Ever. But if you pay attention and stay honest with yourself you get close.

Way back when was when I started asking myself questions. Like "Why is that?" or "How does that work?" And so on. Way back. In my teens. And after the question I'd arrive at an answer. Most often it would pop into my head. I imagine that it happens that way with most everyone. First a question and then an answer, out of particularly nowhere.

And then I'd ask myself why the answer was right. Sometimes I had to change my answer. Because the answer wasn't right, it was only something that I felt good about or liked or wanted to be right or was prejudiced in favor of. Only because it floated through my head.

And I'm still not right all the time, and you aren't either. Though I do like people who are right about things, especially if they're more right than I am. Because then I can learn how to think better. Quicker, more deeply, more imaginatively, more honestly.

The hard part is really the honesty.

If you keep hacking at something you'll eventually get through the crusty old useless parts. Your habits, your preferences, your desires, the way people around you think, what's good for your finances, or what's consistent with what you said or thought or did yesterday. Once you get through to the soft tender sensitive parts underneath, then you can do some real work.

But you have to be honest. Until it hurts, and then some. Until it bleeds, and then some more. Honesty will take you places you've never been. Sometimes it's surprising. Most always. Because honesty and a little clear thinking will make you pry up stone after stone until you finally do find the real answer.

The fun part is adapting to it. It can be hard.

I was on a hike with someone once who said she didn't want to know the names of plants and trees because it would take away the magic. I've had that idea too. About a lot of things. It doesn't work. Knowing is much more fun, and more magical too.

Not knowing is easier in some ways, but it's being ignorant. And being ignorant is a lot like being stupid, which is a lot like being wrong. Which is a lot like waking up in the morning with bad breath, flat greasy hair and gummy eyes. It's better to have a fresh, awake mind in full possession of the facts. And have non-gummy eyes.

Learning things is hard but you don't have to learn everything. And you can't anyway. You can at least learn a lot. And when you do learn you start understanding things. Everything suddenly gets a face and a story The world becomes bigger, not smaller. And you find doorways leading places you could not have imagined before.

I've always been a generalist. A friend once described himself as a dilettante. Sort of proudly. In a way. Normally that's something you don't brag about. It doesn't sound great, like saying in public that when you're eating at home you spill so much food that you just eat off the floor. But he said it. Sort of proudly. He was doing a little tail pulling but he meant it.

He worked for many years as a newspaper reporter and did it well. Being a generalist was good, even if someone might call him a dilettante in a not nice way. He knew a lot. He was on top of it.

Generalists generally are. The real ones.

You get to be a generalist by paying attention. Because you can't help it. You like stuff. You like ideas, and people, and events. You do different jobs in different parts of the country in different decades. Your bookshelves at home look like a cross section of the public library. No one can figure out who you are by the books. You see more possibilities and have wider tastes that way. You end up knowing more. Hands down.

There are lots of people out there who are absolute screaming experts at blade-thin areas of knowledge and most of them are bright. And true dullards. Duds. Dorks. Stupes. Dolts. Bores. Spores. Pod people.

Being an expert can do that to you. Being a generalist will not, though mostly the specialists get paid better. Too bad for me, eh? Blame my English degree.

I couldn't have gotten to be as good a generalist and as clear a thinker without the English degree. I got it because I couldn't decide what to be when I grew up. So three decades years later, plus one, I still have the degree and still can't decide, but I learned a lot along the way.

The next time they give you all that civic bullshit about voting, keep in mind that Hitler was elected in a full, free democratic election. -- George Carlin

You can learn a lot from writers. If you don't believe that then turn on your TV set. See a movie. Watch a play. Read a book. It's all about writers. I suspect few know. Even reality shows ("reality" shows) have writers. Writers run everything. Without a plan you have bunches of people running around and bumping into each other. And mumbling a lot.

Writers weave it.

Writing and reading and thinking about writing and reading have ways of honing thought. You find ideas and take pleasure in them. You can come home with pockets full of them and sit in the sun and endlessly turn them over, and over again, and again. And sort them and stack them and play, and decide which are the real and good and true. And from that learn to make your own.

Like math without the math. Also pure thought but accessible to everyone. Open ended. You grow big invisible feelers that sound warnings when things aren't right. Sometimes people call these B.S. detectors. Handy. When they are in "off" position they will often turn their gaze back toward you, and that's one way you learn to think better. You think a thought and arrive at a conclusion and then you hear this funny buzzing sound, and that's when you know you have more work to do. Your feelers tap dance on your head until you catch on.

That's your next step into the world of honesty.

You may adapt but not everyone will love you. Because you'll want to share. Honesty is hard to accept. And people will feel threatened. Because (a) they haven't thought at all, or (b) they have a vested interest in how things are.

It was like that on my last job. They were rebuilding a software system. I came in at iteration three. After a year of working in good faith it became clear that it was a waste of time. They were only working on an extended failure. My feelers were aching. All day and all night. I started talking. No one wanted that.

They carried on for another four years or so and finally threw out six years of work. After deciding it was really was a failure. And then they started over and threw that one out too. And then I heard, after I left, that they were at it again.

It's hard being right, it really is. But it's wrong to be willfully stupid.

I'm still mad about that one. Two of us, with help from three or four carefully chosen others, could have built a bare bones version of the system that was needed. Solid, rock solid and reliable. Squeaky clean. Bare bones but rock solid, and a good platform for extension. We could have started it the right way at the beginning of 2003 and could have finished it sometime in 2004, maybe sooner.

Nope.

They didn't want to be right. That would have been work. Hard work. Tedious work. Intense work. Everyone had it easier and made more money from extending the gig than I did, but I have my integrity, such as it is. It is hard though. And most of them, if they remember me at all, hate me. Because for them it hurt too much to think. And hurt too much to change. Even though they eventually were allowed to change their minds. When management said it was the new policy.

So what's the right answer, then?

 

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Have anything worth adding? Then try sosayseff+nosey@nullabigmail.com
Me? All too soon forgotten, which is actually the way I like it.

 

Etc...

so says eff: sporadic spurts of grade eff distraction
definitions: outdoor terms
fiyh: dave's little guide to ultralight backpacking stoves
boyb: dave's little guide to backpacks
snorpy bits: nibbling away at your sanity
last seen receding: missives from a certain mobile homer
noseyjoe: purposefully poking my proboscis into technicals

How To Be Right

I copied this text from a company called Test Double, and slightly shortened and slightly edited it. If that's a problem, let me know. Meanwhile, I'll assume that copying for use here is all right. The image is mine.

So then, the principles as they were wrote...

 

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Diversity and inclusion make us strong.

We encourage participation from the most varied and diverse backgrounds possible and want to be very clear where we stand.

The goal is to maintain a safe, helpful, and friendly environment for everyone, regardless of ability, age, body size, ethnicity, experience, gender identity and expression, nationality, personal appearance, race, religion, sexual orientation, or other characteristics.

Expected Behavior

• Be respectful.
• Be welcoming.
• Be kind.
• Look out for each other.

Unacceptable Behavior

• Disrespect toward others. (Jokes, innuendo, dismissive attitudes.)
• Disrespect toward differences of opinion.
• Personal insults, including those related to ability, gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, race, or religion.
• Violence, threats of violence or violent language directed against another person.
• Sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic, ableist or otherwise discriminatory jokes, language or behavior.
• Posting or displaying sexually explicit or violent material.
• Posting or threatening to post other people’s personally identifying information ("doxxing").
• Inappropriate photography or recording.
• Inappropriate attention or contact. Be aware of how your actions affect others. If it makes someone uncomfortable, stop.
• Inappropriate physical contact. You should have someone’s consent before touching them.
• Unwelcome sexual attention. This includes, sexualized comments or jokes; inappropriate touching, groping, and unwelcome sexual advances.
• Unwelcome, suggestive, derogatory or inappropriate nicknames or terms.
• Deliberate intimidation, stalking or following (online or in person).
• Advocating for, or encouraging, any of the above behavior.
• Sustained disruption of community events, including talks and presentations.
• Framing disparagement as constructive criticism, and vice versa.

 

References
Test Double's Code of Conduct
At Internet Archive

 

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Have anything worth adding? Then try sosayseff+nosey@nullabigmail.com
Me? Recently nominated for something by someone, somewhere.

 

Etc...

so says eff: sporadic spurts of grade eff distraction
definitions: outdoor terms
fiyh: dave's little guide to ultralight backpacking stoves
boyb: dave's little guide to backpacks
snorpy bits: nibbling away at your sanity
last seen receding: missives from a certain mobile homer
noseyjoe: purposefully poking my proboscis into technicals