There seems to be a lack of individual responsibility around these days. Maybe that's just me. Maybe it's always been this way. Probably. Some things I don't notice so good.
I've always been surprised by how lazy and opportunistic people are. Maybe that's just me. Maybe I'm not as bright as I've thought, or maybe I just haven't caught on yet to the true meaning of life. Something like that. I guess that I haven't caught on to massive sloth and grabbing what's easy.
I noticed during job interviews, or even worse, while on the job, that I scared people when I told them I stood 100% behind my work. Don't know why. That seems like a good characteristic to me, but it's never flown. People get spooked. Someone once asked me if I carry a gun.
Maybe a lot of them are scared to see someone care. Most of my working life has been in state government, where, if you swing through the trees, you see a lot of sleepy apes. The entire point of a bureaucrat's life is not to do anything. If you do anything you can be blamed, but you can never be blamed for not doing any one thing. Everyone in that kind of environment understands the idea of making decisions judiciously, without question: i.e., doing nothing.
That's why it can take a year to get a stapler unless you steal one from a desk that's just been vacated.
That world works that way because there is never a positive incentive. There is no profit sharing. No bonuses. You don't get big stock options if you bet your job and a lot of company resources on a bold gamble. There is none of that, only the opposite.
Negative incentives.
What is, is. The status quo is the highest good. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." "We've never done it that way." So, try something, muck up, and the only option is punishment. ("We warned you.") Do well and you mess up the status quo. The only option for that is also punishment. Keeping up appearances is the highest good, and it's not good to make the others look bad in comparison to yourself. ("You aren't being fair to everyone else.")
I've worked with people who were demoted and moved across town into jobs they knew nothing about only because they happened to work for someone else who lost a turf war. I've seen a talented and experienced programmer given a desk and chair and nothing else, expected to sit there until he gave up and quit, only because he once spoke the truth. I know someone who, as a project manager whose project failed, was promoted fol following the rules. Right into the ground.
No change, no gain. No gain, no pain. A small promotion is about the best you can get, and failure restores quiet, enduring balance to a bureaucrat's life. A few dollars more a month from a promotion seems like a positive incentive but it's really more of a threat. You have to work harder to keep up appearances, so maybe it's not a good thing to get. And you still have to show up every day for decades until they finally have to turn you loose. No matter who you are, how good you are, if you play in this system you weather down to the same level as everyone else. You want only to get through today, and live long enough to retire. Nothing more. Trying to actually do something only causes confusion and pain.
I was a member of two different Meetup groups based around web technology. This was years ago, but both failed. At the second one, there were 71 members and only nine or 10 ever showed up at meetings. The two organizers did the presentations and the rest sat there. People kept joining. And not showing up.
So easy. So clean.
I sort of know a web developer who lost his job when the big bust came a few years back, in the times following year 2000, after the world didn't end but other things had to, so... His name was Henry Shires. In 1999 he hiked the Pacific Crest Trail, using a shelter that he designed and made himself. He did it because he wanted to. He didn't sit around waiting for someone to ask, or to give orders. He needed to do the hike for personal reasons, so he went and did it. To help him do it, he designed a shelter that was sort of like a tent and sort of like just a tarp.
Later he got into web development. I don't know much about this part of his story, but having talked to him a time or two I heard that he lost his job. It was bad all over then. Happened to lots.
Sometime later, after he'd posted his original tarptent plans, then updated them with a new model or two (all free information for the taking), I found that he was in business. Making and selling tarptents.
Now he's one of the big names in the ultralight cottage industry class. Sounds like damning with faint praise but it's really praising with no damns at all. This is tough work, in a small, low-margin, highly-competitive market, and now he has a worldwide clientele and a reputation to go with it.
This is what personal responsibility is about.
First Henry had a dream, to hike the Pacific Crest Trail. And then he went and did it.
Then he had a job, and then he didn't.
Then he created a business and made it work.
This is real web development. Henry Shires had a stake in it. He had something to gain. Web development is no longer just something for his resume. It is a vehicle for his business. He had a reason to work with that, which was to develop his business, because he liked hiking and liked tarptents. So he took on the responsibility of it all. It gave him a payback. Not like what you get when you decide to become a member of an anonymous "Show up or not. Meh." group.
Not a big story at all, but nice. A nice story. Not like clicking a link on a web page and joining a group and never showing up. First Henry showed up at life and then the world joined him, with money in their hands.
Now if only I could be so smart.
Refs:
Tarptent.com
The original Tarptent
Have anything worth adding? Then try sosayseff@gmail.com
Me? I've never done it that way, I swear!
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