Last login: 12 hours agoDanzbar is a 25 year old guy from Pasadena, California, USA.
Here to find good videos, photography, humor, and various weird and informative pages. I post on www.FussyPucker.com. An explanation of that name is here.
Inspired by a Beatles lyric, I now carry around the picture you see and sing the theme from The Courtship of Eddie, "Peopre ret me terr you bout my best fliend..."
From the page: "The ability to walk to many of these places from our homes or places of employment generally raises that quality-of-life index. When researchers look for places where people are happiest, it's often in communities where they can live near where they work, walk their children to school and shop at stores within walking or biking distance..."
"Studies also indicate people are least happy when in their cars, largely because they cannot predict what will slow them down, or when. Thus the long commutes of Silicon Valley have gotten more and more costly, not only in terms of money and time, but also happiness."
The comments are mostly positive on this one, but finding the negs and neutrals compelling I am going to attempt to answer the question of whether this is enough. What is it missing?
1. Do not ask me to perform unethical tasks. Be respectful of who I am, and of the law. And don't ask me to do anything you wouldn't do if you were in my place.
2. Make it clear how I am benefiting someone by doing this work. That (those) person(s) ought be deserving, and our method ought be the best for them.
3. Don't condescend to me. Don't use bullshit managerial language. Don't use the tone of voice you'd use when speaking to a child. (Children don't like it, either.) Don't hit me, interrupt me, or disrespect me just because you might be able to get away with it.
4. Don't waste my time. Don't call unnecessary meetings. Don't issue redundant memos. Don't require more paperwork than you actually need.
5. Lay back sometimes. Accept that a certain percentage of mistakes is to be expected. Examine and try to cut down errors without micromanaging or mistreating anyone. Understand: The short-term results of such actions may be better than the long term as you will likely find you've created more serious problems than the ones you've set out to solve.
That's the best I could come up with. I suspect an MBA would have used more "positive" language. Of course, I quit my job a while back: just called up, said I wasn't coming in...ever again, and I've lived on savings ever since. So, uh...what do I know about this kind of thing?
My friend recently quit a bus-boy job where the owner would smack the illegals sometimes, if they screwed up. The owner referred to himself as, "El General." And he would occasionally remark that he was destined to die alone. But he also pushed his employees--albeit in a "creative," menacing manner--so that my friend said he was glad to have learned as much as he did about how to run a restaurant.
You might react that the guy is obviously, as my friend would have it, "a fat piece of shit," and I can only agree, but--having never met this restaurant owner--I'm also inclined to think he knew what he was doing. And his workers knew too and stayed because they needed the money. Their knowledge, conformance, and compliance could be said to make his actions fair.
This "market solves everything" solution is problematic, however, with regard to human rights. With populations expanding and wealth becoming concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, it follows that more willing persons shall come along in the future. Exploiting the desperation of the impoverished will not end until a minimum standard is put into place and enforced with the kinds of checks and balances that early American government established.
It is especially problematic when exploiting workers cross-culturally, because their local standards are not based on a paradigm we wish to perpetuate. Reports of 23-hour overtime shifts and regularly bribed inspectors shouldn't be acceptable just because "the workers are paid comparatively great wages for the region." That's fucking bullshit. It's not okay to turn human beings into cogs just because their economic status renders them willing. It's not okay to give them...just enough not to have rebellion.
It shouldn't be necessary to avoid certain brands because they're guilty of horrific and widespread crimes. No one should feel a daunting certainty that someone else was mistreated in the preparation of any product they need--whether it be a meal, a piece of software, or a pair of shoes. In the end, it's up to each individual to become conscious of their function within their environment--when they are in the workplace (or anywhere else) buying, selling, servicing or requesting a service--and to do their best to respect others' humanness, their unique methods and potentials.
Markets cannot regulate anything that is "priceless," and that seems to me to be the whole reason for ethical systems. "Money can't buy love," and it can't buy friendship or self-respect either. To get those things, you have to treat others properly--whether they are below you or above you on the "corporate ladder."
This means developing an ear for others' expectations and the language to express your own. It means raising standards of education worldwide by making greater amounts of information available. It means setting up incentive systems that don't reward others for ruthlessness. And it means treating others as you'd like to be treated.
This is out of accord with Occam's razor. Try this for an explanation: more physically attractive partners--male or female--have more sex with their mates because their mate is more physically turned on by them. Period. All they've done here is look at what other animals do and conclude that we must be doing exactly the same thing. Forget that we have culture. Forget that we have language. We're monkeys. I'm sorry to sound like a Christian for a minute, but this is stupid. There's no actual argument here. One could just as easily assume it's God's gift to have a wife with big bazooms and her mate is expressing his godly marital love by boinking her more often than the man with a "lesser" gift. That it can be said doesn't make it true.
The full study may actually have some substance, but this article really doesn't. Thumbs up because I'm interested, not because it's a particularly poignant page.
I like them
Jul 14, 2008 2:21pm
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