Imagine someone, now imagine the proverbial freight train lumbering down the tracks.
The someone is stood on the tracks, facing away from the train, which is approaching from behind, they are doing their best to imitate all three monkeys, fingers in their ears, eyes squeezed shut, chanting la-la-la-la-la
They know the freight train is coming, but by doing the three monkeys they can avoid thinking about the inevitable “meeting”.
It’s a lot easier, takes a lot less courage, than turning around, opening their eyes, and looking at he approaching train, they tell me…
Yeah, I say, thing is… if you face the train, you’ll step off the tracks, unless you really are fucking suicidal that is, thereby avoiding yet another train wreck in your life.
Does not compute, because that means facing the train, it’s like talking to a small child who is convinced monsters live under the bed and hiding under the covers is the only protection, once they give in to it, there is no way they can bring themselves to pull the covers down to take a peek, and every sound they hear becomes sounds the monsters are making.
It’s easy to ridicule this, but, to a certain extent, we all do it…
Let’s take work, I was talking to a mate about this this morning, we don’t work for the same place, but we know the details of what we both do, and he was thinking my job was secure, and I was saying it is as secure as the next paycheck, and this surprised him.
For my day job, I go to places that come under one of two categories, work wise, category one is break-fix, category two is everything else.
Category one, break-fix is obvious, hey, our intertubez is broke, send someone to fix it plz…
Category two, well, category two all, without exception, came out of a management meeting somewhere, whether it is changing an ISP, changing a ISP service, changing the IT systems, or change of a greater scale, eg a merger or acquisition.
Category two, quite often, like yesterday, I visit 4 sites, company A has bought company B, so I’m going in to get the basic internet connectivity in company B ready for merger and inclusion in company A.
Of the 4 sites yesterday, 2 of them are going to involve significant staff lay-offs at what was company B, and I’m not just talking the obvious stuff like IT staff, there is a lot of “duplication” to prune, accounts staff, dispatchers, buyers, sales droids, managers, the lot.
Probably 50% of those about to get the chop at each site don’t even know it yet, they haven’t seen my work orders, if they had, they would be able to see the writing on the wall…
But, they don’t actually *need* to see my work orders, sure, that is *more* data, but it is not like they have *no* data, or *insufficient* data, to determine that things, they are gonna be a changin’
They are in effect turning their back to the train, doing the three monkeys.
Sure, they spent the last six months whining about their lot, but change? No thanks…
So my mate says to me, you don’t trust you’ll have the job next month? And I say, well, thing is, I just got no way of knowing, ask me next month.
I know a lot of people reject this, I mean, you looking for a job bro? You handed in your notice? Many vacancies around? Y’all unhappy where you are?
The answer is no to all of the above.
Admitting uncertainty about the future doesn’t solve any problems, open any doors, make any decisions.
Nor does denying uncertainly, but, that also locks you down, eyes wide shut, back turned to the train.
Ask any driver, the difference between a crash and a miss always, without exception, comes down to one thing, reaction time.
The more you extend reaction time (as in extending the time available for reaction, not as in slowing the physical reaction time) the more you increase the possibility of not hitting that thing, and swinging safely past it, or pulling up short.
The only conclusion I can come to is this, people, generally, do not *want* choice. *conscious* choice, that is….
With choice comes the opportunity to make a bad choice.
Only when you are used to a lifetime of making choices do you start to realise a few things;
1/ It is almost impossible to make an optimal choice, that requires a shit load of luck, on demand.
2/ 99% of the choices you make are therefore sub-optimal.
3/ sub-optimal is another way of saying glass half full, or half empty?
4/ On aggregate, simply because of the extended reaction time, even sub-optimal choices tend to serve you better than three monkeys, back to the train, la-la-la-la…
5/ No matter what you do, it happens to you anyway.
Which kinds brings us back to the companies we all work for, including me and my mate…
Management hates to make “bad decisions”, so instead of staring down the tracks at the various oncoming trains, and making 99% sub-optimal choices, knowing that there ain’t no such animal as an optimal choice, they let 95% of those opportunities to at least have a choice pass them by, and the remaining 5%, well, they are always worse than the sub-optimal choices that they avoided taking, because they were sub-optimal…. donchaknow
So the next thing you get is like the global warming shit DMJ is currently taking about, this was a fucking good choice we just made, a fucking informed choice, a fucking excellent choice, and dissenters will be taken out and shit-canned at dawn…
Shoot the fucking messenger, that way you don’t have to address the message.
That way you can spend the rest of your adult life hiding under the covers, in case the monsters are there…. and you basically invite the fox in the night to come in and steal all your shit, and shit in your shoes.
But you were hiding under the covers, you didn’t see no fox, so you have proof that monsters exist, look, your shit is gone, and right there, monster shit in your shoes… see, you were fucking right to hide under the covers.
