Last time, I posted a ‘part 2’ where I reacted to some additional thoughts I had after rereading the original post. In one section, I suggested that my determination of the post’s quality was ‘inconclusive’.
Well, today I’m back because inconclusive, my ass. Here are all your questions, answered:
Was it good?
It was, I think. I have nothing interesting to say about hatred, but I do know it’s a waste of time, a fact gleaned mostly from observation.
Gleaned? Is that the special word of the day?
I hate word of the day calendars.
What was the book in question?
Actually, no book, and no beach. I wrote the essay as a compilation of various views expressed to me over the years, mostly in public while holding a book (but sometimes in private, when I disclosed whatever I was reading at the time).
Disclosed? Is that the special –
Can I finish?
OK, go ahead.
Right, anyway, over the years people have mentioned to me that they hate various authors. So the post was about those experiences, not about having it happen to me at the beach.
I see, so then you like sand?
No, I wasn’t kidding about the sand, I hate the sand. But that’s another reason why I didn’t actually go to the beach.
Got it. So you made it up?
No, I didn't make it up, it just isn't literally true. Anything else?
Just a couple other thoughts, so why a part 2?
Why not?
Er, well, I mean why part 2, and not a leftover? I don’t really understand the TOA numbering system.
I see. I call it a part two if I wrote it separately. The ones that come out as leftovers, they were written at the same time as the original.
In this case, I wrote ‘Hatred’, sat around for a couple months, then wrote part 2 along with this leftover. To put it another way, if you take the ‘leftovers’ analogy literally, it will become crystal clear.
But wasn’t the point of part 2 that you shouldn’t take words literally?
Not literally, no. There are appropriate times for a literal interpretation, but I understand that it’s confusing. The key is to be consistent. A label or a title should probably be more literal than a spoken sentence.
I’ll think about that for a minute.
You mean sixty seconds?
No, just a minute.
Are we done?
Last question, what’s it like to reread your own writing? Is it keeping you sane these days, or counter-productive?
It’s probably like how stranded hikers drink their own urine to stay hydrated, it’s necessary in a certain way but I don't recommend it.
Oh dear. I suppose we shouldn't take that comparison literally?
Exactly.
Well, thanks again for your time, I’m sure your readers are realizing they will never get the last five minutes back. Any last thoughts?
Yup, despite what I wrote in ‘Hatred’, I kind of would agree with anyone who said they hated today’s post, or its writer.
Thanks for reading!
Tuesday, March 31, 2020
Monday, March 30, 2020
proper corona admin - vol 8
Hi readers,
The Corona Lockdown continues on!
Any good recommendations from the weekend?
No, none, but I do have a recommendation on recommendations - look for the three-star reviews. For some reason, these are far more helpful than the gushing 5's or the spiteful 1's. If someone says about something 'I liked feature X, but I hated element Y', I have enough information to decide if it's right for me.
So are you reading three star reviews for $10 wine?
Well, those are probably ten bucks because they only get three star reviews.
I see.
Anyway, just book reviews, I'm cruising through five years of blog posts, newsletters, and end of year reading lists. The search for future TOA Book Award winners is exhaustive, and I'm doing very little actual reading. But if I emerge from lockdown with a few additions, it will have been a productive time from the limited perspective of my reading list, so I'm not worried my current lack of reading.
Wait, let's go backward, so how do you buy wine, just walk into a packy and point?
Right, more or less, it's not like the $10 wines are exactly the same, but for me the consequences of choosing poorly are irrelevant. I should just write wine reviews at this point, I think my teeth are permanently red. The clear winner thus far is Alamos Cabernet Sauvignon, I've liked it enough that I might keep buying it after all this is over.
Why wine?
Well, if I had beer, I would just drink it at all hours, because I know I can handle beer. When I drink wine, I know I'm drinking, which is important right now. Kids, I'm working from home!
It's kind of how I suspect learning how to swim is one way to increase your odds of drowning. Drinking wine is like wearing jeans to the beach.
Wait, what?
Huh?
Never mind. Are you buying other stuff?
Sort of, when they have it. I'm noticing that the stuff I tend to overbuy in good times - butter, tofu, hummus - is the stuff that is sometimes hard to find these days, at least at LOL Foods. I'm not sure why that is, although I've ruled out some kind of innate intelligence factor regarding supply and demand. I'm sure it's just an odd coincidence.
LOL Foods?
Trust me, it's a survival tactic, like I said last week someone stepped on my foot. Am I supposed to call the cops? I laughed instead, let's call it my first foray into improv comedy.
Sounds like a fascinating social life.
My social life at the moment revolves entirely around walking slowly to the store. Courtney Barnett, what a prophet, I did my laundry last Monday, too.
Honestly though, it could be worse. I'm exercising, sleeping well. I'm not here yet, but I'm definitely not here, either.
No touching!
I'd love to add no bees, but for now I do have honey.
And I guess I am on a couch...
At least you are leaving the apartment?
True, slow walks, runs, laundry, all good activities. I think I need to start doing a morning walk.
You've been promising a post about routines, surely you have the time to actually write it?
I'm almost there, the challenge is to actually lock into a routine. Honestly, I'd love to write it, but I just don't have the routine yet. Maybe end of the week.
Anything else?
Just a couple programming notes to wrap up, I'll have some stuff going up soon that is 'corona inspired', I'll leave it with the same 'proper corona admin' label but use a roman numeral to differentiate it from these (dull, dull) diaries. I'll consider such posts part of regular TOA programming, so those will count toward my word limits.
Second note, big announcement coming, probably on April 1.
No, it won't be a joke.
Probably.
Until then!
The Corona Lockdown continues on!
Any good recommendations from the weekend?
No, none, but I do have a recommendation on recommendations - look for the three-star reviews. For some reason, these are far more helpful than the gushing 5's or the spiteful 1's. If someone says about something 'I liked feature X, but I hated element Y', I have enough information to decide if it's right for me.
So are you reading three star reviews for $10 wine?
Well, those are probably ten bucks because they only get three star reviews.
I see.
Anyway, just book reviews, I'm cruising through five years of blog posts, newsletters, and end of year reading lists. The search for future TOA Book Award winners is exhaustive, and I'm doing very little actual reading. But if I emerge from lockdown with a few additions, it will have been a productive time from the limited perspective of my reading list, so I'm not worried my current lack of reading.
Wait, let's go backward, so how do you buy wine, just walk into a packy and point?
Right, more or less, it's not like the $10 wines are exactly the same, but for me the consequences of choosing poorly are irrelevant. I should just write wine reviews at this point, I think my teeth are permanently red. The clear winner thus far is Alamos Cabernet Sauvignon, I've liked it enough that I might keep buying it after all this is over.
Why wine?
Well, if I had beer, I would just drink it at all hours, because I know I can handle beer. When I drink wine, I know I'm drinking, which is important right now. Kids, I'm working from home!
It's kind of how I suspect learning how to swim is one way to increase your odds of drowning. Drinking wine is like wearing jeans to the beach.
Wait, what?
Huh?
Never mind. Are you buying other stuff?
Sort of, when they have it. I'm noticing that the stuff I tend to overbuy in good times - butter, tofu, hummus - is the stuff that is sometimes hard to find these days, at least at LOL Foods. I'm not sure why that is, although I've ruled out some kind of innate intelligence factor regarding supply and demand. I'm sure it's just an odd coincidence.
LOL Foods?
Trust me, it's a survival tactic, like I said last week someone stepped on my foot. Am I supposed to call the cops? I laughed instead, let's call it my first foray into improv comedy.
Sounds like a fascinating social life.
My social life at the moment revolves entirely around walking slowly to the store. Courtney Barnett, what a prophet, I did my laundry last Monday, too.
Honestly though, it could be worse. I'm exercising, sleeping well. I'm not here yet, but I'm definitely not here, either.
No touching!
I'd love to add no bees, but for now I do have honey.
And I guess I am on a couch...
At least you are leaving the apartment?
True, slow walks, runs, laundry, all good activities. I think I need to start doing a morning walk.
You've been promising a post about routines, surely you have the time to actually write it?
I'm almost there, the challenge is to actually lock into a routine. Honestly, I'd love to write it, but I just don't have the routine yet. Maybe end of the week.
Anything else?
Just a couple programming notes to wrap up, I'll have some stuff going up soon that is 'corona inspired', I'll leave it with the same 'proper corona admin' label but use a roman numeral to differentiate it from these (dull, dull) diaries. I'll consider such posts part of regular TOA programming, so those will count toward my word limits.
Second note, big announcement coming, probably on April 1.
No, it won't be a joke.
Probably.
Until then!
Sunday, March 29, 2020
hatred, part 2
So a friend casually mentioned this post the other day, which immediately prompted me to go back and have a second look. Was it really so good (or so bad) to merit a second mention? What was it even about? I could barely recall.
My rereading exercise was inconclusive, but it did raise a new thought – was my thinking too literally about the word ‘hatred’ a fundamental flaw of the essay? Obviously, anyone who would comment to a stranger that they ‘hated’ authors of popular nonfiction books wasn’t the sort of person who spent two hours a day carefully repairing sentences. Piling on French fries doesn't reveal a buffet diner's disdain for health; it’s the fact of being at a buffet in the first place.
The larger problem in ‘Hatred’ is that it demonstrates a worldview validated by people who cannot help but assess others using a personal set of values. Specifically, the post suggests that people who value precise word choice apply the standard to judge others. I don’t know if this applies universally, although I do know that some educated people will use something like a grammar error to look down on others. What I found surprising when I reread my work was that I came off like someone whose own standard for precision justified applying the same attention to detail when understanding someone else’s speech.
The problem is that I’ve never perceived myself in this way. I’ve spent quite a bit of time around bilingual or nonnative English speakers, certainly more than the average person, and have always understood that the work of listening begins when the words fall short. I think this explains my long fondness for lousy puns as it does my militant support for certain books. I’m sure the way I’ve turned out would be no surprise to whoever had the privilege of teaching me during my few weeks in a first-grade ESL class.
And yet, ‘Hatred’ – what happened? I believe my own strengths turned against me. Instead of simply identifying a misuse of the word and thinking about what a stranger meant by ‘hating’ a book, I went the other way and accepted the remark at face value. The rest of the essay reads like me trying to talk someone down from a tall, unprotected ledge – don’t hate, hatred is bad! Not everyone on the roof is thinking about jumping.
My rereading exercise was inconclusive, but it did raise a new thought – was my thinking too literally about the word ‘hatred’ a fundamental flaw of the essay? Obviously, anyone who would comment to a stranger that they ‘hated’ authors of popular nonfiction books wasn’t the sort of person who spent two hours a day carefully repairing sentences. Piling on French fries doesn't reveal a buffet diner's disdain for health; it’s the fact of being at a buffet in the first place.
The larger problem in ‘Hatred’ is that it demonstrates a worldview validated by people who cannot help but assess others using a personal set of values. Specifically, the post suggests that people who value precise word choice apply the standard to judge others. I don’t know if this applies universally, although I do know that some educated people will use something like a grammar error to look down on others. What I found surprising when I reread my work was that I came off like someone whose own standard for precision justified applying the same attention to detail when understanding someone else’s speech.
The problem is that I’ve never perceived myself in this way. I’ve spent quite a bit of time around bilingual or nonnative English speakers, certainly more than the average person, and have always understood that the work of listening begins when the words fall short. I think this explains my long fondness for lousy puns as it does my militant support for certain books. I’m sure the way I’ve turned out would be no surprise to whoever had the privilege of teaching me during my few weeks in a first-grade ESL class.
And yet, ‘Hatred’ – what happened? I believe my own strengths turned against me. Instead of simply identifying a misuse of the word and thinking about what a stranger meant by ‘hating’ a book, I went the other way and accepted the remark at face value. The rest of the essay reads like me trying to talk someone down from a tall, unprotected ledge – don’t hate, hatred is bad! Not everyone on the roof is thinking about jumping.
Saturday, March 28, 2020
proper corona admin - vol 7
Surely, you've run out of stupid things to say?
So last week I mentioned Trump calling this corona business the 'Chinese Virus', I decided instead of just sitting around moaning like the rest of Blue Taxachusetts I should do something productive and come up with a better name for it. After seconds of deliberation, I got it - the 'Millennial Virus'.
Think about it, if us millennials were in the Bible, this would be it - a virus that you can beat, easily, by staying inside and avoiding people... except we've all spent the last decade willingly handing over our attention spans, making this task essentially impossible.
Way to be a team player.
I came up with a public service announcement.
Fine.
Stop showering.
What?
Stop showering. No one is going to come within six feet of you if you smell like-
OK, we get it.
-a six pack of sweaty Corona.
Yup, got it. So no hygiene?
I actually probably should scale it back, my hands are evidence of my commitment. One of the weird things about a pandemic is that I imagine millions of people are having small, irrelevant problems that in the context of a pandemic remain irrelevant, but are still very real annoyances, inconveniences, or concerns.
For me, it's just rubbish skin, and now I've got a problem on my hands. But, like I said, in the grand scheme of things dry skin or staying inside or a social life built entirely around slow walks to the grocery store, these are no matter.
So, did you leave the apartment at all?
I did, but I got out late, and that's odd because these days I'm only late for virtual meetings. But for some reason, after I found this clip of U2 covering Johnny Cash's 'The Wanderer' I just had to listen to it a second, third, and fourth time.
Until next time, stay safe, and sane, out or in there.
So last week I mentioned Trump calling this corona business the 'Chinese Virus', I decided instead of just sitting around moaning like the rest of Blue Taxachusetts I should do something productive and come up with a better name for it. After seconds of deliberation, I got it - the 'Millennial Virus'.
Think about it, if us millennials were in the Bible, this would be it - a virus that you can beat, easily, by staying inside and avoiding people... except we've all spent the last decade willingly handing over our attention spans, making this task essentially impossible.
Way to be a team player.
I came up with a public service announcement.
Fine.
Stop showering.
What?
Stop showering. No one is going to come within six feet of you if you smell like-
OK, we get it.
-a six pack of sweaty Corona.
Yup, got it. So no hygiene?
I actually probably should scale it back, my hands are evidence of my commitment. One of the weird things about a pandemic is that I imagine millions of people are having small, irrelevant problems that in the context of a pandemic remain irrelevant, but are still very real annoyances, inconveniences, or concerns.
For me, it's just rubbish skin, and now I've got a problem on my hands. But, like I said, in the grand scheme of things dry skin or staying inside or a social life built entirely around slow walks to the grocery store, these are no matter.
So, did you leave the apartment at all?
I did, but I got out late, and that's odd because these days I'm only late for virtual meetings. But for some reason, after I found this clip of U2 covering Johnny Cash's 'The Wanderer' I just had to listen to it a second, third, and fourth time.
Until next time, stay safe, and sane, out or in there.
Friday, March 27, 2020
proper corona admin - vol 6
Well, back to corona talk... any highlights?
I think the local Whole Foods must be for particularly clueless people, someone actually stepped on my foot on Monday.
Did it hurt?
What? I don't care-
It was a joke!
This isn't the time for jokes, but if you must, I got one for you.
Uhhh...
I tell ya, I don't get no respect, I finally go looking for God, the church tells me "we're closed".
This isn't the time to incur God's wrath.
It's OK, I'm charmed these days, I mean explosions just happened on my block, like I literally used to walk past that manhole twice a day, and although I thought that was all she wrote for me, I made it, I'm here, so I know I have luck on my side.
OK, so you are listening to old Rodney Dangerfield clips, dodging debris, what else is keeping you entertained? I imagine you are setting a new reading record?
No books, no reading to speak of except right before bed, I think most folks assume I read a lot but as it turns out I just take the T a lot, and I read on the T.
So... what are you doing?
Well, I'm basically catching up on five years of internet. Do you know about Reddit?
Oh goodness.
I did hit me just the other day that we have, at least, two more weeks of this, and as of writing Governor Baker announced schools are shuttered through April, so I bet it's at least a month.
It's going to be a long time...
Any final thoughts?
I only listened to the first three minutes but I think I'll recommend this podcast anyway. It's from More or Less, a TOA staple, and has some good insight into the statistics behind the pandemic. Lasting thought - getting sick with this is like cramming a year's worth of mortality risk into two weeks, which is a really useful way to envision the problem.
Thanks for reading, stay safe, stay sane, and see you tomorrow.
I think the local Whole Foods must be for particularly clueless people, someone actually stepped on my foot on Monday.
Did it hurt?
What? I don't care-
It was a joke!
This isn't the time for jokes, but if you must, I got one for you.
Uhhh...
I tell ya, I don't get no respect, I finally go looking for God, the church tells me "we're closed".
This isn't the time to incur God's wrath.
It's OK, I'm charmed these days, I mean explosions just happened on my block, like I literally used to walk past that manhole twice a day, and although I thought that was all she wrote for me, I made it, I'm here, so I know I have luck on my side.
OK, so you are listening to old Rodney Dangerfield clips, dodging debris, what else is keeping you entertained? I imagine you are setting a new reading record?
No books, no reading to speak of except right before bed, I think most folks assume I read a lot but as it turns out I just take the T a lot, and I read on the T.
So... what are you doing?
Well, I'm basically catching up on five years of internet. Do you know about Reddit?
Oh goodness.
I did hit me just the other day that we have, at least, two more weeks of this, and as of writing Governor Baker announced schools are shuttered through April, so I bet it's at least a month.
It's going to be a long time...
Any final thoughts?
I only listened to the first three minutes but I think I'll recommend this podcast anyway. It's from More or Less, a TOA staple, and has some good insight into the statistics behind the pandemic. Lasting thought - getting sick with this is like cramming a year's worth of mortality risk into two weeks, which is a really useful way to envision the problem.
Thanks for reading, stay safe, stay sane, and see you tomorrow.
Thursday, March 26, 2020
leftovers #2 - running running, back back, to chelsea, chelsea
My recent comparison of my problem solving approach to a helmet football position made me think back to this post where I described my different cycling strategies in the context of those same positions. I looked back at that post and pulled together the following notes.
First things…
I posted this four days before Superbowl Sunday, which says an awful lot about how I thought my readers were interacting with TOA. The idea that a post related to helmet football would be the best use of space reserved for 'Tales of Two Cities' is the twisted logic of the pregame show for the pregame show, not for a tiny operation at the fringes of the dark web.
I remember using this approach for quite a while, perhaps the first two or three years. Over time, I got away from 'timely' posts. There’s no problem with posting something America-related on July 4, it’s just that if I were to come up with a recipe for bad writing, I would include ‘committing to a bad idea’ right at the top of the ingredients list. If you have nothing to say about trees, don’t decide in advance to write about foliage for Arbor Day.
Life notes
The helmet football game didn't turn out to be very memorable (my opinion). However, if my memory serves me correctly, it was just one year prior that I took my first early AM hospice volunteer shift. I enjoyed Sunday 8-10AM slot during the few months I held the responsibility. In particular, I remember the perfect stillness throughout the bike ride north, a silent and sleeping Cambridge being slowly brought to life under the cold sun, a scene I’d never witnessed during the year I lived in Central Square.
I gave up the shift when I admitted something important to myself – I’m not a morning person. I was confused about this for many years because I long considered myself a morning person due to my capacity for waking up early and being productive. But a closer examination of my 'accomplishments' reveals a list of straightforward tasks like running a middle distance, doing household chores, or writing out books notes. In other words, I could wake up to do admin. Tasks involving creativity, handling interruptions, or working with other people – in other words, anything important or challenging – have always better suited me later on in the day. I suspect my peak productivity zone is from 11AM – 7PM, the range perhaps moving a couple hours earlier if I woke up with the sun.
Best lines
OK, enough about me, let’s look at the post, here are my favorite lines:
An inexperienced quarterback forced to scan the entire field looks a lot like yours truly trying to sort out the intersection in Porter Square. By cutting down the field of vision in half, there is less to worry about and safe decisions are easier to make for bikers - or quarterbacks - of any experience level.
Porter Square made some significant changes over the past two years that have invalidated this analogy. These days, you essentially get a police escort through the intersection if you are patient enough to wait for the lights. The only remaining obstacle (not surprisingly) is jaywalking.
In summary, a good bike rider never passes on the right and is always ready to stop.
Nice and simple, this should be posted on the handlebars of every bike.
Are any fellows riders lurching out into the intersection, doing that weird thing where they move their legs back and forth on the pedals, as if the very act of touching the pavement with their foot would immediately cause a lightning bolt to strike them square on the forehead?
I think we've all seen this? It's like when I was eight (or twelve) I used to jump from stone to stone on a sidewalk, engrossed in an imagination that had turned the cracks into lava.
It is true in most of these cases that the bike rider has the right of way but I'm not sure if anyone hanging out up there by the pearly gates is going to be very interested.
This might be Newton's 5th Law, if he lived in Cambridge - an object powered by fossil fuels can temporarily exert a force on a bicycle if it turns left directly in front of the oncoming bike, forcing it to a frustrating yet necessary stop.
Cringe mode
And on the other side, here are some snippets I’d like to revise or remove:
You know what, reader? Sometimes, it just doesn't happen. The rooster forgets to crow, the bread fails to rise, the belt refuses to buckle, and life just goes on, whether your pants are on or not.
See note above about what happens when you commit to a gimmick for your post.
The move here is to hit the car first. Crashing into a visible car or a door is preferred to being hit from behind by a fast-moving threat. If the rider controls the collision, there is little risk of being thrown into the street and being dragged underneath a moving car. The best way to do it is to get low, if possible, to lower the risk of flipping over, and aim for the back end of the vehicle if possible to limit exposure to the wheels.
I kind of still believe this, but posting an untested thought among other pieces of grounded advice was irresponsible. Luckily, no one reads TOA.
Final thought
This was a decent post, I’m happy with how the playful slant softened some serious ideas and broadly speaking I like the gimmick. The challenges weren’t surprising, given how many position there are in helmet football length was always a concern and as usual I could have done more to cut down the final product. The main lesson from this post is that gimmicks force a certain conformity and therefore unless I really want to write about every position, I should probably explore other ways to express the same ideas.
Overall TOA ranking - 65th percentile
First things…
I posted this four days before Superbowl Sunday, which says an awful lot about how I thought my readers were interacting with TOA. The idea that a post related to helmet football would be the best use of space reserved for 'Tales of Two Cities' is the twisted logic of the pregame show for the pregame show, not for a tiny operation at the fringes of the dark web.
I remember using this approach for quite a while, perhaps the first two or three years. Over time, I got away from 'timely' posts. There’s no problem with posting something America-related on July 4, it’s just that if I were to come up with a recipe for bad writing, I would include ‘committing to a bad idea’ right at the top of the ingredients list. If you have nothing to say about trees, don’t decide in advance to write about foliage for Arbor Day.
Life notes
The helmet football game didn't turn out to be very memorable (my opinion). However, if my memory serves me correctly, it was just one year prior that I took my first early AM hospice volunteer shift. I enjoyed Sunday 8-10AM slot during the few months I held the responsibility. In particular, I remember the perfect stillness throughout the bike ride north, a silent and sleeping Cambridge being slowly brought to life under the cold sun, a scene I’d never witnessed during the year I lived in Central Square.
I gave up the shift when I admitted something important to myself – I’m not a morning person. I was confused about this for many years because I long considered myself a morning person due to my capacity for waking up early and being productive. But a closer examination of my 'accomplishments' reveals a list of straightforward tasks like running a middle distance, doing household chores, or writing out books notes. In other words, I could wake up to do admin. Tasks involving creativity, handling interruptions, or working with other people – in other words, anything important or challenging – have always better suited me later on in the day. I suspect my peak productivity zone is from 11AM – 7PM, the range perhaps moving a couple hours earlier if I woke up with the sun.
Best lines
OK, enough about me, let’s look at the post, here are my favorite lines:
An inexperienced quarterback forced to scan the entire field looks a lot like yours truly trying to sort out the intersection in Porter Square. By cutting down the field of vision in half, there is less to worry about and safe decisions are easier to make for bikers - or quarterbacks - of any experience level.
Porter Square made some significant changes over the past two years that have invalidated this analogy. These days, you essentially get a police escort through the intersection if you are patient enough to wait for the lights. The only remaining obstacle (not surprisingly) is jaywalking.
In summary, a good bike rider never passes on the right and is always ready to stop.
Nice and simple, this should be posted on the handlebars of every bike.
Are any fellows riders lurching out into the intersection, doing that weird thing where they move their legs back and forth on the pedals, as if the very act of touching the pavement with their foot would immediately cause a lightning bolt to strike them square on the forehead?
I think we've all seen this? It's like when I was eight (or twelve) I used to jump from stone to stone on a sidewalk, engrossed in an imagination that had turned the cracks into lava.
It is true in most of these cases that the bike rider has the right of way but I'm not sure if anyone hanging out up there by the pearly gates is going to be very interested.
This might be Newton's 5th Law, if he lived in Cambridge - an object powered by fossil fuels can temporarily exert a force on a bicycle if it turns left directly in front of the oncoming bike, forcing it to a frustrating yet necessary stop.
Cringe mode
And on the other side, here are some snippets I’d like to revise or remove:
You know what, reader? Sometimes, it just doesn't happen. The rooster forgets to crow, the bread fails to rise, the belt refuses to buckle, and life just goes on, whether your pants are on or not.
See note above about what happens when you commit to a gimmick for your post.
The move here is to hit the car first. Crashing into a visible car or a door is preferred to being hit from behind by a fast-moving threat. If the rider controls the collision, there is little risk of being thrown into the street and being dragged underneath a moving car. The best way to do it is to get low, if possible, to lower the risk of flipping over, and aim for the back end of the vehicle if possible to limit exposure to the wheels.
I kind of still believe this, but posting an untested thought among other pieces of grounded advice was irresponsible. Luckily, no one reads TOA.
Final thought
This was a decent post, I’m happy with how the playful slant softened some serious ideas and broadly speaking I like the gimmick. The challenges weren’t surprising, given how many position there are in helmet football length was always a concern and as usual I could have done more to cut down the final product. The main lesson from this post is that gimmicks force a certain conformity and therefore unless I really want to write about every position, I should probably explore other ways to express the same ideas.
Overall TOA ranking - 65th percentile
Wednesday, March 25, 2020
proper corona admin - vol 5
One of these days I'll get around to writing about my new CORONA routine but despite the presumed monotony of being at home for almost all hours of the day I've yet to have the pleasure of boredom. Today really took the cake, I spoke to around three hundred people via a video conference (on my flip phone!) before several manhole explosions on my block left me wondering if the world was indeed coming to an end.
My guess is that I will eventually settle into some kind of Dullsville and run out of ideas for this update. One of the first items on my writing list for such a moment is a look at my new routine. Longtime readers will know that, in general, I think a routine is a great idea, but in these challenging times I've seen the same sentiment expressed in droves up and down the information superhighway.
One angle to routines that I have not seen discussed in much detail is the opportunity presented by disruption to discard the unwanted. Most folks in these parts are being told to stay in, stay away, and stay patient, perhaps using the time to try something new. In fact, this is the most common form of advice I've seen - tackle those projects, start that hobby, take advantage now and wrap up all that stuff you've been putting off.
But don't overlook the other form of opportunity presented by disruption. There is a reason you haven't done any of those things on your list yet. I suggest looking instead at those things that, out of force of habit or lifestyle, you've left in your life for far longer than necessary. I think this is the moment to take stock, think about what to throw away, and consider how to take advantage of the current situation so that you can make changes that last when we finally return to normalcy.
My guess is that I will eventually settle into some kind of Dullsville and run out of ideas for this update. One of the first items on my writing list for such a moment is a look at my new routine. Longtime readers will know that, in general, I think a routine is a great idea, but in these challenging times I've seen the same sentiment expressed in droves up and down the information superhighway.
One angle to routines that I have not seen discussed in much detail is the opportunity presented by disruption to discard the unwanted. Most folks in these parts are being told to stay in, stay away, and stay patient, perhaps using the time to try something new. In fact, this is the most common form of advice I've seen - tackle those projects, start that hobby, take advantage now and wrap up all that stuff you've been putting off.
But don't overlook the other form of opportunity presented by disruption. There is a reason you haven't done any of those things on your list yet. I suggest looking instead at those things that, out of force of habit or lifestyle, you've left in your life for far longer than necessary. I think this is the moment to take stock, think about what to throw away, and consider how to take advantage of the current situation so that you can make changes that last when we finally return to normalcy.
Tuesday, March 24, 2020
leftovers - running running, back back, to chelsea, chelsea
This post started because I thought of myself as a running back. But am I sure? I did my due diligence and considered the ways other positions solve problems.
Here’s my breakdown along with some thoughts on why I felt I wasn’t a good fit:
Quarterback – charismatic, over-prepared, looks the part, ruthlessly pursues the goal
-I prefer an independent approach
-My ‘charisma’ is hardly vocal
-‘Looks the part’ (lol)
-I abandon the goal if it puts teammates in harm’s way
Wide receiver – obedient, precise, independent
-I tend to improvise along the way
-I trade precision for expedience
-In 2018, a friend told me - ‘Obedience isn’t your strong suit.’
Offensive line – team-oriented, defines milestones, holds others accountable,
-I don’t define teamwork as ‘everyone does their share’
-Milestones have no meaning to me
-Being strength-driven, accountability means lack of growth rather than failed assignments
Tight end / fullback
I skipped these due to the hybrid nature of these positions – tight ends are like a combination of wide receiver and offensive line, fullbacks a combination of running back and offensive line. I don't fit the offensive line, so I couldn’t fit in a role that includes its basic characteristics.
Defense
The defensive side solves problems as they arise and this is similar to the running back. However, there is a proactive aspect in my mentality that is better suited to the offensive positions.
Let’s use the classic firefighting analogy. A firefighter would fit a defensive position (probably safety) because they respond to visible emergencies. A fire safety officer (likely wide receiver) tries to reduce the number of fires in the future. As I try to get ahead of undefined problems, I feel I’m a better fit on the offensive side.
Special teams
Special teams are too, uh, specialized to be a good fit for me. Each position has specific responsibilities with highly defined sets of best practices, leaving little to no room for innovation.
Here’s my breakdown along with some thoughts on why I felt I wasn’t a good fit:
Quarterback – charismatic, over-prepared, looks the part, ruthlessly pursues the goal
-I prefer an independent approach
-My ‘charisma’ is hardly vocal
-‘Looks the part’ (lol)
-I abandon the goal if it puts teammates in harm’s way
Wide receiver – obedient, precise, independent
-I tend to improvise along the way
-I trade precision for expedience
-In 2018, a friend told me - ‘Obedience isn’t your strong suit.’
Offensive line – team-oriented, defines milestones, holds others accountable,
-I don’t define teamwork as ‘everyone does their share’
-Milestones have no meaning to me
-Being strength-driven, accountability means lack of growth rather than failed assignments
Tight end / fullback
I skipped these due to the hybrid nature of these positions – tight ends are like a combination of wide receiver and offensive line, fullbacks a combination of running back and offensive line. I don't fit the offensive line, so I couldn’t fit in a role that includes its basic characteristics.
Defense
The defensive side solves problems as they arise and this is similar to the running back. However, there is a proactive aspect in my mentality that is better suited to the offensive positions.
Let’s use the classic firefighting analogy. A firefighter would fit a defensive position (probably safety) because they respond to visible emergencies. A fire safety officer (likely wide receiver) tries to reduce the number of fires in the future. As I try to get ahead of undefined problems, I feel I’m a better fit on the offensive side.
Special teams
Special teams are too, uh, specialized to be a good fit for me. Each position has specific responsibilities with highly defined sets of best practices, leaving little to no room for innovation.
Monday, March 23, 2020
proper corona admin - vol 4
So, we missed yesterday. Any new thoughts?
Better six feet apart than six feet under.
Oh dear.
Look, I was tired, I went for a five mile run but I probably traveled twenty miles zipping around folks, people just seem to like being glued together.
You went out?
I'm a walking PSA, I didn't come within six feet of anyone unless they managed to sneak up on me. If you go running at a time like this, you need to slow down a little, and do a bit more footwork. It's like returning a punt, or dancing.
It's hard to tell if you've lost your mind yet.
I'm still doing regular things, like coming up with fake Onion headlines.
Here's one - townspeople flock to the streets to celebrate end of quarantine, return inside after ten minutes
That looks a little too meaty to be just a headline.
I'm actually a bit concerned for those folks, their fake headlines lost a little value since Trump got going, and now with this corona business I don't think anyone is in the mood.
OK, any other media highlights?
I thought it was interesting to read this article after hearing this podcast - if you combine the article with a couple of the predictions made in the EconTalk episode, the future is going to be all about the far left, unless of course it's all about the far right.
I do think it's interesting that the policies being enacted now have elements of both ends of the political spectrum, sometimes with a blurred relationship between supporters and ideology. The Trump administration, for example, is pushing for policies closely resembling Universal Basic Income, while the lack of any major outcry against the strict border control measures from the states and municipalities associated with dark blue support was unimaginable just a month ago. The only certainty regarding politics is that everyone disagrees with me.
I hope we reach a point soon where analyzing some of this will feel appropriate, but at the moment I think I should just note it and move on.
Last words for today?
I heard at the end of last week that a friend's father passed away. It wasn't directly related to you-know-what but the situation created complications with visitation and remains an obstacle for memorial services. I took in the news and got back to work.
A few minutes later, this song came on and I burst into tears. I can only remember this happening one other time - the tears were a mystery then, but I understood this time.
Everyone hang in there, and talk to each other.
Better six feet apart than six feet under.
Oh dear.
Look, I was tired, I went for a five mile run but I probably traveled twenty miles zipping around folks, people just seem to like being glued together.
You went out?
I'm a walking PSA, I didn't come within six feet of anyone unless they managed to sneak up on me. If you go running at a time like this, you need to slow down a little, and do a bit more footwork. It's like returning a punt, or dancing.
It's hard to tell if you've lost your mind yet.
I'm still doing regular things, like coming up with fake Onion headlines.
Here's one - townspeople flock to the streets to celebrate end of quarantine, return inside after ten minutes
That looks a little too meaty to be just a headline.
I'm actually a bit concerned for those folks, their fake headlines lost a little value since Trump got going, and now with this corona business I don't think anyone is in the mood.
OK, any other media highlights?
I thought it was interesting to read this article after hearing this podcast - if you combine the article with a couple of the predictions made in the EconTalk episode, the future is going to be all about the far left, unless of course it's all about the far right.
I do think it's interesting that the policies being enacted now have elements of both ends of the political spectrum, sometimes with a blurred relationship between supporters and ideology. The Trump administration, for example, is pushing for policies closely resembling Universal Basic Income, while the lack of any major outcry against the strict border control measures from the states and municipalities associated with dark blue support was unimaginable just a month ago. The only certainty regarding politics is that everyone disagrees with me.
I hope we reach a point soon where analyzing some of this will feel appropriate, but at the moment I think I should just note it and move on.
Last words for today?
I heard at the end of last week that a friend's father passed away. It wasn't directly related to you-know-what but the situation created complications with visitation and remains an obstacle for memorial services. I took in the news and got back to work.
A few minutes later, this song came on and I burst into tears. I can only remember this happening one other time - the tears were a mystery then, but I understood this time.
Everyone hang in there, and talk to each other.
Sunday, March 22, 2020
running running, back back, to chelsea, chelsea
My daily commute has two parts. First, I walk through Beacon Hill to Arlington Station. Then, I board the Green Line going west, making sure to get the ‘D’ train that runs to Brookline Village, my eventual destination. On some mornings, I arrive at Arlington and make a peculiar choice – instead of waiting for the ‘D’ train, I board the ‘B’ or ‘C’ and take it to Kenmore, the last stop before the trains separate into unique tracks. I do this because I know from decades of using the ‘T’ that sometimes an unannounced ‘D’ train will start at Kenmore, often to make up for a delayed train. A couple of times in the past few months, I’ve boarded a fresh ‘D’ train at Kenmore alone, eventually arriving at work a few minutes earlier than those I left behind at Arlington.
This tactic demonstrates my broader approach to solving problems. I almost always take things as close to the solution as possible, moving forward until I encounter an obvious obstacle. The helmet football analogy is to a running back, running as far as possible until stopped. I see the value of plans, itineraries, and procedures, but I prefer a faster method, quickly identifying a promising approach and committing my perseverance, preparation, and instincts to get me as close as possible to the goal.
No approach beats another – it’s more a question of finding the best method for solving a given type of problem. I tend to do well with messy, vague, or ever-changing problems. I manage discomfort, invent novel techniques, and battle through setbacks (1). My style is a poor fit for many situations, including but not limited to park cleanups, cooking from a recipe, or succeeding in a large corporation (editor's note - also add 'pandemics' to this list). When you know how to do it, don’t get me involved. The Amish would hand me a smart phone and tell me to buggy-off after my first barn raising.
The ‘T’ is like my training gym for these skills, presenting me with an endless array of messy, vague, and ever-changing problems. Just the other day, I made a Friday night trip to Chelsea that was like a final exam for Mass Transit 101. (10 points - describe how to reach Chelsea, located across the harbor, and arrive at your destination, which is only indirectly serviced by multiple bus routes.) My options included the Blue Line, which would link me to the several bus options at Maverick, or catching a bus from Haymarket. The Maverick buses ran only every fifteen to thirty minutes but would take me closest to my destination. The sole Haymarket option ran every few minutes but forced a longer walk through Chelsea. Further complicating the calculus was my not having a smart phone (no phones in the exam room) and my specific Green Line terminating short of Haymarket.
I headed east from Brookline Village with a printout map of Chelsea. My first decision was to stay on the train for as long as possible. I knew from experience – see above – that schedules change quickly on the ‘T’. Might some combination of delays, luck, or conductor impulse see my train extended beyond the original terminus, Government Center? I could always reassess if nothing happened, but of course it did, perhaps the adjustment surprising the tourists or BU first-years. I switched over to the Haymarket bus without incident and soon enough we were barreling over the Tobin Bridge toward Chelsea.
The next decision was when to get off the bus. Riding the bus in broad daylight over familiar pavement is challenging enough – I was in the dark on an unfamiliar path. I exercised my cartography skills and noted that the bus was on one of Chelsea’s main roads, wandering vaguely toward my destination. I decided to get off and walk as soon as the bus turned off this main road. A few minutes later, we turned left. When I returned on foot to the main road, I crossed and walked on the right hand side even though my destination was on the left. This allowed me to occasionally turn back and see if one of those infrequent buses from Maverick was approaching – with some luck, I could get on the bus and take it a little closer to my destination. I admit it would have made for a nice ending to this story if I’d indeed caught a bus, but I ended up walking the last fifteen minutes without further incident.
Not the most compelling story ever told, but that’s kind of how it goes with this approach. I usually go one step at a time and end up doing simple things. On the surface, there is very little going on. As I noted above, a lot of problems would suffer if those in charge had my attitude – let’s just start working on it, and see. But I wouldn’t trade my approach for any other. My philosophy is a bit unusual but it gives me an advantage when I’m faced with a complex, confusing challenge. The biggest step in these cases often involves getting started despite uncertainty, but I’m used to that from a lifetime of practice.
I also think it protects me from competition, the prospect of being a ‘running back’ generally unappealing to the average person. It’s possible that natural running backs deliberately abandon their method for something else, perhaps seduced by the promise of planning, but I think it’s a one-way street, I don’t think the natural planners become running backs. So over time, experienced running backs tend to go away, but since they aren't replaced by experienced planners becoming running backs, I end up quickly accumulating relative expertise within my cohort of problem-solvers. I see it as one of my most valuable skills.
The big question is, if this skill is as valuable as I claim, can it be taught or learned? I don’t think so, partly because I haven’t seen any examples but mostly because it seems like one of those ingrained habits that get stomped out of us as we grow up. Aren’t all babies running backs, at least in the sense of how they solve problems? They just crawl around until they become uncomfortable, then they start yelling. I guess that’s the story, because growing up is the process of encountering discomfort, then learning how to avoid it in the future through your experience and agency. The issue is that it guides us naturally away from the running back approach because the entire method is premised on being able to forge on through discomfort to solve the problem. It leaves me with a parting thought – though this skill cannot be taught or learned, it can be cultivated, and done so by becoming increasingly tolerant of discomfort.
Footnotes / endnotes
0. If you fail to plan…
I have no axe to grind against planning. There is a point, however, when plans become ideas that aren’t good enough to implement to right away. In these moments, you still might need to do something, but you won’t know what to do. So what do you do?
I guess you go find a running back.
1. Other running back characteristics
Like a running back, I’m often asked to respond quickly to sudden obstacles. If others make errors, I have to think on my feet and find ways to keep moving forward. I have a relatively high tolerance for pain and often deal head-on with crumbling, hopeless situations. I’m versatile enough to handle multiple tasks but prefer to exercise my versatility selectively, applying the most appropriate set of skills for the specific problem at hand. I rely heavily on teammates to get started but often contribute the most when I follow my instincts to the frontiers of the mission. I’m a leader through example but my teammates are reluctant to follow until they see some evidence of recent success.
This tactic demonstrates my broader approach to solving problems. I almost always take things as close to the solution as possible, moving forward until I encounter an obvious obstacle. The helmet football analogy is to a running back, running as far as possible until stopped. I see the value of plans, itineraries, and procedures, but I prefer a faster method, quickly identifying a promising approach and committing my perseverance, preparation, and instincts to get me as close as possible to the goal.
No approach beats another – it’s more a question of finding the best method for solving a given type of problem. I tend to do well with messy, vague, or ever-changing problems. I manage discomfort, invent novel techniques, and battle through setbacks (1). My style is a poor fit for many situations, including but not limited to park cleanups, cooking from a recipe, or succeeding in a large corporation (editor's note - also add 'pandemics' to this list). When you know how to do it, don’t get me involved. The Amish would hand me a smart phone and tell me to buggy-off after my first barn raising.
The ‘T’ is like my training gym for these skills, presenting me with an endless array of messy, vague, and ever-changing problems. Just the other day, I made a Friday night trip to Chelsea that was like a final exam for Mass Transit 101. (10 points - describe how to reach Chelsea, located across the harbor, and arrive at your destination, which is only indirectly serviced by multiple bus routes.) My options included the Blue Line, which would link me to the several bus options at Maverick, or catching a bus from Haymarket. The Maverick buses ran only every fifteen to thirty minutes but would take me closest to my destination. The sole Haymarket option ran every few minutes but forced a longer walk through Chelsea. Further complicating the calculus was my not having a smart phone (no phones in the exam room) and my specific Green Line terminating short of Haymarket.
I headed east from Brookline Village with a printout map of Chelsea. My first decision was to stay on the train for as long as possible. I knew from experience – see above – that schedules change quickly on the ‘T’. Might some combination of delays, luck, or conductor impulse see my train extended beyond the original terminus, Government Center? I could always reassess if nothing happened, but of course it did, perhaps the adjustment surprising the tourists or BU first-years. I switched over to the Haymarket bus without incident and soon enough we were barreling over the Tobin Bridge toward Chelsea.
The next decision was when to get off the bus. Riding the bus in broad daylight over familiar pavement is challenging enough – I was in the dark on an unfamiliar path. I exercised my cartography skills and noted that the bus was on one of Chelsea’s main roads, wandering vaguely toward my destination. I decided to get off and walk as soon as the bus turned off this main road. A few minutes later, we turned left. When I returned on foot to the main road, I crossed and walked on the right hand side even though my destination was on the left. This allowed me to occasionally turn back and see if one of those infrequent buses from Maverick was approaching – with some luck, I could get on the bus and take it a little closer to my destination. I admit it would have made for a nice ending to this story if I’d indeed caught a bus, but I ended up walking the last fifteen minutes without further incident.
Not the most compelling story ever told, but that’s kind of how it goes with this approach. I usually go one step at a time and end up doing simple things. On the surface, there is very little going on. As I noted above, a lot of problems would suffer if those in charge had my attitude – let’s just start working on it, and see. But I wouldn’t trade my approach for any other. My philosophy is a bit unusual but it gives me an advantage when I’m faced with a complex, confusing challenge. The biggest step in these cases often involves getting started despite uncertainty, but I’m used to that from a lifetime of practice.
I also think it protects me from competition, the prospect of being a ‘running back’ generally unappealing to the average person. It’s possible that natural running backs deliberately abandon their method for something else, perhaps seduced by the promise of planning, but I think it’s a one-way street, I don’t think the natural planners become running backs. So over time, experienced running backs tend to go away, but since they aren't replaced by experienced planners becoming running backs, I end up quickly accumulating relative expertise within my cohort of problem-solvers. I see it as one of my most valuable skills.
The big question is, if this skill is as valuable as I claim, can it be taught or learned? I don’t think so, partly because I haven’t seen any examples but mostly because it seems like one of those ingrained habits that get stomped out of us as we grow up. Aren’t all babies running backs, at least in the sense of how they solve problems? They just crawl around until they become uncomfortable, then they start yelling. I guess that’s the story, because growing up is the process of encountering discomfort, then learning how to avoid it in the future through your experience and agency. The issue is that it guides us naturally away from the running back approach because the entire method is premised on being able to forge on through discomfort to solve the problem. It leaves me with a parting thought – though this skill cannot be taught or learned, it can be cultivated, and done so by becoming increasingly tolerant of discomfort.
Footnotes / endnotes
0. If you fail to plan…
I have no axe to grind against planning. There is a point, however, when plans become ideas that aren’t good enough to implement to right away. In these moments, you still might need to do something, but you won’t know what to do. So what do you do?
I guess you go find a running back.
1. Other running back characteristics
Like a running back, I’m often asked to respond quickly to sudden obstacles. If others make errors, I have to think on my feet and find ways to keep moving forward. I have a relatively high tolerance for pain and often deal head-on with crumbling, hopeless situations. I’m versatile enough to handle multiple tasks but prefer to exercise my versatility selectively, applying the most appropriate set of skills for the specific problem at hand. I rely heavily on teammates to get started but often contribute the most when I follow my instincts to the frontiers of the mission. I’m a leader through example but my teammates are reluctant to follow until they see some evidence of recent success.
Saturday, March 21, 2020
proper corona admin - vol 3
Updates after week one...
Yams for days
One of the great features about HMart in Central Square is how they describe sweet potatoes - the standard orange variety is labeled 'American yam' while what everyone else calls 'Japanese yams' is labeled 'sweet potato'. Good to see someone get it right, for once.
It's been days since I set foot in Asia's public embassy (and perhaps will be weeks before I do so again). As I noted yesterday, we on Beacon Hill are doing just fine, and then some, and when it comes to root vegetable doomsday we are at least one (and perhaps two) additional pandemics away. Not so good on butter, tofu, or (hilariously) ice cream, so if these are your necessities, get out to the grocery early.
Routines
I've started to settle into a decent routine as we approach the end of the workweek, with my three "R's" of reading, writing, and running making room for remote work. More details next week during a slower round of corona admin...
For now, I'm talking to a volleyball like anyone else, and enjoying the odd podcast about old movies.
Book recommendations
One criticism of Mayor Marty, doesn't he know I need like two weeks notice before closing off the libraries? Luckily, I checked out a couple of huge books (and I'm not exactly reading all that much, anyway) so I should be good to go for a few weeks.
For those needing an idea, here's my favorite book list, something I last updated at the end of 2018. It needs revision - it seems to include books up to the end of 2016 - but it will do for a pandemic. Plus, you can always dig through my archives for thoughts on more recent reading.
Programming note
These little corona updates are fun, but life must go on. So, tomorrow will see a return to regular TOA programming, and as agreed at the start of the year I'll keep 'regular programming' limited to ~300 words per week.
What is regular programming?
Basically, anything not called 'proper corona admin'.
Is 'proper corona admin' regular programming?
Oh goodness me, I hope not.
So is there a word limit on these?
We're out of time today!
Hang in there everyone, stay safe, and thanks for reading.
Yams for days
One of the great features about HMart in Central Square is how they describe sweet potatoes - the standard orange variety is labeled 'American yam' while what everyone else calls 'Japanese yams' is labeled 'sweet potato'. Good to see someone get it right, for once.
It's been days since I set foot in Asia's public embassy (and perhaps will be weeks before I do so again). As I noted yesterday, we on Beacon Hill are doing just fine, and then some, and when it comes to root vegetable doomsday we are at least one (and perhaps two) additional pandemics away. Not so good on butter, tofu, or (hilariously) ice cream, so if these are your necessities, get out to the grocery early.
Routines
I've started to settle into a decent routine as we approach the end of the workweek, with my three "R's" of reading, writing, and running making room for remote work. More details next week during a slower round of corona admin...
For now, I'm talking to a volleyball like anyone else, and enjoying the odd podcast about old movies.
Book recommendations
One criticism of Mayor Marty, doesn't he know I need like two weeks notice before closing off the libraries? Luckily, I checked out a couple of huge books (and I'm not exactly reading all that much, anyway) so I should be good to go for a few weeks.
For those needing an idea, here's my favorite book list, something I last updated at the end of 2018. It needs revision - it seems to include books up to the end of 2016 - but it will do for a pandemic. Plus, you can always dig through my archives for thoughts on more recent reading.
Programming note
These little corona updates are fun, but life must go on. So, tomorrow will see a return to regular TOA programming, and as agreed at the start of the year I'll keep 'regular programming' limited to ~300 words per week.
What is regular programming?
Basically, anything not called 'proper corona admin'.
Is 'proper corona admin' regular programming?
Oh goodness me, I hope not.
So is there a word limit on these?
We're out of time today!
Hang in there everyone, stay safe, and thanks for reading.
Friday, March 20, 2020
proper corona admin - vol 2
Another round of corona admin!
And what is the point of these?
Best case, the data scientists of 3030 will consider these missives an important 'artifact' or 'fossil' or whatever word becomes equivalent to 'cave drawings'. Worst case, I become this era's Pillow Book.
OK, whatever, yesterday you mentioned incompetent decisions...
Right, decisions starting with but not limited to appointing Mike Pence the head of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, his qualifications including longtime opposition to needle exchange programs despite evidence that such programs prevented disease outbreaks. Perfect guy for the job. Honestly, Trump could have appointed anyone from my college Epidemiology 101 class to this role - we at least could have told him not to have news conferences with his 'task force' standing ten abreast like they were about to start rehearsals for Riverdance DC.
All the wine, is all for me...
Forgot to add yesterday - I buy only Cabernet Sauvignon. For some reason, it's the only type of wine I seem to like, sake excepted, unless '$10 per bottle' is considered a type of wine.
And sake, it caused the Chinese Virus?
I should have noted yesterday for those who've never been racially abused, reacting is like scratching at a rash, perfectly understandable and justified but you step right into the trap. A fact can be racist, which is the fact the racists don't understand, but get someone else to worry about it, and ask them why they didn't deal with it in 2019 when we had the time, or why they haven't been campaigning to rename the Spanish Flu.
It's day two, and it sounds like you've already lost your mind!
I've been persisting on Japanese yams, which were the only vegetable in full supply at Whole Foods despite no one around here not being a racist obviously. It must be a bumper crop this year.
So you have left the house?
It was interesting, Whole Foods was lighter than usual - a lot of items gone - but I went at closing, and to be fair a lot of items were left, enough to feed city blocks. My perception of the shortages is that it's a shortage of stuff people want, not need, which is a good place to be for now. I worry that the misinformation about supermarkets suggests people might be less inclined to take news about other shortages seriously, which will lead to more of the real shortages being experienced around the country.
Anyway, I suppose one way to do your part is to go at close, and buy the food that's leftover, just in case other people need what you want. (This is based on my understanding that stocking happens overnight, so adjust accordingly if I'm wrong about the schedule.)
Maybe your neighbors know you want Japanese yams?
Hang in there, and see you tomorrow...
And what is the point of these?
Best case, the data scientists of 3030 will consider these missives an important 'artifact' or 'fossil' or whatever word becomes equivalent to 'cave drawings'. Worst case, I become this era's Pillow Book.
OK, whatever, yesterday you mentioned incompetent decisions...
Right, decisions starting with but not limited to appointing Mike Pence the head of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, his qualifications including longtime opposition to needle exchange programs despite evidence that such programs prevented disease outbreaks. Perfect guy for the job. Honestly, Trump could have appointed anyone from my college Epidemiology 101 class to this role - we at least could have told him not to have news conferences with his 'task force' standing ten abreast like they were about to start rehearsals for Riverdance DC.
All the wine, is all for me...
Forgot to add yesterday - I buy only Cabernet Sauvignon. For some reason, it's the only type of wine I seem to like, sake excepted, unless '$10 per bottle' is considered a type of wine.
And sake, it caused the Chinese Virus?
I should have noted yesterday for those who've never been racially abused, reacting is like scratching at a rash, perfectly understandable and justified but you step right into the trap. A fact can be racist, which is the fact the racists don't understand, but get someone else to worry about it, and ask them why they didn't deal with it in 2019 when we had the time, or why they haven't been campaigning to rename the Spanish Flu.
It's day two, and it sounds like you've already lost your mind!
I've been persisting on Japanese yams, which were the only vegetable in full supply at Whole Foods despite no one around here not being a racist obviously. It must be a bumper crop this year.
So you have left the house?
It was interesting, Whole Foods was lighter than usual - a lot of items gone - but I went at closing, and to be fair a lot of items were left, enough to feed city blocks. My perception of the shortages is that it's a shortage of stuff people want, not need, which is a good place to be for now. I worry that the misinformation about supermarkets suggests people might be less inclined to take news about other shortages seriously, which will lead to more of the real shortages being experienced around the country.
Anyway, I suppose one way to do your part is to go at close, and buy the food that's leftover, just in case other people need what you want. (This is based on my understanding that stocking happens overnight, so adjust accordingly if I'm wrong about the schedule.)
Maybe your neighbors know you want Japanese yams?
Hang in there, and see you tomorrow...
Thursday, March 19, 2020
proper corona admin - vol 1
Now that I'm in basic isolation for the foreseeable future, I thought I would wrap up each night with thoughts from the pandemic.
The format will be familiar to longtime readers...
News from the front
Boston Mayor Marty Walsh and Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker have been front and center over the past week or so, sharing near daily updates about the outbreak. One thing I've realized is that they make kind of an interesting match - Mayor Marty does a great job at telling us what to do while the Gov excels at telling us what not to do.
I'm sure there's an interesting political analysis here - something about a Republican governor moving cautiously in a dark blue state (draconian!), or about the Bostonian creating unity and driving collective action. I'm not doing that analysis, so gentlemen: reverse those roles at your own risk, and keep up the good work.
News from HQ
Now, my favorite guy in DC, whole different story, but gives me a chance to bring out the Business Bro in me - as Amazon notes in their core principles, disagree and commit. As in, disagree with Trump all you like, and commit to the collective goal the President has set for the country, which I'm sure he posted to Twitter.
Shouldn't you do more than 'disagree' about the Chinese Virus?
No. An angry reaction is his goal, not mine.
Ah, Business Bro, and his beloved goals...
My goal is to stay informed so I can do my part to beat the virus. His goal, at least as it pertains to the Chinese Virus, seems to include distracting people from his incompetent decisions.
Incompetent decisions? You mean he left the White House?
Well, whatever, enough for day one, maybe tomorrow.
Look folks, it's not good to stockpile, but I will admit that I've been buying two bottles of $10 wine per day. It's a good way to get out, support local business, blah blah blah, God is on my side, and you know what just sing along with me.
Stay safe in there, and see you all tomorrow.
The format will be familiar to longtime readers...
News from the front
Boston Mayor Marty Walsh and Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker have been front and center over the past week or so, sharing near daily updates about the outbreak. One thing I've realized is that they make kind of an interesting match - Mayor Marty does a great job at telling us what to do while the Gov excels at telling us what not to do.
I'm sure there's an interesting political analysis here - something about a Republican governor moving cautiously in a dark blue state (draconian!), or about the Bostonian creating unity and driving collective action. I'm not doing that analysis, so gentlemen: reverse those roles at your own risk, and keep up the good work.
News from HQ
Now, my favorite guy in DC, whole different story, but gives me a chance to bring out the Business Bro in me - as Amazon notes in their core principles, disagree and commit. As in, disagree with Trump all you like, and commit to the collective goal the President has set for the country, which I'm sure he posted to Twitter.
Shouldn't you do more than 'disagree' about the Chinese Virus?
No. An angry reaction is his goal, not mine.
Ah, Business Bro, and his beloved goals...
My goal is to stay informed so I can do my part to beat the virus. His goal, at least as it pertains to the Chinese Virus, seems to include distracting people from his incompetent decisions.
Incompetent decisions? You mean he left the White House?
Well, whatever, enough for day one, maybe tomorrow.
Look folks, it's not good to stockpile, but I will admit that I've been buying two bottles of $10 wine per day. It's a good way to get out, support local business, blah blah blah, God is on my side, and you know what just sing along with me.
Stay safe in there, and see you all tomorrow.
Wednesday, March 18, 2020
be your best
I recently had lunch with someone I hadn’t seen in a long time. She talked about some difficult times she’d recently endured and wondered aloud how she’d made it. Looking back, it seems like a lot, she said. A light bulb went off in my head because I suddenly got it – despite the difficultly, she’d been at her best, and that's how people get through their biggest challenges.
I’d wondered similar things before, trying to understand resilience. What’s the secret ingredient? What allows someone to walk into the fire and emerge on the other side, scarred and charred, yet ready to move forward, to rebuild and restart, to share their experiences and help others? Like most things I’ve figured out, it seems obvious in hindsight. People at their best can overcome anything. I’ve seen enough evidence, in both myself and in others, to wonder if somewhere in these examples hides a fundamental truth about humanity.
I've come close to reaching this conclusion in the past. I’d once thought people endured by merely trying their best, knowing they could sit down at the end of the day and say – well, I gave it everything, there’s nothing left, I tried my best. But the difference, the reason why trying your best doesn’t always work, is that when you try your best, you focus on change, and by looking into the future you lose sight of the present. Instead of applying your personal passion, your inner capabilities, or your unique purpose to the moment, you look for activity that has immediate impact or outside validation. You try to change situations rather than giving them time and space to grow in the embrace of your light and energy. In a crisis, being present to the moment is a huge part of it and it often requires a full commitment. Trying to change the situation is often detrimental to our limited energy, the effort distracting us from the moment and pulling attention away from where it has immediate, urgent need.
I’m certain that being your best is always better than trying your best, even if this leads to some initial incompetence, ineffectiveness, or discomfort. It’s always difficult to do something new, something outside your expertise or comfort zone, and each time you say the wrong thing or act the wrong way you’ll want to go back to familiar behaviors. Each setback makes us all think the same thing – there’s no time for this, no time for a learning curve, it’s a crisis! But I think this is exactly the opposite of how we should think. When there is a crisis, the crisis is the only thing, and there is no time for anything else. The day might come and go, bringing little to do, and you might feel anxiety about having done nothing. But that’s precisely the point – having done nothing means you were ready to answer the call, to bring your full presence when it was needed, and on that particular day, in that particular moment, your best simply wasn’t needed. You are all the more prepared to step up the next day.
Another similar thought I’d had in the past was that people persevered by doing their best. Like trying your best, doing your best has an almost confusing similarity to being your best. Doing your best is distinguished by an inner focus that comes naturally to a certain type of person. The internal drive feeds the external action. I’ve seen this approach in practice plenty of times, often in a work context – I like coming to work because it gives me something to do, something to focus on. People like having things to do, to be busy, and I don’t mean leisurely distraction. The chance to work on a craft, to achieve tangible results, or to contribute meaningfully to larger missions, these opportunities are enough to get people out of bed, week to week and month to month, no matter what the mundane obstacles of the day. This is a very healthy approach because most obstacles don’t merit our time or attention. Knowing how to get up and get on is a valuable life skill.
But in a difficult or challenging time, in the midst of a crisis, it’s different. The focus that enables us to overcome or ignore minor obstacles starts to work against us when we ignore a real problem that deserves our attention. No matter how much we accomplish when we do our best, at some point there is a pause or a break, and in that moment everything we’ve pushed to the back comes rushing forward to fill the void. Eventually, we’re forced to confront these obstacles, and we do so depleted energy because we've wasted so much of it ignoring problems and working on other things. In fact, it’s probably being on empty that enables the confrontation – we don’t have the energy to continue avoiding the fight.
Trying and doing are very similar in themselves but I think there is one key difference. When we try our best, we generally look forward and try to change an outcome. Failure is inevitable if you don’t try. On the other hand, doing our best is looking backward, a full immersion into the known preventing all other considerations. This difference seems critical, past versus future being about as opposite as life gets, but in their difference lies a fundamental similarity. By focusing on past or future, both ignore the present, and this ignorance is why being your best sounds right to me. Don't just try your best, because the future is uncertain. Don't just do your best, because you throw away the possibility of getting better. Be your best, because that’s all you can be, and all there is. We are essentially presence, no more and no less, and when you can be your best you contribute the most you can to the present situation and always make the most of every moment.
I’d wondered similar things before, trying to understand resilience. What’s the secret ingredient? What allows someone to walk into the fire and emerge on the other side, scarred and charred, yet ready to move forward, to rebuild and restart, to share their experiences and help others? Like most things I’ve figured out, it seems obvious in hindsight. People at their best can overcome anything. I’ve seen enough evidence, in both myself and in others, to wonder if somewhere in these examples hides a fundamental truth about humanity.
I've come close to reaching this conclusion in the past. I’d once thought people endured by merely trying their best, knowing they could sit down at the end of the day and say – well, I gave it everything, there’s nothing left, I tried my best. But the difference, the reason why trying your best doesn’t always work, is that when you try your best, you focus on change, and by looking into the future you lose sight of the present. Instead of applying your personal passion, your inner capabilities, or your unique purpose to the moment, you look for activity that has immediate impact or outside validation. You try to change situations rather than giving them time and space to grow in the embrace of your light and energy. In a crisis, being present to the moment is a huge part of it and it often requires a full commitment. Trying to change the situation is often detrimental to our limited energy, the effort distracting us from the moment and pulling attention away from where it has immediate, urgent need.
I’m certain that being your best is always better than trying your best, even if this leads to some initial incompetence, ineffectiveness, or discomfort. It’s always difficult to do something new, something outside your expertise or comfort zone, and each time you say the wrong thing or act the wrong way you’ll want to go back to familiar behaviors. Each setback makes us all think the same thing – there’s no time for this, no time for a learning curve, it’s a crisis! But I think this is exactly the opposite of how we should think. When there is a crisis, the crisis is the only thing, and there is no time for anything else. The day might come and go, bringing little to do, and you might feel anxiety about having done nothing. But that’s precisely the point – having done nothing means you were ready to answer the call, to bring your full presence when it was needed, and on that particular day, in that particular moment, your best simply wasn’t needed. You are all the more prepared to step up the next day.
Another similar thought I’d had in the past was that people persevered by doing their best. Like trying your best, doing your best has an almost confusing similarity to being your best. Doing your best is distinguished by an inner focus that comes naturally to a certain type of person. The internal drive feeds the external action. I’ve seen this approach in practice plenty of times, often in a work context – I like coming to work because it gives me something to do, something to focus on. People like having things to do, to be busy, and I don’t mean leisurely distraction. The chance to work on a craft, to achieve tangible results, or to contribute meaningfully to larger missions, these opportunities are enough to get people out of bed, week to week and month to month, no matter what the mundane obstacles of the day. This is a very healthy approach because most obstacles don’t merit our time or attention. Knowing how to get up and get on is a valuable life skill.
But in a difficult or challenging time, in the midst of a crisis, it’s different. The focus that enables us to overcome or ignore minor obstacles starts to work against us when we ignore a real problem that deserves our attention. No matter how much we accomplish when we do our best, at some point there is a pause or a break, and in that moment everything we’ve pushed to the back comes rushing forward to fill the void. Eventually, we’re forced to confront these obstacles, and we do so depleted energy because we've wasted so much of it ignoring problems and working on other things. In fact, it’s probably being on empty that enables the confrontation – we don’t have the energy to continue avoiding the fight.
Trying and doing are very similar in themselves but I think there is one key difference. When we try our best, we generally look forward and try to change an outcome. Failure is inevitable if you don’t try. On the other hand, doing our best is looking backward, a full immersion into the known preventing all other considerations. This difference seems critical, past versus future being about as opposite as life gets, but in their difference lies a fundamental similarity. By focusing on past or future, both ignore the present, and this ignorance is why being your best sounds right to me. Don't just try your best, because the future is uncertain. Don't just do your best, because you throw away the possibility of getting better. Be your best, because that’s all you can be, and all there is. We are essentially presence, no more and no less, and when you can be your best you contribute the most you can to the present situation and always make the most of every moment.
Tuesday, March 17, 2020
the toa covid-19 announcement
Hi loyal reader,
I thought I would chime in very quickly today as seems to be the in-fashion move based on all the emails I'm getting from the various subscriptions, communities, and organizations I'm a part of in some way or another. (To be honest, I was on the fence about such a note, but when my online bank sent me an email I started to worry that such an update was being mandated by some kind of federal decree).
First, as I noted on Sunday, don't come here expecting any insight into the pandemic. Any references or connections to current events are, as is almost always the case, coincidence. This is partly by design but mostly out of convenience - TOA is a 'set it and forget it' operation most of the time and nothing would prove more disruptive to this approach than posting 'timely' blogs. This is even true of tomorrow's post which, despite its possible interpretations, I finished writing about three weeks ago.
Second, as events are unfolding here in Taxachusetts I've felt an obligation to take certain precautions. Short version - no more library trips, at least for writing. Sunday's post was the first published 'from home' and today's blog is the first one I've written entirely in the Blogger user interface (it's not so bad). In theory this should make TOA a little easier to keep up, although I've found that having constant internet access is - as I've feared (and known, really) - a license to waste hours of free time.
Finally, feel free to reach out if there's anything I can put up on TOA to help pass the time. It seems like the least I can do. Email subscribers can reach me directly (just hit reply).
Stay safe out (or in) there.
Best,
Tim
I thought I would chime in very quickly today as seems to be the in-fashion move based on all the emails I'm getting from the various subscriptions, communities, and organizations I'm a part of in some way or another. (To be honest, I was on the fence about such a note, but when my online bank sent me an email I started to worry that such an update was being mandated by some kind of federal decree).
First, as I noted on Sunday, don't come here expecting any insight into the pandemic. Any references or connections to current events are, as is almost always the case, coincidence. This is partly by design but mostly out of convenience - TOA is a 'set it and forget it' operation most of the time and nothing would prove more disruptive to this approach than posting 'timely' blogs. This is even true of tomorrow's post which, despite its possible interpretations, I finished writing about three weeks ago.
Second, as events are unfolding here in Taxachusetts I've felt an obligation to take certain precautions. Short version - no more library trips, at least for writing. Sunday's post was the first published 'from home' and today's blog is the first one I've written entirely in the Blogger user interface (it's not so bad). In theory this should make TOA a little easier to keep up, although I've found that having constant internet access is - as I've feared (and known, really) - a license to waste hours of free time.
Finally, feel free to reach out if there's anything I can put up on TOA to help pass the time. It seems like the least I can do. Email subscribers can reach me directly (just hit reply).
Stay safe out (or in) there.
Best,
Tim
Sunday, March 15, 2020
proper admin - winter 2020
Hi all,
Proper admin, when we prop up any topic that can’t make it on its own.
What about... you know?
What's that?
Do you have something to say about... you know...
Yes, including the you-know-what. We'll save the best for last.
I fail, part one
I thought 2020 would be a good year for me but I must have misread the tea leaves – maybe it’s my eyesight that will improve? And I felt this way before the pandemics started.
Whatever, my first failure was my new year’s resolution (yup, I finally made one) to read five books a month. Well, on February 22 I read the last words in What If?, my 16th book of the year, so uh, so that one’s not looking too good.
And if you are wondering where all the reading reviews have gone, see above, please! I’m too busy reading to write reading reviews… I’ll catch up soon, I promise.
A question for writers
Why are all authors photographed with surly, unsmiling looks on their faces? Is having a book published such a disgusting feeling? When I get a book on the shelves the whole word is going to see each and every one of my twenty-odd yellowing chompers.
Full admission, I didn’t bother to count… yet
The other day I heard someone mention that national division was becoming so alarming that we should start seriously considering the possibility of a civil war. In other words, the political silly season is upon us! More on that in my discussion of Senate races later.
Mention of a possible civil war reminded me of The Civil War, and how I’d recently chatted with a friend about all the ways public schools fail when they teach history to our young ones. The Civil War is an example. It’s often cited as the bloodiest war in our history, with over 600,000 deaths and 1.5 million casualties. Those are facts, and that’s fine.
But maybe we should mention those that died in slavery, a number I tried to look up before giving up after seeing that the estimate for those who died in transport exceed 1.5 million. For those with the Memento problem, that's the same number cited above regarding the Civil War. And how many more 'lost' their lives by being held in bondage for their entire lives?
Why am I suddenly talking about this number? Our history books fairly justify the great cost of WWII by putting it in the context of the atrocities that necessitated the conflict – type 'six million' into Google and you immediately get Holocaust information. Perhaps the next step forward for our history curriculum is to put a number to America's greatest atrocity.
Betting recommendation
One of my favorite Onion headlines is ‘Washington Redskins Change Their Name To The DC Redskins'. Well, speaking of those tastelessly named lads from the capital, I say bet on them to win the NFC East as +1000 underdogs. They just hired Ron Rivera, a coach best described as ‘an adult’ who was immensely popular with his team in Carolina. Sometimes all a struggling organization needs is a leader who keeps things simple and gets everyone back to the basics. His first action in charge was to get rid of the ping pong tables – you are here to work! I’ve only worked in one organization that had ping pong tables, and… never mind.
Anyway, given how rubbish the rest of the division is, I like Rivera’s common sense style to push the DC Skins to the top of the NFC East in 2020. Place your bets now, and consider your winnings compensation for consuming my steady stream of TOA BS.
Failure, part two
I slowly adjusted my eating routine over the course of August to February, getting away from the behaviors I shared with the buzzword-laden intermittent fasting crowd to become a more deliberate eater, balancing hunger and foresight to make better decisions as they related to nutrition, timing, and portion size. It sounded good on paper, at least, and at times I was on the right path, but at the end of February I did an honest assessment of my progress and concluded that I was not meeting my overall goals.
Regression sometimes means revisiting old methods. I returned to eating one full meal between 6PM and noon and I’m once again regularly going twelve to sixteen hours without eating. I don’t consider intermittent fasting a fad but I do see it as another intermediate technology, a step along the path toward the optimal diet, and in this moment I recognize that I remain a few credits shy of graduation to my imagined future.
Political silly season
Making fun of Trump for his ongoing misspellings, naming errors, and general inability to correctly use the English language was great sport for much of his first term in office. Apparently these standards don’t apply to challenger Joe Biden, who earlier in his campaign for a third Obama term called Iowa ‘Ohio’ (but it's OK, he does it a lot). Play the hits Joe, just a couple of weeks ago he reminded voters that he was running for Senate. I guess he’s Presidential like Trump? I’m so proud he won the Massachusetts primary, honestly, we’re so Advanced here we can accept that when the times change, we vote accordingly. Who knows, maybe he's the right guy to send Uncle Bernie back to New Hampshire.
While on the topic, the more I listen to Uncle Bernie the more I realize I’m basically a younger, Asian, and possibly more deluded version of the guy. This doesn’t mean if I were in office I would have the same agenda as theNew Hampshire Vermont Senator, I mean this more in the sense of having a bullshit allergy, repeatedly expressing basic points of view through focused ranting, and maintaining dismissive disinterest in the irrelevant, trivial, or farcical. I have no idea what will upset me over the next forty-five years, but I’m looking forward to explaining it all in my 2064 campaign when a 120-year old Bernie's giving it 'one last go'.
I came up with a fake Onion headline
‘Republicans interfere with 2020 election, vote for Trump’
One last politics thought
So what does a Senator do in terms of his or her real job while running for office? If I apply for a promotion, does that mean I spend forty hours a week not doing my current job while I campaign for my raise? This hypothetical isn't as invented as it looks, so wish me luck.
Pod alert
I heard Biden’s ‘Senate’ quip on a podcast but it doesn't make my highlight reel - my only recommendation from 2020 thus far is this February 22 episode of More Or Less that explains A.I., sort of.
Anything else?
I know I'm supposed to make some sort of remark about that virus, you know, because I'm getting messages about it from everything. The banks are even emailing me updates! But there is no reason that someone with no knowledge - like me - should talk about something so serious, so important. My opinion simply doesn't matter.
So, here goes - listen to the experts, obey clear orders, and focus on repeatedly doing the right things within your control. It's scary advice but we here at TOA HQ think it's the best non-NFC East bet during this chaotic time.
If you need some extra motivation, here's what did it for me.
In the meantime, we'll do our best to keep things up here, and hope to provide the useless respite that TOA is for its most loyal readers. Thank you all for reading, and please keep an eye on each other.
In the next season... of True On Average:
1. The return of 'Tales of Two Cities'!
2. The return of reading reviews!
3. The return of two truths and a lie!
Proper admin, when we prop up any topic that can’t make it on its own.
What about... you know?
What's that?
Do you have something to say about... you know...
Yes, including the you-know-what. We'll save the best for last.
I fail, part one
I thought 2020 would be a good year for me but I must have misread the tea leaves – maybe it’s my eyesight that will improve? And I felt this way before the pandemics started.
Whatever, my first failure was my new year’s resolution (yup, I finally made one) to read five books a month. Well, on February 22 I read the last words in What If?, my 16th book of the year, so uh, so that one’s not looking too good.
And if you are wondering where all the reading reviews have gone, see above, please! I’m too busy reading to write reading reviews… I’ll catch up soon, I promise.
A question for writers
Why are all authors photographed with surly, unsmiling looks on their faces? Is having a book published such a disgusting feeling? When I get a book on the shelves the whole word is going to see each and every one of my twenty-odd yellowing chompers.
Full admission, I didn’t bother to count… yet
The other day I heard someone mention that national division was becoming so alarming that we should start seriously considering the possibility of a civil war. In other words, the political silly season is upon us! More on that in my discussion of Senate races later.
Mention of a possible civil war reminded me of The Civil War, and how I’d recently chatted with a friend about all the ways public schools fail when they teach history to our young ones. The Civil War is an example. It’s often cited as the bloodiest war in our history, with over 600,000 deaths and 1.5 million casualties. Those are facts, and that’s fine.
But maybe we should mention those that died in slavery, a number I tried to look up before giving up after seeing that the estimate for those who died in transport exceed 1.5 million. For those with the Memento problem, that's the same number cited above regarding the Civil War. And how many more 'lost' their lives by being held in bondage for their entire lives?
Why am I suddenly talking about this number? Our history books fairly justify the great cost of WWII by putting it in the context of the atrocities that necessitated the conflict – type 'six million' into Google and you immediately get Holocaust information. Perhaps the next step forward for our history curriculum is to put a number to America's greatest atrocity.
Betting recommendation
One of my favorite Onion headlines is ‘Washington Redskins Change Their Name To The DC Redskins'. Well, speaking of those tastelessly named lads from the capital, I say bet on them to win the NFC East as +1000 underdogs. They just hired Ron Rivera, a coach best described as ‘an adult’ who was immensely popular with his team in Carolina. Sometimes all a struggling organization needs is a leader who keeps things simple and gets everyone back to the basics. His first action in charge was to get rid of the ping pong tables – you are here to work! I’ve only worked in one organization that had ping pong tables, and… never mind.
Anyway, given how rubbish the rest of the division is, I like Rivera’s common sense style to push the DC Skins to the top of the NFC East in 2020. Place your bets now, and consider your winnings compensation for consuming my steady stream of TOA BS.
Failure, part two
I slowly adjusted my eating routine over the course of August to February, getting away from the behaviors I shared with the buzzword-laden intermittent fasting crowd to become a more deliberate eater, balancing hunger and foresight to make better decisions as they related to nutrition, timing, and portion size. It sounded good on paper, at least, and at times I was on the right path, but at the end of February I did an honest assessment of my progress and concluded that I was not meeting my overall goals.
Regression sometimes means revisiting old methods. I returned to eating one full meal between 6PM and noon and I’m once again regularly going twelve to sixteen hours without eating. I don’t consider intermittent fasting a fad but I do see it as another intermediate technology, a step along the path toward the optimal diet, and in this moment I recognize that I remain a few credits shy of graduation to my imagined future.
Political silly season
Making fun of Trump for his ongoing misspellings, naming errors, and general inability to correctly use the English language was great sport for much of his first term in office. Apparently these standards don’t apply to challenger Joe Biden, who earlier in his campaign for a third Obama term called Iowa ‘Ohio’ (but it's OK, he does it a lot). Play the hits Joe, just a couple of weeks ago he reminded voters that he was running for Senate. I guess he’s Presidential like Trump? I’m so proud he won the Massachusetts primary, honestly, we’re so Advanced here we can accept that when the times change, we vote accordingly. Who knows, maybe he's the right guy to send Uncle Bernie back to New Hampshire.
While on the topic, the more I listen to Uncle Bernie the more I realize I’m basically a younger, Asian, and possibly more deluded version of the guy. This doesn’t mean if I were in office I would have the same agenda as the
I came up with a fake Onion headline
‘Republicans interfere with 2020 election, vote for Trump’
One last politics thought
So what does a Senator do in terms of his or her real job while running for office? If I apply for a promotion, does that mean I spend forty hours a week not doing my current job while I campaign for my raise? This hypothetical isn't as invented as it looks, so wish me luck.
Pod alert
I heard Biden’s ‘Senate’ quip on a podcast but it doesn't make my highlight reel - my only recommendation from 2020 thus far is this February 22 episode of More Or Less that explains A.I., sort of.
Anything else?
I know I'm supposed to make some sort of remark about that virus, you know, because I'm getting messages about it from everything. The banks are even emailing me updates! But there is no reason that someone with no knowledge - like me - should talk about something so serious, so important. My opinion simply doesn't matter.
So, here goes - listen to the experts, obey clear orders, and focus on repeatedly doing the right things within your control. It's scary advice but we here at TOA HQ think it's the best non-NFC East bet during this chaotic time.
If you need some extra motivation, here's what did it for me.
In the meantime, we'll do our best to keep things up here, and hope to provide the useless respite that TOA is for its most loyal readers. Thank you all for reading, and please keep an eye on each other.
In the next season... of True On Average:
1. The return of 'Tales of Two Cities'!
2. The return of reading reviews!
3. The return of two truths and a lie!
Saturday, March 14, 2020
leftovers - drumroll please (proper admin update)
Thursday’s post about music grew out of my first draft for March’s proper admin. This happens quite a bit – I envision proper admin as “everything that doesn’t work as its own post” but sometimes the very process of jotting down the abbreviated thought is the catalyst for the seed to blossom into a full thought. I believe I’ve called out such moments in the past, but since I think there is a real lesson there I wanted to make sure I made note of it again.
In terms of proper admin itself, I think it’s time for an evolution. Here in the post-daily TOA era, the trend is toward grouping posts so that I can maintain a thread across multiple days, and one vital tactic is eliminating as much of the scheduled programming as possible. This fate already befell ‘Tales of Two Cities’ so at least ‘Proper Admin’ is in good company.
As it is with all forms of admin, the volume probably won’t change despite a new format, but I think the workload will be easier for me to handle in a larger batch. For starters, I’ll replace the monthly schedule with a bimonthly or even quarterly rhythm, and we’ll keep a close eye on progress to ensure we stay on track.
First of these is coming tomorrow – until then, thanks for reading.
In terms of proper admin itself, I think it’s time for an evolution. Here in the post-daily TOA era, the trend is toward grouping posts so that I can maintain a thread across multiple days, and one vital tactic is eliminating as much of the scheduled programming as possible. This fate already befell ‘Tales of Two Cities’ so at least ‘Proper Admin’ is in good company.
As it is with all forms of admin, the volume probably won’t change despite a new format, but I think the workload will be easier for me to handle in a larger batch. For starters, I’ll replace the monthly schedule with a bimonthly or even quarterly rhythm, and we’ll keep a close eye on progress to ensure we stay on track.
First of these is coming tomorrow – until then, thanks for reading.
Thursday, March 12, 2020
drumroll please
A January highlight was discovering Post Malone, apparently one of the most famous people in America, in time to recognize him in a Super Bowl commercial. As always, I thank Iceland. (And if another OMAM recommendation is required, I think I finally found their best performance of ‘Little Talks’.)
‘Fire and Rain’ is one of America’s great songs – naturally, I went off in search of a cover. P!nk’s the winner, I’ve always been in favor of her work but I’m finding recently that in her interpretations lie her most affecting performances. In addition to ‘Fire and Rain’, I recommend ‘Time After Time’ and ‘Stay With Me’.
Listening to P!nk reminds me that a lot of the music I listen to is lacking, at least from the perspective of musicianship. This doesn’t preclude anyone from making great music, especially bands, as the story of individuals coming together to exceed the sum of their parts is a story as old as time. I also know from my hard work finding concert clips that there is often an added element of performance that can further elevate an otherwise pedestrian song (let's call this ‘The Oasis Clause’). Simply, there is so much more to a song than just the musician's skill level.
But there are times when I listen to someone sing or play and I think – that’s how it’s done. It’s not a long list, and for loyal TOA readers the following is devoid of major surprises. I’ll start with P!nk, mention Adele as I imagine is required by international law, and add Tupac's rapping. I’ll use Courtney Barnett for guitar because I heard it in person and add Celtic Social Club’s Pierre Stephan on the fiddle for the same reason. Chris Wolstenholme of Muse wins the bass award, another performer I’ve witnessed do it on a stage. This leads me to the drums, the reason I’m bringing up this entire line of thinking, because a few weeks ago I listened to this recording of Joy Division’s ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ and felt the difference between people who hit the drums and people who play the drums.
I’m finding that Joy Division is one of those bands where I have a hard time comprehending my emotions. It’s not like I grew up with their music and I don’t even like any of their songs – in fact, it’s just the one above I listen to intentionally, and probably a couple of times a month at most. But there’s something about them that is deeply affecting, the same way I feel when I listen to Nirvana or Avicii, the same way I know is true for the bands and artists that pay tribute to these performers, and I wonder if the hint is in those drums, the mastery and the potential in each beat, the knowledge that making the right sound wasn’t enough to drown out the noise, and the urgency of getting in every last note before the song ended.
‘Fire and Rain’ is one of America’s great songs – naturally, I went off in search of a cover. P!nk’s the winner, I’ve always been in favor of her work but I’m finding recently that in her interpretations lie her most affecting performances. In addition to ‘Fire and Rain’, I recommend ‘Time After Time’ and ‘Stay With Me’.
Listening to P!nk reminds me that a lot of the music I listen to is lacking, at least from the perspective of musicianship. This doesn’t preclude anyone from making great music, especially bands, as the story of individuals coming together to exceed the sum of their parts is a story as old as time. I also know from my hard work finding concert clips that there is often an added element of performance that can further elevate an otherwise pedestrian song (let's call this ‘The Oasis Clause’). Simply, there is so much more to a song than just the musician's skill level.
But there are times when I listen to someone sing or play and I think – that’s how it’s done. It’s not a long list, and for loyal TOA readers the following is devoid of major surprises. I’ll start with P!nk, mention Adele as I imagine is required by international law, and add Tupac's rapping. I’ll use Courtney Barnett for guitar because I heard it in person and add Celtic Social Club’s Pierre Stephan on the fiddle for the same reason. Chris Wolstenholme of Muse wins the bass award, another performer I’ve witnessed do it on a stage. This leads me to the drums, the reason I’m bringing up this entire line of thinking, because a few weeks ago I listened to this recording of Joy Division’s ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ and felt the difference between people who hit the drums and people who play the drums.
I’m finding that Joy Division is one of those bands where I have a hard time comprehending my emotions. It’s not like I grew up with their music and I don’t even like any of their songs – in fact, it’s just the one above I listen to intentionally, and probably a couple of times a month at most. But there’s something about them that is deeply affecting, the same way I feel when I listen to Nirvana or Avicii, the same way I know is true for the bands and artists that pay tribute to these performers, and I wonder if the hint is in those drums, the mastery and the potential in each beat, the knowledge that making the right sound wasn’t enough to drown out the noise, and the urgency of getting in every last note before the song ended.
Monday, March 9, 2020
leftovers – the market price of greed (jump and hang)
My second job followed a common progression – I was promoted due to maintaining great individual performance while most of my teammates quit. This meant for a while I was being paid new money to do my old job, but gradually as my workload increased I learned why everyone else had quit.
This raises a weird question – was there a specific day, or perhaps even hour, where I was being paid exactly the right amount? Was it possible that on some day during my tenure, let’s just pick a day at random and say August 23, was it possible that I woke up overpaid and came home underpaid? Technically, mathematically, physically it must be true, in order to get from one side of a border to the other you have to have at least a moment ON the border.
It’s kind of like how my high school basketball coach used to insist that we ‘jump AND hang’, though of course our point guard, destined for the Ivy League, would always note that in physics you could either accelerate or decelerate, but unless you were completely still you could never visibly hang. I remember the compromise being reaching just a little higher with your arms as you started coming down to create the illusion of hanging. I wonder if those two have given further thought to this over the past fifteen years.
This raises a weird question – was there a specific day, or perhaps even hour, where I was being paid exactly the right amount? Was it possible that on some day during my tenure, let’s just pick a day at random and say August 23, was it possible that I woke up overpaid and came home underpaid? Technically, mathematically, physically it must be true, in order to get from one side of a border to the other you have to have at least a moment ON the border.
It’s kind of like how my high school basketball coach used to insist that we ‘jump AND hang’, though of course our point guard, destined for the Ivy League, would always note that in physics you could either accelerate or decelerate, but unless you were completely still you could never visibly hang. I remember the compromise being reaching just a little higher with your arms as you started coming down to create the illusion of hanging. I wonder if those two have given further thought to this over the past fifteen years.
Sunday, March 8, 2020
the market price of greed
A salary history generally means a list of full-time positions alongside dollar figures. It's sometimes used to help establish a sense of someone’s value in an open job market but I’ve always thought the salary history lacked its supposed explanatory power. So since someone else paid you X dollars, that means I'm supposed to pay you the same tomorrow? It would be like bringing a binder full of the compliments you’ve received to a job interview. Sure, it’s nice to point to a comment - someone said it, I swear - but what is a hiring manager actually going to do with a stranger's out of context quotes?
Anyway, good news, just moments ago I came up with an improvement on salary history. Let’s take it for a test drive using my career thus far –
First job, first organization – underpaid
Second job, first organization – paid too much, then underpaid
Third job, first organization – paid too much
First job, second organization – underpaid
First job, third organization – paid too much
There’s a lot I could (and might) say about the above, but for today let’s talk about why I think it's inevitable that most people end up being overpaid and what we could possibly do about it.
One morning while I walked through Beacon Hill on my commute, I started reflecting deeply on greed. Greed is an example of how an unchecked impulse can create infinite chaos. A common example of this havoc is a layoff, the inexplicably tolerated practice where the mega-rich in the C-suite terminate employees to ‘cut costs’. We have no other choice! It's true, when greed is the cause, you often don't have a choice, and when greedy companies recreate the Icarus tale in their Endless Pursuit Of More, the layoff is when the wax starts raining down from the sun.
I suspect most people agree with me that many of society’s huge, chronic problems are caused by greed. The natural conclusion is that one way to improve society would be to restrict or eliminate greed. But how? I have no idea. I admittedly don't empathize with greed. I’ve always had more of a ‘take what you need’ mentality, and it’s very hard for me to wrap my head around the concept of acquiring more just because, acquisition alone being the end rather than the means (1). However, the more I thought about it that morning, the more I sensed that an important factor here was indeed we the non-greedy, our collective reluctance implicitly tolerating the uninhibited and allowing for the runaway examples of greed that I see as symptomatic of an ailing, failing society.
I’m still working out the rough first draft but so far I’ve identified a two-step process for how this works. First, compensation for a well-paid job – which I’ll define as above the median – is loosely rather than directly related to market value. This is because there are always people, those non-greedy folks, who would ‘do it for free’. Now, needs such as food, shelter, and Guinness mean ‘doing it for free’ is more theory than practice, but I accept it as evidence of the constant downward pressure on wages (2).
But a willingness to work for less is unrelated to ability. I would happily play point guard for the Celtics on a $1M salary just as the Celtics would happily pay their point guard $1M. But who would be happy with the results? Salary is only part of the picture, the Celtics also need to win games, so they pay Kemba Walker $35M. A team full of players willing to do it for less will lose to the team full of players who are hired for their ability to win. In theory, these winning players would earn market salaries. But when we factor in greed, I bet the result is overpaid salaries.
The pressure to overpay is likely far stronger than the downward pressure coming from those willing to work for less. One way this might happen is via the employee. If Kemba Walker suddenly lost all interest in basketball, the Celtics would offer more money to retain his services. Kemba would change his mind and play only if he were sufficiently greedy (3). The more important half of the equation is the greed of the other players. A team already full of greedy players would have demanded as much of the available salary as possible, likely leaving the Celtics without any spare money to tempt Kemba to change his mind (4). In a sense, this checks the impact of greed from any one player, the collective greed of each team member forcing the team to think carefully about salary decisions so that it can retain as many of its best players as possible.
This brings me to the second part of my working draft – the loose relationship between compensation and market value is restrained by the greed of others. The reason why the CEO is a millionaire is because the VP isn’t. The blame should go to the person with the greatest responsibility, of course, but germs and vaccines are separate matters. We know from a wide range of sources – the news, human history, even our own moments of insight and impulse – that greed is its own special beast, forever feeding itself until checked by an external force. But collective greed has the potential to be a positive force. It’s kind of like when you go out to eat with a few friends and one buddy devours the entire plate of cheese curds. One way to restrain him might be to help him get better control over his gluttony, but the sure method is to just dump equal portions of the appetizer onto everyone’s plates the next time the server brings out the food.
Collective greed means asking: how do we get the most, for everyone? It’s a far cry from individual greed despite seeming similar at first glance. The only real difference is restraint. Individual greed is entirely devoid of restraint and this lack fuels all the excesses of our current system. On the other hand, collective greed is only restraint, forcing each person to think – well, I have a little more now, but I should make sure everyone else got the same bump. A lot of our worst qualities seem to work in this way – harmful when limited to the individual, yet having the potential to change the world when harnessed as a collective concern.
Footnotes
1. When family-style means buffet dinner…
The closest I can come to relating is gluttony, having eaten and drank to excessin the last twenty-four hours at various points over the past three decades, but the difference between greed and gluttony is that your body does eventually impose some consumption limits. There is no equivalent natural check for greed. The solution would have to be some kind of external measure (like the point I eventually make about your dining companions insisting that everyone take equal portions).
2. Do the same for less?
Many organizations have ‘salary bands’ where people doing the same work are paid over a range of salaries for reasons related to who-knows-what. This leads to an observable example of the exact scenario I describe – people willing to do the same job for less are often sitting right next to a person who was willing to work for slightly more. This arrangement usually ends when a local newspaper writes an embarrassing expose about the organization’s discriminatory compensation practices.
I put this into a footnote because although it demonstrates my point in action, it isn’t what I mean. My point isn’t about shortsighted firms taking advantage of people unwilling to negotiate for a higher salary because these firms lose in the long run. My point is that the CEOs who enable and encourage this practice know that the money workers leave on the table will magically float up the chain, greed being the only force that defeats gravity, this trivial cost-savings eventually paying out as top-level compensation packages through its direct relationship to increased profits.
3. It’s like when you tell your boss you have another job offer, right?
The interesting thing here is that the NBA has salary rules that prevent players from earning above a defined maximum, so it’s possible that in this hypothetical scenario Kemba would walk away simply because the Celtics would be prevented from offering him enough money to keep playing. If this sounds preposterous to you, consider that in 1993 this scenario was in play. Michael Jordan, the world’s greatest player, walked away from the Chicago Bulls and his $4M salary to play minor league baseball in Birmingham for peanuts. How much money did the Bulls offer him to change his mind? It’s unclear because I don't think there was such a thing as a 'maximum salary' in 1993 (the total salary cap was under $16M). They most likely just let Jordan make his decision without offering a raise (and if salary was the issue, Jordan could have raised the issue and the NBA would probably have resolved it in about twenty-six seconds).
4. Why not just do it?
The flip side is worth considering for a moment. Why wouldn’t Kemba just take a $1M salary? If he wanted to play for less, couldn’t he just do it? The short answer is that since it’s an individual decision, of course it could happen. But Kemba signing for $1M creates some weird problems. His low salary would of course enable his teammates to sign for more money. But more importantly, it would encourage other teams to test his resolve. If the Knicks suddenly offered him $30M, might he look at his paycheck the next time Marcus Smart takes a crazy shot and think about his salary decision? I think this is going on right now, and I'm not talking about the Celtics.
A hometown discount sounds nice, but eventually people want to feel like they are getting a fair deal one way or the other. A forward-thinking organization would ignore any offers to take a cut and just offer the highest salary upfront. If there are any concerns about the added expense, it should be written off as the price you pay for peace of mind.
Anyway, good news, just moments ago I came up with an improvement on salary history. Let’s take it for a test drive using my career thus far –
First job, first organization – underpaid
Second job, first organization – paid too much, then underpaid
Third job, first organization – paid too much
First job, second organization – underpaid
First job, third organization – paid too much
There’s a lot I could (and might) say about the above, but for today let’s talk about why I think it's inevitable that most people end up being overpaid and what we could possibly do about it.
One morning while I walked through Beacon Hill on my commute, I started reflecting deeply on greed. Greed is an example of how an unchecked impulse can create infinite chaos. A common example of this havoc is a layoff, the inexplicably tolerated practice where the mega-rich in the C-suite terminate employees to ‘cut costs’. We have no other choice! It's true, when greed is the cause, you often don't have a choice, and when greedy companies recreate the Icarus tale in their Endless Pursuit Of More, the layoff is when the wax starts raining down from the sun.
I suspect most people agree with me that many of society’s huge, chronic problems are caused by greed. The natural conclusion is that one way to improve society would be to restrict or eliminate greed. But how? I have no idea. I admittedly don't empathize with greed. I’ve always had more of a ‘take what you need’ mentality, and it’s very hard for me to wrap my head around the concept of acquiring more just because, acquisition alone being the end rather than the means (1). However, the more I thought about it that morning, the more I sensed that an important factor here was indeed we the non-greedy, our collective reluctance implicitly tolerating the uninhibited and allowing for the runaway examples of greed that I see as symptomatic of an ailing, failing society.
I’m still working out the rough first draft but so far I’ve identified a two-step process for how this works. First, compensation for a well-paid job – which I’ll define as above the median – is loosely rather than directly related to market value. This is because there are always people, those non-greedy folks, who would ‘do it for free’. Now, needs such as food, shelter, and Guinness mean ‘doing it for free’ is more theory than practice, but I accept it as evidence of the constant downward pressure on wages (2).
But a willingness to work for less is unrelated to ability. I would happily play point guard for the Celtics on a $1M salary just as the Celtics would happily pay their point guard $1M. But who would be happy with the results? Salary is only part of the picture, the Celtics also need to win games, so they pay Kemba Walker $35M. A team full of players willing to do it for less will lose to the team full of players who are hired for their ability to win. In theory, these winning players would earn market salaries. But when we factor in greed, I bet the result is overpaid salaries.
The pressure to overpay is likely far stronger than the downward pressure coming from those willing to work for less. One way this might happen is via the employee. If Kemba Walker suddenly lost all interest in basketball, the Celtics would offer more money to retain his services. Kemba would change his mind and play only if he were sufficiently greedy (3). The more important half of the equation is the greed of the other players. A team already full of greedy players would have demanded as much of the available salary as possible, likely leaving the Celtics without any spare money to tempt Kemba to change his mind (4). In a sense, this checks the impact of greed from any one player, the collective greed of each team member forcing the team to think carefully about salary decisions so that it can retain as many of its best players as possible.
This brings me to the second part of my working draft – the loose relationship between compensation and market value is restrained by the greed of others. The reason why the CEO is a millionaire is because the VP isn’t. The blame should go to the person with the greatest responsibility, of course, but germs and vaccines are separate matters. We know from a wide range of sources – the news, human history, even our own moments of insight and impulse – that greed is its own special beast, forever feeding itself until checked by an external force. But collective greed has the potential to be a positive force. It’s kind of like when you go out to eat with a few friends and one buddy devours the entire plate of cheese curds. One way to restrain him might be to help him get better control over his gluttony, but the sure method is to just dump equal portions of the appetizer onto everyone’s plates the next time the server brings out the food.
Collective greed means asking: how do we get the most, for everyone? It’s a far cry from individual greed despite seeming similar at first glance. The only real difference is restraint. Individual greed is entirely devoid of restraint and this lack fuels all the excesses of our current system. On the other hand, collective greed is only restraint, forcing each person to think – well, I have a little more now, but I should make sure everyone else got the same bump. A lot of our worst qualities seem to work in this way – harmful when limited to the individual, yet having the potential to change the world when harnessed as a collective concern.
Footnotes
1. When family-style means buffet dinner…
The closest I can come to relating is gluttony, having eaten and drank to excess
2. Do the same for less?
Many organizations have ‘salary bands’ where people doing the same work are paid over a range of salaries for reasons related to who-knows-what. This leads to an observable example of the exact scenario I describe – people willing to do the same job for less are often sitting right next to a person who was willing to work for slightly more. This arrangement usually ends when a local newspaper writes an embarrassing expose about the organization’s discriminatory compensation practices.
I put this into a footnote because although it demonstrates my point in action, it isn’t what I mean. My point isn’t about shortsighted firms taking advantage of people unwilling to negotiate for a higher salary because these firms lose in the long run. My point is that the CEOs who enable and encourage this practice know that the money workers leave on the table will magically float up the chain, greed being the only force that defeats gravity, this trivial cost-savings eventually paying out as top-level compensation packages through its direct relationship to increased profits.
3. It’s like when you tell your boss you have another job offer, right?
The interesting thing here is that the NBA has salary rules that prevent players from earning above a defined maximum, so it’s possible that in this hypothetical scenario Kemba would walk away simply because the Celtics would be prevented from offering him enough money to keep playing. If this sounds preposterous to you, consider that in 1993 this scenario was in play. Michael Jordan, the world’s greatest player, walked away from the Chicago Bulls and his $4M salary to play minor league baseball in Birmingham for peanuts. How much money did the Bulls offer him to change his mind? It’s unclear because I don't think there was such a thing as a 'maximum salary' in 1993 (the total salary cap was under $16M). They most likely just let Jordan make his decision without offering a raise (and if salary was the issue, Jordan could have raised the issue and the NBA would probably have resolved it in about twenty-six seconds).
4. Why not just do it?
The flip side is worth considering for a moment. Why wouldn’t Kemba just take a $1M salary? If he wanted to play for less, couldn’t he just do it? The short answer is that since it’s an individual decision, of course it could happen. But Kemba signing for $1M creates some weird problems. His low salary would of course enable his teammates to sign for more money. But more importantly, it would encourage other teams to test his resolve. If the Knicks suddenly offered him $30M, might he look at his paycheck the next time Marcus Smart takes a crazy shot and think about his salary decision? I think this is going on right now, and I'm not talking about the Celtics.
A hometown discount sounds nice, but eventually people want to feel like they are getting a fair deal one way or the other. A forward-thinking organization would ignore any offers to take a cut and just offer the highest salary upfront. If there are any concerns about the added expense, it should be written off as the price you pay for peace of mind.
Friday, March 6, 2020
when you like it all, what do you like?
I was talking with a friend recently about Davis Square. It turns out that we have a lot in common in terms of how we perceive the famous Somerville destination. There are plenty of good options in terms of food, drink, and activities. It has compromise value, its variety making it possible to find something for everybody. It’s easily accessible, making it a convenient destination and, perhaps more importantly, making it easy to get home on those late nights.
The only difference was our overall opinion – he liked it, but I took a dimmer view. My point is straightforward - if you like everything a little, you don’t like anything. When I’m in Davis Square, nothing jumps out to me. It’s kind of like a mall, or a mall’s food court. In a food court Burger King is fine, but I don't go to Burger King because I never go to the food court. If Slumbrew moved to Davis Square, would I remember how to spell Slaigo? If Penguin Pizza started slinging slices next to The Burren, would I look at Flatbread Co. ever again? Sapporo Ramen is one move away from revealing Davis Square as the mean, median, and mode of Asian noodles.
I value friends more than opinions so I agreed to disagree. In fact, I'm probably even wrong. There is a difference between toppings and pizza, so maybe it’s a little ridiculous that I would accuse someone who eats pizza for the toppings of not actually liking pizza.
The only difference was our overall opinion – he liked it, but I took a dimmer view. My point is straightforward - if you like everything a little, you don’t like anything. When I’m in Davis Square, nothing jumps out to me. It’s kind of like a mall, or a mall’s food court. In a food court Burger King is fine, but I don't go to Burger King because I never go to the food court. If Slumbrew moved to Davis Square, would I remember how to spell Slaigo? If Penguin Pizza started slinging slices next to The Burren, would I look at Flatbread Co. ever again? Sapporo Ramen is one move away from revealing Davis Square as the mean, median, and mode of Asian noodles.
I value friends more than opinions so I agreed to disagree. In fact, I'm probably even wrong. There is a difference between toppings and pizza, so maybe it’s a little ridiculous that I would accuse someone who eats pizza for the toppings of not actually liking pizza.
Wednesday, March 4, 2020
jupiter is mars
There are two types of people, those who oversimplify difference and those who don’t. The way it works relies on an 'us-them' model, either someone is alike or not, and since those like us are one of us, those unlike us must be one of them.
I heard a really good analogy about this one time. Suppose you were standing somewhere on Earth (this shouldn’t be much of a stretch). You look up at the sky and you see a planet. Which planet is it? There are many clues, though perhaps you will need a telescope. But if you oversimplify difference, it doesn’t matter. A planet is either Earth, or it isn’t. Jupiter is Mars.
On the surface level, I don’t think this is a big problem. If your entire world was Earth (again, not much of a stretch) then who cares about rings, or moons, or the color of the planet? It’s either part of us or part of them, so those considerations matter only to the extent to which they clarify the relationship to Earth. But imagine the other side, imagine being on Jupiter, and learning that over on Earth, you were considered Mars. Jupiter, Mars, same difference. Well now, that would seem silly, and maybe offensive. At the very least, you would conclude that those folks over on Earth had no clue.
If you are waiting, reader, for me to point out that this is also a stretch, this hypothetical of being on Jupiter and learning you are called Mars, well, don’t hold your breath. It isn’t much of a stretch at all. I think we all share the experience of being lumped into something else, often by an ‘us-them’ thinker. It’s probably a much more relatable experience than sitting around on Earth, suspecting all the other planets are alike, forgetting that the one thing we all share is the need to be recognized for our individuality.
I heard a really good analogy about this one time. Suppose you were standing somewhere on Earth (this shouldn’t be much of a stretch). You look up at the sky and you see a planet. Which planet is it? There are many clues, though perhaps you will need a telescope. But if you oversimplify difference, it doesn’t matter. A planet is either Earth, or it isn’t. Jupiter is Mars.
On the surface level, I don’t think this is a big problem. If your entire world was Earth (again, not much of a stretch) then who cares about rings, or moons, or the color of the planet? It’s either part of us or part of them, so those considerations matter only to the extent to which they clarify the relationship to Earth. But imagine the other side, imagine being on Jupiter, and learning that over on Earth, you were considered Mars. Jupiter, Mars, same difference. Well now, that would seem silly, and maybe offensive. At the very least, you would conclude that those folks over on Earth had no clue.
If you are waiting, reader, for me to point out that this is also a stretch, this hypothetical of being on Jupiter and learning you are called Mars, well, don’t hold your breath. It isn’t much of a stretch at all. I think we all share the experience of being lumped into something else, often by an ‘us-them’ thinker. It’s probably a much more relatable experience than sitting around on Earth, suspecting all the other planets are alike, forgetting that the one thing we all share is the need to be recognized for our individuality.
Sunday, March 1, 2020
the toa newsletter - march 2020
Hi folks,
Lengthy post yesterday and I'm tired, so let's let the BB take this one. He's going to explain why we're making the effort around these parts to maintain ~300 words as a daily posting average.
(And let's ignore the crutch that we only count half of Sunday's words.)
Thanks,
Tim
******
My second job was with a large corporation in the Boston area. One reason I was excited to take the job was because of company size. I had plenty of experience in a small, privately run company and I’d developed a number of Business Bro skills native to a leader in a small company – being creative with initiatives, hiring and product expertise, and knowing how to design process from scratch. The chance to get into a large corporation as an entry-level manager was a great opportunity to work on some of the skills that simply don’t exist in a small company – prioritization, process improvement, and organizational communication.
Not everything about my new role worked out but I can look back and say I learned a little bit from the above list. The organizational communication skill was especially interesting. The way executives and top leaders communicated across such a large company was entirely foreign to me. In my first role, the company was so small that ‘organizational communication’ meant the CEO walked ten feet to the left and talked a little louder than usual. In my new role, lengthy emails, internal Wikis, and giant monthly meetings took the responsibility. If we were really lucky, we’d get some PowerPoint slides – eh hem, ‘deck’ – to supplement the communication.
The best idea I saw was a twice-weekly email from the CEO. These never dealt with the highest-level ideas that often rained down on us from his level of the hierarchy. Instead, these emails succinctly described a specific aspect of the business, a few sentences of explanation always accompanied by one chart. I noticed something right away about these emails and so I started tracking them closely. Frequency, topic, and greeting were among the metrics I noted each time a new message pinged my inbox. Over time, I saw no relationship in any of the metrics except one – word count. The word count was almost always in the range of 225 to 275 words, the average right around 250.
This wasn't an accident. There is simply no guarantee of anyone reading beyond 250 or so words at any given time. I don’t say this to accuse anyone of having a bad attention span, it’s because I know from my experience that I simply shudder at the thought of reading more than a few sentences that appear unannounced in my inbox. If I see an email that runs over a couple hundred words, I plan a time in the future to read it.
Readers here should be delighted to know that I’m mindful of this lesson on the rebooted TOA. The audience here and its expectations are a little different than my former workplace but I think we do share a certain sentiment about word count. If I run past 300 words, we'll take a day off. If one of my longer Sunday posts hits a multiple of 300, we’ll just take a day off. And if a really big post pushes the average, we'll sprinkle some extra days off into the calendar. Nothing complicated, just trying to use a little common sense around these parts.
If you suspect we’ve run over 300 today, you are correct. So, thanks for reading, and we'll see you soon. Just not tomorrow.
Lengthy post yesterday and I'm tired, so let's let the BB take this one. He's going to explain why we're making the effort around these parts to maintain ~300 words as a daily posting average.
(And let's ignore the crutch that we only count half of Sunday's words.)
Thanks,
Tim
******
My second job was with a large corporation in the Boston area. One reason I was excited to take the job was because of company size. I had plenty of experience in a small, privately run company and I’d developed a number of Business Bro skills native to a leader in a small company – being creative with initiatives, hiring and product expertise, and knowing how to design process from scratch. The chance to get into a large corporation as an entry-level manager was a great opportunity to work on some of the skills that simply don’t exist in a small company – prioritization, process improvement, and organizational communication.
Not everything about my new role worked out but I can look back and say I learned a little bit from the above list. The organizational communication skill was especially interesting. The way executives and top leaders communicated across such a large company was entirely foreign to me. In my first role, the company was so small that ‘organizational communication’ meant the CEO walked ten feet to the left and talked a little louder than usual. In my new role, lengthy emails, internal Wikis, and giant monthly meetings took the responsibility. If we were really lucky, we’d get some PowerPoint slides – eh hem, ‘deck’ – to supplement the communication.
The best idea I saw was a twice-weekly email from the CEO. These never dealt with the highest-level ideas that often rained down on us from his level of the hierarchy. Instead, these emails succinctly described a specific aspect of the business, a few sentences of explanation always accompanied by one chart. I noticed something right away about these emails and so I started tracking them closely. Frequency, topic, and greeting were among the metrics I noted each time a new message pinged my inbox. Over time, I saw no relationship in any of the metrics except one – word count. The word count was almost always in the range of 225 to 275 words, the average right around 250.
This wasn't an accident. There is simply no guarantee of anyone reading beyond 250 or so words at any given time. I don’t say this to accuse anyone of having a bad attention span, it’s because I know from my experience that I simply shudder at the thought of reading more than a few sentences that appear unannounced in my inbox. If I see an email that runs over a couple hundred words, I plan a time in the future to read it.
Readers here should be delighted to know that I’m mindful of this lesson on the rebooted TOA. The audience here and its expectations are a little different than my former workplace but I think we do share a certain sentiment about word count. If I run past 300 words, we'll take a day off. If one of my longer Sunday posts hits a multiple of 300, we’ll just take a day off. And if a really big post pushes the average, we'll sprinkle some extra days off into the calendar. Nothing complicated, just trying to use a little common sense around these parts.
If you suspect we’ve run over 300 today, you are correct. So, thanks for reading, and we'll see you soon. Just not tomorrow.
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