Life, the Universe, and Comments

For a change, I thought I might post a comment conversation I've been having with my one lone commenter, David, in case you haven't dived into the comments from The Ravin'. David is a man of true substance, some of which is snack food. Thankfully, none of that substance is potato-based. Except perhaps vodka.

david said...

Loving the blog, Little Green Potato, with its refreshingly bitter taste. Are all green potatoes bitter? I guess they are.

My only problem is: can it be true? This is not to question your honesty or integrity, or the veracity of what you write, but is an exclamation of my dismay and shock!

Can things really be that bad? Can the incidents that you describe happen in a modern American company? If so, a number of my heartfelt beliefs come to nought (or naught, not sure which) (or nougat, as the spell checker helpfully suggests).

The first is the shocking revelation that free market economics has failed. I thought the US worked on a nicely Darwinian approach. If you don't make money, you die. Usually because they don't let you have access to health care without a certified insurance policy. But that's true for businesses too, right? Even Enron scale cock/cover-ups (that actually looks obscene when you type it) eventually fall to pieces. How much more so a project that will justify it's existence in its 2889th year?

If not, the go-getting corporations of Stateside operate to protect their helpless employees from the refining fires of the free market, insulating them in cocoons of mediocrity while economic wars rage beyond the climate-controlled windows.

Which leads to tearfully questioning my second belief: whither the American Dream? I thought I could work my way up from nowhere to head my own company, becoming a leading light for business ethics and a shining example to my employees. Instead the road seems to take me into a cul-de-sac where my neighbours are at best moderately skilled but narcissistic and at worst act like a pig scratching its privates (to quote). How hard do you have to work to get out of there?

So, what are you going to disown – the free market or the American Dream?

Which brings me to my last point. For a small root vegetable, you obviously have the skills and the inclination to rise above and rule Pet Analysts, Himbos and Puffed Up Egos Of The Month. I have no doubt they'll thank you for it, deep in their hearts, after they've finished bitching behind your back, possibly online, anonymously. You were born to change the world! That's too melodramatic. You were educated to change the world!

Basically, your year that starts in corporate turpitude must end with you becoming a senator. Or president, I don't mind which. Then I'll believe in the market and the Dream again. Because you'll tell me to.

little green potato said...

David,

Sorry it's taken me a while to get back to you. I've been busy growing sprouts down here in my dark hole.

As to whether this is all true, let's just say this: the material in here is what one might call fiction based heavily in truth. Any likenesses to persons living or dead is strictly coincidental. As an author, I expect you to understand that disclaimer better than any.

Yes, free market economics has failed. But it depends on how you approach the problem. Most economists would say that there are inefficiencies inherent in the free market system; no market is ever perfectly efficient, due to lack of information, gaming, etc. So what you see here is an illustration of a particularly large eddy in the flowing river of the free market. It does also seem to me, as you so rightly mention, that inefficiencies get punished at a much higher level than the one we're looking at here.

Equally, I am deeply disappointed in the lack of accountability and the viscosity of information in this microcosm. Is it endemic in Corporate America? I'm afraid so. Still, certain places out there do operate much more leanly and in accordance with true market principles - hire the best, fire the worst, keep moving, and keep innovating.

Unfortunately, they appear to be fewer in number. And they are generally smaller, younger operations.

I should also like to make another point; corporate IT, in my opinion, seems to be the one of the most inefficient segments of a corporation in general. There is no competitive atmosphere to encourage better products. The front-line, core business that we support seems much more tightly operated. The attempt at horizontal diversification, particularly into software, creates a command economy parasite on a free market core competency.

Now, to make a correlation between the difficulties of the corporate environment and the death of the American Dream seems to me slightly more tenuous. I have to remind myself every day that although my despair overwhelms me at times, I am more than able to support a quite comfortable lifestyle with this infuriatingly pointless water-treading.

And looking all around me, people of varying backgrounds are able to do the same. I would say it's much easier to achieve the American Dream than ever, soul-sapping though it may be.

The American Dream guarantees a wide-screen TV and two cars in the garage, not eternal happiness and financial freedom at an early age. Perhaps this is a much more simplistic and materialistic definition than you might have perceived. And perhaps that is where the gulf between us appears, as far as debating whether the Dream is still alive.

As for being the first under-developed tuber in government, I have recently come to the conclusion that government is just the rotten upper management of a country. You have to wager your soul to play the game, then when you've won, you either forget why you played or you realize you are one small, particularly squishy nugget in some very old, hard cogs.

I may have been educated to change the world, but unfortunately, that doesn't mean the likes of us are best equipped to survive. At this point in my life, I leave my fate to chance. Maybe I'll change my mind when I come up with a better solution.

david said...

Dear Potato (if I may be so informal)

Thank you for taking the time from chitting to reply. I’m glad to hear that any resemblance to people living or dead is purely coincidental. When the ill-informed whingeing English bleeding heart liberal is featured I’ll know not to take offence :-)

What can I say? Once again you’ve held up a mirror to my ignorance. In a country where I’m told that anyone can become President (efficiently demonstrated by the last few candidates) I thought that the Dream was about going all the way, rocket propelling yourself with free market fuel to the very top.

You’re right, of course, that that was never the point. Heading west and grabbing your mine/homestead/future retail and leisure development site was about doing enough work to achieve the lifestyle you wanted. And comfort and security should not be undervalued, I guess.

Still, I can’t help feeling that if necessity was the mother of invention then consumerism is the sugar daddy of banality. It keeps us satisfied with toys and trinkets, but to get them we have to do lots of things we’d prefer not to and find pretty boring.

In other words, chuck that widescreen TV through the triple-glazed window and marvel at the feelings of freedom and release as you watch it bounce off the SUV’s roof and embed itself in the manicured lawn. Hell, you can always return it to the shop claiming it was faulty (although we know who’ll be watching then…) Invention will be reborn, and who knows what kind of high achiever she’ll grow up into?

Of course, I write all this while sitting on my ever expanding, Cheesecake Factory fed backside. I’m not even gainfully employed! Because if you change the world then I won’t have to bother, but can tell everyone about my friend who proved me right. That’s what I’m really after…

I still want my green card, though. And it’ll be a lot easier to get when you’re President.

little green potato said...

David,

The pressure of your expectations may just turn me to mash.

Your suggestion that I could change the world is based on an assumption that the world wants to be changed. I have no such hopes.

You assume that there are a mass of people out there longing to break free from their banality, to live meaningful lives full of economic and personal satisfaction.

Sadly, it seems that the populace (in the Western world at least) are happy not to know the meaning of the word 'introspection' much less practice it. Life, to them, is an 876,000 hour movie that isn't great but the only thing showing.

Occasionally, some of these folks stop the reel to babble incoherently about who should be president, prime minister or such nonsense, but eventually they all go back to sleep.

Show me that there are more like you out there, and that might improve my outlook. Green cards don't come easy, my friend.

david said...

Solanum tuberosum,

I'm not sure if that's a demolishment of my argument or a blatant attempt to raise campaign funds! If it's the latter, my cheque's in the post.

There are countless losts souls like me, all looking for a leader. Just look at the hits on your blog! Then look at the number of people who don't vote in any Western democracy you care to choose. You'll see a spooky correlation.

So where are the billions like me to look for guidance? Not to management in the workplace, you've blogged that one out of the water. To politicians? They're the projectionists of the 876,000 hour movie, and then you have to pay for popcorn on top.

There's only one true organ of free speech, as you've found out, and that's the Web.

You see, hide it as you might, I can read between the lines of this blog. And those lines (between the other lines) are crying "revolution!"

As Abraham Lincoln, who I'm confidently informed was a politician or something, once said:

"I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crises. The great point is to bring them the real facts."

And what is this blog if not real facts? Or, at least, "fiction based heavily in truth" as you stated earlier. That's probably what Lincoln wanted to say, but it wouldn't have made such a pithy quotation.

The chips are down, potato. Are you half-baked or hard boiled?

little green potato said...

David,

Last time I checked, the number of people bothered enough to look at my profile totalled 32. That's not even enough to get my own religion entry on the census (Tuberanity) much less start a revolution.

The only thing 32 people can overthrow is a significantly sized piece of furniture.

I'll strike a deal with you - once my profile views number over 1,000,000 then I will consider running for office.

I expect you'll be waiting a very long time.