Again, another revelation I always knew was true, but never realized how much so until I started working. The idea is very simple, but it brings up many related topics so I want to keep this short. Simply put, most people just want to get by in life.
An interesting result of that is related to what I mentioned on Friday. An accident involving a competitor happened two Fridays ago. We heard about it the next day. There was nothing in the newspaper about it until Tuesday. Word gets around to those in the business. A competitor is just another company to work for to most people. It isn't some rival to do better than. It's just a place where people who used to work here now work and vice versa. That's why we knew by the next day. Same goes for anything of note that happens to us. I'm sure all the major service companies in the basin would know by the next day. If you go high enough up then people care about such competition, but for the most part, there's a profound apathy for it. Oh, there's the expected trash talking about the competition but not much actual action to ensure said trash talking is justified. There's no will to win, just a will to not lose.
There is no imminent greatness to achieve or some great change to make to the world. There's another bill to pay, another mouth to feed, another possession to have. Achieve some semblance of financial security and apparent status for yourself and your family. Don't ask questions about why you're doing it and what it's all for. Just get by. Get your gold watch after 20 and pension after 30 then do as you're told and retire.
This has turned very cynical and is probably colored greatly by the nature of the work I have chosen and this weird place that is Farmington. However, as I attempt to extrapolate what I have seen here across as much of the country as possible (even considering just how strange it is here) I believe I am right to say that most people just want to get by. The Bay Area, probably where most people who read this are as most people I know are there, is a hyper-competitive anomaly that bears little resemblance to most of the nation.
That's all I have. Get by. It explains a few things about people. For instance, it explains why many people talk about money a lot. Or why principles are another thing that you have to pay for. But the questions it raises are more compelling. Who wants to do more than just get by and why? How do people put themselves in situations where they are forced to want to just get by? Is this the end result of lower and middle class consumerism? What happened to the supposedly natural instinct to compete? I want to address those in the near future.
I don't plan to follow-up last week's abrupt end anytime soon. I'm sure the more verbose could wax about agendas for hours on end. However, I want to point out that a large part of many peoples' agendas consists of getting by. And they want to get by with the least amount of resistance possible. Thus, the agenda becomes to do as little work as possible during the hours for which you are getting paid. Hear that sound? It's the giant vacuum of laziness sucking hours straight from the clock. This place cracks me up.
6 comments:
i think the mantra of "getting by" is present in most large organizations, even here in the bay area. i see it daily here at work and it frustrates me to no end.
i will say though that i'm glad it does frustrate me, because it indicates some type of personal forward ambition that is just not shared by others here.
i think the concept of just "getting by" also applies more and more as you get older, or not because of being older but because you generally have more financial responsibility for others and for bigger things as you get older. so we and a lot of our friends don't just want to get by, we also want to be happy with our jobs, we want to do stuff that feels like it matters, we want to begin the next great socialist revolution. whatever. i don't think that's to say that this perspective is just upper-middle-class 20-something bullshit, because it seems a pretty nice aspiration to want more out of life than liveable wages- but then again, all i need to pay off is rent, bills, car stuff and the occasional shady bribe, just stuff for me me me. will i become more centered on just getting by as i take on more financial responsibility? hope not. is the average suburban bear out there ok with living out life in an uninspiring job and taking the occasional family vacation to Florida? maybe, i don't know. but i think we should all learn our lesson here: find the job you love BEFORE you have your unprotected sex. hmm... is that the moral of my comment?
hmmm well, thinking about this some more...
i'm not so convinced, actually, that greater financial responsibility makes you forget higher aspirations if you had them in the first place. maybe what it actually is, is that a lot of people out there are never introduced to the concept that work can be something other than a tool to buy a car, buy a fridge and get by. work simply is not an aspect of life that has the potential to bring joy or personal fulfillment; it's just too bad that it takes up so much of your time. personal fulfillment, then, is instead what you see from the lens you grow into- satisfaction in being able to buy that car. fulfillment through having more hair left than the bastard across the street. hmm so much to say and wonder about all of this...
that's why it's maybe funny that teachers, politicians i like, etc., talk so much about doing what you love, changing the world. how many people ever actually consider 'changing the world' a priority, or think seriously about their ability?
Good that Jack is a bit frustrated at times. Bonnie is onto something in her first blog reply. Better check my Thursday nite email for what that might be, for we all want this blog to stay G-rated.
There once was a General Motors assembly plant in Fremont in the Alameda County. Down the road a few miles away but in Santa Clara County in the great city of Milpitas, there was a Ford assembly plant. They both were one of the largest employers in their own county. They were only competitors in the eyes of top executives. The rest of the assembly workers were UAW members, they received the exact compensations and benefit packages based on union contract. When the Japanese cars came along in the 70's, both plants were shut down due to poor quality works caused by the lack of incentive to compete among the workers to build a better quality product. The Fremont plant was bought by the Japanese and now makes small Toyota trucks. The Ford plant became The (not so) Great Mall. I am sure you know what I am talking about.
Quite possibly the most legitimate comments in response to a post. Sorry Andrew, requests for expedited shipments of MnDonalds do not count as legitimate comments.
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