Learning Mirrors

Reading Never Spilt the Difference and the one of the first lessons he demonstrates working in workplace is that of mirroring. I have not seen it done exactly how Voss describes it but it called to mind something similar I have seen done by a former colleague. I respected S for his emotional intelligence and ability to put customers at complete ease. He could talk about a concept in his head as if it were ready for prime time and the customer would be eager to give us a shot. I learned a lot from observing S in action. He would almost always replay what he had heard from a customer no matter whether the conversation was happening by phone or in-person. It would almost always be a concise summary of what they had stated and no more. Once the customer confirmed he had it right, S would clarify any conclusions he had drawn based on what he had heard thus far. The way he did it was so flawless that the customer might not realize he was already sowing seeds of the solution he intended to sell them down the road. And usually the first call would end at that point.

S would go do his homework and come up with a proposal that mirrored exactly what he had heard, played on the fears and doubts that were expressed or not. He would also play up their hopes and dreams in the context of what we was trying to sell as an idea or a concept. S was a vaporware man and he was a bit of a lone-wolf. He did not have anything real following his brilliant presentations. It was hard for the rest of us to get inside this mind-meld he had going on with the customer and on the off chance that we did, it was just about impossible to deliver the dreams he was dreaming for and with them. But often it did not matter much. He was able to create relationships that did not exist before his interactions with the customer, have conversations that had had not been possible until then. Sometimes the payoff period was much longer than the sales people would have wanted. In balance, when I look back, it seems like everyone came out ahead in the end without anyone winning too much. 

Doing Good

I remembered reading this article while discussing impacting customer experience in a positive way. 

“As a neighborhood grocery store looking to build happier, healthier communities, Schnucks wants to help our customers take a step forward on their health journey,” Allison Primo, health and wellness strategy manager at Schnuck Markets, said in a statement. “With the help of nutrition experts at Spoon Guru, we evaluated all food sold at Schnucks stores to determine what is actually Good For You. The Good For You list simplifies making healthy choices to help Schnucks shoppers eat, feel and live healthier.”

The rewards points are a nice incentive to get customers engaged. I hope this is a trend that catches on and becomes the norm for all grocery stores, Customers will hopefully make choices that are good for them and influence what food is produced for our consumption. The idea translates to all kinds of other businesses - it the customer is consuming anything at all there is a way help them make more informed decision. If I am out shopping for fast fashion, would be great to see the true cost of the item based on impact to all concerned. Maybe I would be inclined to pay a lot more for an item that is a wardrobe staple, not go in and out of fashion and it built to last. Seeing the cost per wear numbers side by side makes it much easier to decide which way to go. 

Cold War

Watched Cold War recently and found it to be a wonderful visual treat. I have long been a fan of black and white movies - its so much easier to immerse in the story without the distraction of realistic colors. There were many scenes in the movie where the viewer can just gawk at how beautifully it was shot. They could be stills to print and hang on the wall as pieces of art. The story is inspired by real-life and adapted for cinema. It is about a couple drawn to each other against perhaps their better judgment. They are volatile together and miserable when apart so there is no winning scenario. This too is love but in its wild and untamed form. 

The drama makes for a story with epic qualities specially set in the post-war times where east and west represent irreconcilable differences too and for a person trying to find their true place in the world, the ceaseless push and pull. On the one hand their is the comfort of the home country, familiar places and things even if tragically imperfect. It provides stability and stifles the spirit at the same time. Crossing the border could lead to a life that is far more vibrant, pregnant with opportunity but more often than not dreams die stillborn, disillusionment sets in. For a couple like Wiktor and Zula in the movie, this is a recipe for disaster that leads them to the tragic ending in the movie, a metaphor for how the real-life couple who inspired spend their last days. This is one of the best movies I have watched in a while.

Pink Collar

I recommended Coders to a couple of male coder friends hoping that the book would show them how the world views them and how some of what they do without putting a second thought to it, could have consequences for society. Finally finished the book and was left think about these lines:

..when women move into an area of coding, it gets devalued. The men leave that area, looking for new cutting-edge areas where they can reestablish artificial scarcity and a tacit no-girls-allowed culture, or at least one where girls are regarded as foreign interlopers. These days, that appears to be Bitcoin—or blockchain tech in general—and AI, where, whenever I go to events, it’s a sea of men, far more than most other fields of coding. What is actually going on, Posner argues, is the creation of a “pink-collar ghetto” in coding.

Thompson talks about the idea that some parts of programming are seen as easy, fuzzy, artsy and not the real, hard stuff men do. Along those lines is the tirade about BASIC from an some important guy in the world of programming

“It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students that have had a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration.”

My programming days ended very early in my career. I got the sense that "good" in this business was defined by rules that tended to favor the way men tend to think. A solution that did not conform to that standard was inherently suspect - it would need to be evaluated and interrogated closely for flaws and many would doubtless be found. Over time, this type of scrutiny of my work and the requirement to twist my mind in ways it was not naturally inclined to got aggravating. I moved on to things I find a lot more interesting and rewarding. 

Ghosts and Pirates

Things about the history of India, I know very little about. Read this in The Making of Asian America: 

In the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries Manila became a center of transpacific slave trading. Facilitated by the Manila galleon trade, Asians constituted another pool of slave labor in New Spain, albeit much smaller than the African population. Colonial merchants, priests, and military and civil officials involved in the trade all profited handsomely. In 1604, Father Pedro Chirino observed that slaves from India, Malacca, and Maluco fetched the highest prices, because “the men are industrious and obliging, and many are good musicians; the women excellent seamstresses, cooks, and preparers of conserves, and are neat and clean in service.”34 An estimated 6,000 entered the colony each decade during the seventeenth century.

Remembered my grandmother telling me stories about pirates in the Bay of Bengal in the same vein as ghost stories. The idea was to entertain the child and instill some fear about not obeying elders who knew better - wandering away, talking to strangers and such always ended with some bad actors getting in the mix and the kid ending up in a pot of boiling water or much worse. She also told stories about my uncles when they were growing up - both were a lot of trouble and their escapades were no less exciting to me than those involving pirates or ghosts. My childhood memories are a blur of these stories making it hard to separate fact from fiction. That some of these stories could be historically accurate would have never crossed my mind.  

Tip Line

It was appalling to read that a government would create a tip line for parents to report teachers who in their opinion behaved objectionably. It was already very hard work being a teacher in the public school system and the pandemic made things that much worse. Now they have to look forward to parents snitching on them to the government. It will be no surprise that teachers who have any other options to remain gainfully employed will quit teaching. Crowded class-rooms with teachers who just check of the boxes and comply so they don't get fired make for the worst outcomes for the kids. 

J was lucky to have many contrarian and rabble-rousing teachers from elementary through high-school. These folks were not all politically correct, they held strong views on subjects and enjoyed a lively debate with kids in the class-room. This was part of the teaching process - it was not all about getting through the standardized tests and meeting standards established by the state. Kids felt free to have unpopular opinions and debate their peers without fear of censure. That culture shaped the adults J and her classmates turned into. These are kids that can hold a conversation, advocate for their ideas, pursue their goals and feel comfortable with friends and strangers who have diverse ideologies. 

The thought that all of these possibilities will be stamped out of the very classrooms where they can blossom is depressing. 

Old Tale

This post about manifesting fame via Tik Tok is a great example of how folks who are writing as if the world did not exist until the last 5-10 years. The story in question is about a winner in the endless attention harvesting competition - as measured via outcomes. But this is a still a 15 minutes of fame thing and one winner will be supplanted by another soon enough. Getting durable results will still be uphill. Not sure what this has to do with Gen Z in particular. 

..Gen Z is the first to fully embrace the power of the Internet. Instead of waiting to get noticed and promoted by traditional “gatekeepers,” Gen Z’ers are using social apps to break down barriers and make things happen for themselves.

That's not accurate. Parents of Gen Z were embracing the power of the Internet too as far back as the early nineties and into the dotcom boom and bust cycle. There will those horrendous GeoCities pages, MySpace came around a bit later and then there was a dotcom for everything conceivable. People were throwing just about anything into the hopper and hoping the internet would work its magic and make it a wonderful shiny thing that all loved and admired. It worked for a select few, the rest toiled in vain and had to keep their day jobs into the aughts and beyond. There is nothing unique that Gen Z did here, just that the medium has changed from the primitive to the likes of TikTok. The modern day content creators don't seem to have interest in contemporary history of topics they choose to write about - if it was relevant would have been trending on TikTok already and they would have known. 

Sensing Sickness

It won't be a moment too soon for this concept to go commercial, so people can make data-driven choices about where to congregate or not. When it comes to travel for business, people find themselves in some strange twilight zone unable to make the right call - the client is ambivalent about your in-person presence and they certainly won't insist, your own management asks you to refrain from doing what's uncomfortable but everyone else on the team is on-site while you decide to remain remote for fear of getting sick. There will come a time when becoming the odd one out will be viewed negatively - I am not sure if its not already the case. 

Ofcourse it would be even better if the sensor could warn you about your personal level of risk given the exposure so you could make appropriate decisions. For the elderly who are confined to their homes, this would give them the confidence to be out in the world again without the needless panic over getting sick. There is no objectivity to the fear or the lack of it right now - it all depends on the temperament, risk tolerance and sadly the political affiliations of the individual. Discarding all of that in favor of real data would be such a sea-change. 

Slow Drift

Watched Topkapi recently and loved it for being uncomplicated and fun. Among other things found it interesting how easy it was to follow the dialogue. I can almost never get by without subtitles these days and have blamed it on my bad ear. Turns out that may not be entirely true. Filmmakers are playing with too many technologies in their effort to get "realistic" sound and dialog has become harder to follow over the past decade. 

That has also been the period where I have all but lost interest in going to the movie theater even for the experience - the dependence on sub-titles is in large part to blame for this. It makes me wonder if there could be a method to the madness here. If we are meant to consume streaming content from our couches and marketed to while in that state, then it makes sense to make that the only comfortable option. 

Lot of interesting discussion on the topic on unintelligible movie dialog on this YC thread. Small drifts in a certain direction over time can have unforeseen consequences though, specially as content production becomes more democratic. It will no longer be that influential film-makers are the only ones who can set the tone. 

Over Efficient

Loved this list of over-hyped trends of 2022 with my favorite being the cult of efficiency. In many situations rush is introduced where none is needed - holiday gift-giving being a great example. We have the whole year to plan and prepare to buy gifts for those we care about. With a little bit of organization a couple of dozen gifts (which is a big number) can be bought over a year - there would be no spectacular rush to get them delivered. If storage is a problem, it could require more creativity and thinking small but meaningful. But the cult of efficiency is a contagion that spreads much further than retail therapy. If you are in the market for a product or service, the goal is always to get you to the buy button as efficiently as possible - the set of questions asked will be targeted to that goal, not relevance to your personal situation. 

A retirement planner is unlikely to ask you what kind of life you want to live going forward now that you are an empty nester - what would you be willing to give up, what can't you live without, what regrettable decisions do you have the capacity to make and so on. These are real human questions that a person may struggle to answer at first. Instead the questions are more around income and expected retirement age and some dumb risk-tolerance model that provides an answer involving purchase of a service. This is also an efficiency play. For some reason this particular example of selling efficiency came to mind as I read this article. I am sure that same zeal for efficiency drives end of life planning - just get the person processed out quickly to make room for the next one in the queue. 

Quiet Minds

Some meetings have worse dynamics than others. The type that I particularly detest where a sub-group or maybe even two people engage in a closed loop conversation where it is impossible for anyone else to enter. You can try but you won't get very far. Generally, everyone else stays quiet and assumes a spectator role. 

Often, I have wanted to interrupt and ask if anyone else is needed apart from those speaking for the last fifteen minutes and are the rest of us free to leave. Even without having ever done that I know that would sound incredibly rude. What I do very often in these situations is to leave and left the organizer know to reach out directly if needed. 

Quiet people are not appreciated as the author of this essay would want us to believe and if the person happens to be female she becomes invisible very soon. I have not seen evidence of others being interested in learning what those quiet people have in mind - there is too much clamor all around to notice such things. 

Binding Ties

Anyone J's age can relate to this. What the world promised to be when they left to college or had spent a year there is nothing like how it has shaped up to be. The struggles to sustain new friendships has proven a big challenge while the world has opened up in unexpected ways allowing for relationships to form that may not have otherwise been a consideration. In effect, everything we told these kids about what they could expect from their college experience has turned out to be a lie - not just what the parents and their generation told them but even friends and family only a few years older than them. No one had any advice for how to navigate the mess these kids found themselves in. 

Evaluating the strength and the value of the pre-pandemic social ties has become a common theme and applies to the rest of us a much as it to kids nearing the end of college. There is greater sense of fatality and finality for them because college is a time bound, one in a life-time experience - the expectations if not met cannot be made whole another time or so they feel. When you have lived over half your life, the trade-offs are quite different. 

My efforts to check on folks periodically ended up being unwelcome in more than one instance. Some stopped responding entirely so I gathered whatever they were going through did not square with being randomly sociable. You either stayed in the inner circle to be seen and counted everyday as the action unfolded or your overtures were unwelcome. If you were already estranged, your situation did not improve over the course of the pandemic. 

Pointless Emails

Caught up with a friend over the weekend after many months and we got talking about the needless emails from the company CEOs we received over the holidays. There are exhortations to reflect on the year that been, the amazing things we have accomplished together and be grateful for friends and family. I find it particularly offensive to be in receipt of such emails from the powers that be - unless you are expressing your gratitude for the work of your employees in very tangible way don't bother with the platitudes, they are rude and condescending specially in such times as we live in - we have lost loved ones needlessly in the year that we are meant to be reflect upon, our kids have had their lives and plans upended by a pandemic that introduced variables they did not know how to process, we got burnt out from lack of work-life separation, we got tired on being on video all day long when things were falling apart at home and we still need to put our game face on for all to observe. 

Notwithstanding, we are well aware of what we have in life that we should be grateful for - yes that paycheck is on our list too, we are unlikely to forget that one as we count our blessings - no reminder is needed. The single parent working extra hours to have enough to make a nice holiday for her four school age kids would appreciate a holiday bonus, two days of paid time off or a gift card for her kids - none of that is typically forthcoming from these fine folks who send us emails to remind us to spend time with friends and family an enjoy the holidays. In lieu of walking the talk of "gratitude" that we have these cringe inducing homilies from CEOs who believe they have to take on the role of the shepherd to herd their sheeple out of their misery. 

Glinting Barb

Reading Admiring Silence by Adbulrazak Gurah and loved these lines about how people prime for arguments in intimate relationships:

She always was good with phrases, although this one she picked up somewhere. When she found a little phrase, she polished it and rubbed it until it was hard and glinting. Then she kept it by her in case she needed to blind me with her cleverness. I don’t think she did it to be cruel. It was just that she liked to win her arguments, and not always without charm.

The frustrations of dreams that did not come true. the imagined future that did not turn into reality can indeed turn into fits of jousting with each other, trying to coax sparks of life in what is dead and gone. Sometimes this the only thing that keeps the relationship alive - these barbs that sting and bleed, demonstrate the signs of life of which there is no other evidence.

Blind Plunge

I have been reading Why Buddhism is True lately. Started out feeling ambivalent about how the author had chosen to handle the subject but over time, learned a few things. As far as the "science" of why Buddhism is true - Wright has two favorite tropes. One is natural selection - the catch-all to explain every kind of human behavior singular or collective. It's a bit too Freudian for my taste - this one-size fits all theory. The second thing he overuses is experiments involving the human brain and using the data from it to "justify" the teachings of the Buddha. In faith, it seems a certain degree of blindness is desired and even helpful. 

You plunge in a bit blind, realize the efficacy of the teachings through your own practice and then at some point see if it trues up with science. The desire to prove a Buddhism true is bit misbegotten and I struggled with that premise despite some redeeming qualities of the book. As a Hindu, I don't think I am interested in learning why Hinduism is true. In fact, that question is not particularly relevant to me. What I would like to learn instead is a set of daily practices I could follow to improve the quality of my life and to become a better person to those who have to deal with me. That would be reward enough no matter if the religion was true or not.

Seeking Best

Read this beautiful quote in Questions For The Dalai Lama:

Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other

The idea is so versatile - it can span from an intimate partner relationship to that of your friendship with the reclusive neighbor you see only occasionally. The word "love" would have different scope, range and intensity in each context as would the word "need" but the idea is applicable universally. Just reading that line made me want to evaluate relationships I have with people in through that lens. In many instances need exceeded love for me or the other person. No surprise that those relationships are frayed, strained or dissolved at this point in my life. 

The word "best" can ne applied in context too - its not the one best relationship of your life but almost best in class - the best friend, the co-worker you like the most, the boss you admire the most and so on. In relationships the quote applies quite literally when considering relationships that failed or were unhappy and dissatisfying compared to the one that brings peace and tranquility - that is the one where love well exceeded need. 

Low Bar

This story about Hertz is kafkasque and you can only count your blessings if you were not one of those hapless customers that got stuck in jail for cars they reported stolen because they were too incompetent to find it. There is bad customer service and then there is sending customers to jail - this is new low and one that may be hard to beat but some company will no doubt sink even lower. 

..for years Hertz has falsely reported that its cars were stolen as part of its regular business practice, "ensnaring its customers in accusations of car theft, throwing them in jail on felony charges, prosecuting them, burdening them with criminal records that impact their livelihoods, and separating them from their family and loved ones."

Why would Hertz claim that its cars were stolen when legitimate renters were driving them? Believe it or not, the filing claims this is a cost-cutting measure. In some cases, the company simply misplaces a car or a rental contract and doesn't know where the car is. Rather than upgrade its malfunctioning inventory systems or conduct its own investigation when cars are unaccounted for, Hertz simply reports these cars as stolen, the filing claims.

Experiencing Scale

Reading this "expose" was mildly interesting as the general direction of the facts are well known and the details are meant to provoke outrage. People are able to compare themselves to what is within conceptual range. You could envy your neighbor who lives in the same sub-division but has the nicer house and cars, take more vacations than most. So that is within range but a bit on the higher end of a scale you are able to see your place on - this drives envy. The ultra-rich Americans this article cites are not within our conceptual realm, the way they earn and spend money is nothing the ordinary person is familiar with - this is scale where we don't even have a place, the unit of measure is a few orders of magnitude higher. 

It would make sense to frame the problem statement in terms of consequences for the rest of us as a result of these folks not paying any taxes. If for example, CEO was capped at N times higher than the lowest earning associate in the company, it would mean three months a year of paid vacation for all, free childcare until kindergarten for every employee, free healthcare and so on. Those are concepts all of us can grasp easily. So to learn that we could have had all of those things and much more in our current jobs and cannot, might promote the kind of visceral response such revelations seek. The story is not about income tax loop-holes, it is about the human potential of 99% of the population stolen, trod-upon and destroyed.

Since then, the concept that income comes only from proceeds — when gains are “realized” — has been the bedrock of the U.S. tax system. Wages are taxed. Cash dividends are taxed. Gains from selling assets are taxed. But if a taxpayer hasn’t sold anything, there is no income and therefore no tax.

Contemporary critics of Macomber were plentiful and prescient. Cordell Hull, the congressman known as the “father” of the income tax, assailed the decision, according to scholar Marjorie Kornhauser. Hull predicted that tax avoidance would become common. The ruling opened a gaping loophole, Hull warned, allowing industrialists to build a company and borrow against the stock to pay living expenses. Anyone could “live upon the value” of their company stock “without selling it, and of course, without ever paying” tax, he said.

Lost World

The appointment of Leena Nair to head Chanel has warmed many a desi heart no doubt. Hopefully her influence at the top of the fashion food chain will have trickle down effects that impact lesser mortals with modest budgets favorably. Every time, I see a desi sister in America dressed to fit in and blend, I feel and share her pain. The same woman in a desi setting would look beautifully alive in colors and textures from India - whether or not she is actually wearing a sari. It would bring out the real person hidden in clothing that was not designed with her in mind. 

In America, it takes a very bold woman to wear a sari or other recognizably ethnic clothes to work. It is a statement, it grabs attention in ways that may not serve the woman well. In all my years, I have not met one so brave. Sometimes, a girl will add a small detail to an otherwise conformist attire, might come to work with remnants of henna from a wedding celebration she attended over the weekend and so on, but that is about as far as it gets. Here is hoping Nair can help add to the concept of western attire, what it would take the rest of the world to feel like it allows them the power of self-expression and creativity through the clothes they wear. 

Musical Life

Read two heart-warming stories about music, one made by a rapper and the other by birds nearing extinction. The first will have saved human lives and the second might save those of birds. Music that holds special meaning for us has the power to soothe, energize, heal and more. 

Collecting these songs is an amazing way to pay that gift forward to those who need a little help. The popularity of the birdsong album goes to prove that music can bring us closer to things we don't always think about. 

"This album is a very special record with some rare recordings of birds that may not survive if we don't come together to protect them," BirdLife Australia CEO Paul Sullivan told The Music Network.

"While this campaign is fun, there's a serious side to what we're doing, and it's been heartening to see bird enthusiasts showing governments and businesses that Australians care about these important birds," he added.

Learning Caution

 Watching The Bleeding Edge was a sad and distressing experience but one that everyone should have. The story about a hip replacement making a person lose his mind was at first difficult to understand but when the reason was explained, the dots started to connect. It made me think about the side effects of medicines people write about - sometimes it runs such a gamut that it leaves you confused. How many of these things are related to the drug itself and what is unrelated. Surely this whole constellation of issues could not be attributed to one medicine. But it could very be and maybe the more diverse the range of problems being reported the more concerned we should be instead of dismissive. The medical device business seems to a whole another level of disaster. The fact that any number of lawsuits against one of Bayer's devices failed to move the needle and this documentary succeeded is a great accomplishment. 

I have over the years offended any number of doctors by refusing to accept the first thing they prescribed and demanding they explain their rationale and disclose how many years the thing has been in the market. I have told many upfront that if they are looking for a lab-rat to try novel meds on, I am definitely not their person. I often feel that people do more diligence with their mechanic who diagnoses the ailments of their old car and prescribes a fix than they do with their doctor who is doing the same thing but to their body. The cost of a subpar auto-repair job is rarely life threatening but as the stories in this documentary illustrate one wrong decision can completely upend a person's life and even destroy their family. 

Building Habitat

Interesting essay on modern architecture and why it is the way it is. 

..It is also revealing to consider how the detachment people often feel around modern buildings and urban settings closely mirrors the disconnect people with PTSD and ASD often have towards others. It all makes a great deal of sense once you think about it: people who are relationally compromised can’t come up with an architecture that promotes relationships. 

We talk about older buildings having more character and that seems to fit this explanation. You can form a relationship with something that has personality. Homes in the suburbia don't have the modern architecture the authors are describing here but there is a tremendous monotony about them that render them lifeless and inert. Reading this made me think of my neighbor's home. 

The home similar to the other houses on the street but the the needs of the family evolved over time and they adapted by creating extensions and adding features that they required. Over time, that house looks completely different than the others. I know I always notice it for that uniqueness. That is one level of interaction and the feeblest one. The people who live in that home and made it their own over the years have much stronger ones I am sure. 

The subject matter merits of the article are well beyond my pay-grade but the logic has commonsense appeal for the layperson.

As Steve Jobs once said, “The broader one’s understanding of the human experience, the better design we will have.” Indeed, if that guiding principle could lead Apple to stratospheric success, imagine what it could do as the foundation for building human habitats?

Abstract Value

The line in this article about us cherishing children in the abstract but not the actual children struck a chord with me. While the author frames the argument in the context of abortion rights or the lack thereof, the idea goes further than that:

..dress up obsession with controlling women’s bodies and freedom in the wardrobe of “the rights of the fetus,” but then allow that fetus, once it turns into an actual child, to go hungry, to live in fear of violence in their schools, to go unhoused or deal with housing insecurity, to endure the effects of environmental racism, and to grow into an adult indelibly marked by all of those experiences.

When you speak to parents of adult children, often their accomplishments are touted by way of introducing the person you have not met and likely never will. I know the resume highlights of just about any such kid if their parent is in my social circle. What makes this person unique or memorable rarely comes up. Its a real pleasure when a parent decides to share something human about their adult child with a relative stranger so you remember those details and forget the resume highlights and the showreel of accomplishments. That seems like valuing children in the abstract and not so much for who they really are. 

Recently, I met one such resume - quite a stellar one at that. The young lady was curious about the lessons learned by someone of my age. She had no desire to discuss her accomplishments and we chatted about mundane things like renting your first apartment alone, work-life balance expectations a young person should have and so on. It was a pleasure to speak with her and share what "wisdom" I could as she starts out in life. 

Living Faith

This quote I read recently in Circle of Reading stayed in my mind for days, specially after that experience I had with meeting the woman who had lost her adult daughter and made an amazing peace with it relying on her faith:

A human being cannot understand his ultimate purpose, and the purpose of the whole world, in terms of his being a worker who delivers building materials for a construction, for it is impossible to know either the form of this construction or its purpose. But a human being can know, and does know, that what he is participating in creating is something rational, beautiful and necessary for him and for the whole world. That is what faith is.

Faith is a hard concept to grasp for those of us who lack a strong religious anchor. My neighbor is lucky is not one of them.  Her church provides her the harness and community in which to express and exercise her faith. Folks like me have to find another way to arrive at the same place of serenity. Maybe experiencing setbacks help, failing to execute on best laid plans or life happening in wonderful and unexpected ways.  I was thinking about what part I am playing in creating something rational and beautiful that the world and I both need. Viewed through that lens even my work feels more relevant and meaningful - individuals, companies and the customers those companies serve have been positively impacted by my work over the years. The work could be doing, leading or influencing. Maybe I should focus more on helping bring about what meaningful change I can in my area of influence. Maybe a microscopic level of participation in the grand scheme of things but that would be an act of faith all the same.

Single Choice

Reading this article reminded me of a conversation I had with a very young friend over the holidays. She is in her 20s and has a steady boyfriend. By all accounts the guy is nice and many things she desires. However, he is quite far from all that she wants. So this man will never be the one she marries - that is a road too far. L gets that she may be asking for too much and the pool of men who will make the cut will only shrink over the years. It does not bother her. She is prepared to go solo for the rest of her life but not willing to marry less than ideal. That is simply not going to happen. Many years ago, if I heard someone L's age make such pronouncements, I would have chalked it up to lack of maturity; with time they would change perspective. 

I don't see it the same way anymore. There are women that age and much older that I know of who have done exactly as L is threatening to do. A couple of them are my peers. They don't much care about what social norms they are expected to follow, motherhood is certainly not a priority and career keeps them busy and fulfilled. Men come and go and there could be long pauses in between specially in the older end of the spectrum. But they don't have any desire or intention to marry "wrong". One comment L made got me thinking about how popular media must have influenced her dreams and hopes. She said, it would be way easier to be single if there was a tight group of friends like they show in SATC - "The idea of four friends who stay both single and tightly bound well into their 30s feels almost as extravagant to me as the show’s iconic clothing budget."

For Worse

During J's winter break, we stopped by the neighborhood McD one evening on our way back from an errand. She wanted an iced-coffee, we decided to add large fries to the order - to relive childhood memories. This was an occasional and beloved treat - always to share. I have not stepped into a McD since the pandemic started so this was the first time in a while. 

Ordering was by a touch-screen menu and  there was no one inside. We picked up our order in a few minutes and were on our way. J exchanged some pleasantries with the young lady at the cash register - maybe a kid like her on break from college, earning a few bucks and we were out. Fast food has become even faster and even less personal than it used to be, I commented to J on the way back home. Looks like that is the least of the problems with fast food since the beginning of the pandemic:

Customers have become more critical and angry towards workers in the service industry, and suddenly "people think it's perfectly okay to be intolerant, demand things, and just be unreasonable," he said, to the point where his work is "almost untenable."

This shift in customers is in part thanks to the rapid advances in technology used by fast-food chains, like online ordering, and people becoming accustomed to being at home and having everything delivered, the worker said. Many customers are "starting to treat fast food as their personal catering service," the worker said, with extreme modifications to every item and no empathy or understanding for overwhelmed workers.

Master Class

Before Thanksgiving is the time of year when bad news is delivered in all-hands calls. This story reminded me of a time when I was part of a very similar call. The CEO in question came on a Zoom call looking very somber. We had been promised it would be a short call. The layoff was announced in the first few minutes followed by him saying whoever had been impacted could expect to hear from their manager in the next few hours. 

My manager at the time called me immediately after the CEO call ended to let me know I had not been impacted. I was grateful to hear the news and also for his promptness in informing me of it. P was one of the best people managers I have come across in my career - he is extremely smart, self-aware, efficient and unassuming. 

More importantly he understood how to help people maximize each other's strengths when they worked together. P had been at the company for over a decade at the time and held a variety of successful, high-profile roles. If there was a Most Popular Manager vote, he would have won it hands-down. 

That morning, many of us felt that the CEO was not quite the leader that P was. If P had been the one to announce the layoff he would have done it different. He did have to let go a few of his own team and no surprise he delivered a class act. He wrote strong recommendations, made introductions and they knew he was serious when he told them that they will be his top picks when the time was right to hire again. Watching P in action in that incredibly difficult time was a masterclass in how to be a good leader. 

It was good to see that bad leadership was punished in short order. 

Living Faith

At a holiday party at our neighbor's a few weeks ago, I met a woman I have not seen before. I noticed her bright smile and exuberant copper jewelry. At some point she was seated next to me and we started to chat. L is a recently retired nurse. She said waking up in the mornings makes her feel like a stay-at-home mom without any kids to raise. This is the first time in her adult life she finds herself at home without anyone to care for. Opportunities to volunteer have come about but the idea of committing to set days and hours is not appealing to her - that is the life she has left behind. At some later point in our conversation I learned she had two children of whom one had died a few years ago. 

Even before I could process the information L said that she sees her deceased child her dreams all the time and so vividly that does not experience the loss - she knows her daughter is in heaven and is there are signs for her to see wherever she looks - in nature, in waking and sleeping moments wherever she might be. C is a constant presence and a cheerful one as she had been in life. To say I was amazed by L would be to understate it. Faith is truly tested in adversity and hers is the highest form of adversity a person can experience in their life. I had no words to adequately express my feelings - telling L that I sorry for her loss would be absurd. C was far from lost to L - she was indeed more present than she had been in life, a validation of her faith. We went back to more mundane topics, other folks joined the conversation in the meantime. I came away grateful for me meeting with L and it gave me a lot to think about. 

Customer Participation

This is customer experience done way wrong. Being so creepy about data collection that even Facebook would blush is a high bar to clear but apparently that has now come to pass:

I can’t think of anyone who would want Verizon to help curate their music selection or send them targeted ads. It’s clear the primary goal of this program is to collect customer information at a level that would make Facebook blush, something all-to-familiar for telecom companies. 

I can see how this decision came about. Marketers are freaking out about the imminent deprecation of third party cookies and needed to figure their survival strategy. So the idea is to get customers to provide information of their own volition with the understanding there would be some value rendered in return. Presumably, this makes us all comfortable with over-sharing or so the consumer survey data would have us believe.

So armed with such irrefutable wisdom, Verizon decided to be the arbiter of decision making on behalf of the customer, proceed with the bold presumption that they could actually provide "value" and opted the customer in by default - creating a so-called "frictionless experience". Talk about galactic leaps of faith at every turn.

Many of their customers would not become aware of any of this and the data collection could proceed apace. If the stink around this gets to noxious levels there is always opt-out and a public apology to set that right. Earning customer distrust in spades in the process as if providing deplorable customer service was not good enough. Next time I get an email notifying me some or the other of my service providers is changing their privacy policy, I do need to read their insufferable nonsense end to end or I will be opted-in into such dubious schemes. 

Reaching Sun

Last day of the year found us in a local bakery getting pastries and coffee. The only other customer in the store was an elderly man sitting in the corner working on his laptop. We talked about the year that had been - the surprises that came along the way. It was a beautiful sunny day outside with only a nip in the air. I was not dressed warm enough - sunshine does not always been warm, yet we look at a cerulean blue sky and imagine the coat can stay home. It was one of those days. 

It made me think of cues and miscues in life - and reading a signal wrong can result in a chain reaction of uncontrolled events. Such has been the case with a person we know well and we watched helplessly as her life unraveled due to actions taken in haste, hate and despair. We wished her well and hoped in the next year she would allow love to touch her soul and live a life happier than she did these past few years. I wished for us and the ones I love that we could enjoy those sudden bursts sunshine with spontaneity but not forget to carry a coat just in case the weather turned. 

The weather turned completely bleak over the new year and the news headlines matched the level of gloom. This has been one of those years when shaking off that feeling of statis from the past one felt particularly hard. New Year greetings were exchanged with family and friends as a matter of course but it did not lift the spirits. The happiest news I heard at the end of the year was that my best friend had landed her dream job and was finally getting a chance to live close to her ailing parents - something that had caused her a lot of grief in the last couple  of years. It made the the end of 2021 feel warm. 

Small Tribute

Sometimes the corniest movies can get me to a nostalgic place. Such was the case watching Chalk N Duster. Worthy topic handled in a cringe inducing melodramatic manner notwithstanding a powerhouse cast. But at some level this movie succeeded for a viewer like me. It made me tear up thinking of my school teachers - some of whom have shaped me into the person I am, the good parts of it atleast. Mrs. P, Ms. M and Mr. J were pivotal in awakening the love of literature, curiosity about worlds and lives unknown, unseen that serves me well to this day. Mrs. P shaped my earliest tastes in reading and showed me how I could forge my own path from there - which I did. 

Then there was Mrs. G who taught me history is about the mistakes we make here and now because we did not learn from the past, the story of how we got here and what it would take to get to a better place. She was talking about preserving heritage and environment so we don't lose our bearings and navigation markers. She taught us how to read a piece of news and tie it back to bits of history from which we may learn what might happen next. To us Mrs. G was a detective who used history as her tool of trade. We were in awe of how well she made connections. 

The movie made me think about gratitude and expressing it. The classroom interactions with these teachers took place in a happy bubble and maybe it took that eco-system for us to get the value that we did. In real life they have families and roles to play that do not intersect with being our teacher. Somewhere the magic-spell breaks. I cannot imagine Mrs. G doing such mundane stuff as cleaning the kitchen, paying bills and running errands. She did magnificent things in the classroom and that's the image I hold so dear in my memory. Yes, I could reach out to her on Facebook and tell her what she has meant for me but selfishly, I don't want to break the spell, have Mrs. G descend into the realm of ordinary people like me. She was a superhero as were Mrs. P, Ms. M and Mr. J. This is my tribute to all of them for shaping all that is good in me. Happy New Year!