To add some reasonably specific context to my general frustration with the world, I present, for your edification, an actual conversation I had with a work colleauge this morning:

Colleaugue: As a side note, it is a little shocking how much touch labor has to be used to get [this simple work thing] out….

Me: I agree completely, though this is my typical experience with the process. If there’s anything I can do to help streamline this process, I am happy to do so.

Colleaugue: “It is what it is” as we say.

Me: As we say. I truly wish we could get past that and add “…but if we changed this, it would be better” to that statement.

Colleaugue: We couldn’t be in more violent agreement. Sadly, I am quite jaded by all I have witnessed here. It would be SO EASY to get this place better streamlined, the problem is fear and ignorance with a big ole spoonful of EGO. But anyway, back to my crayons…

Me: Violent agreement indeed. Thanks for the sympathetic ear. No need to color inside the lines. 🙂

In the office, in politics, in the world in general, I find that people don’t really have an interest in making things better. I’m not sure if it’s laziness, stress, the desire to have something to complain about, or inertia. I think my co-worker is on to something with the “fear, ignorance and ….EGO” thing as well. A lot of people spend so much time building their own little empires within systems to make themeselves important, and to those people, “being important” takes a much greater priority than “making things work effectively” for everyone.

When I talk about making things work, I’m not talking crazy cost-cutting, earth-salting “efficiency expert” tactics either. Nearly everyone in a given process has a role, but our roles, as described in innumerable “team-building” seminars, are there to complement those of others, not put up roadblocks.

As much as I hated overall message of the “business school” component of my higher education, on the the theory of “teams”, they were right on the money. But as is nearly always the case in that “academic” discipline, the theory takes a back seat to Art of War, zero-sum profit-making bullshit, and reduces the human element to simply another resource.

In forty-six years of watching and interacting with people, especially in the last few years, I’ve seen that for the most part, the actual concept of “working together” is anathema, especially when it comes to the people in charge. And those people in charge have convinced (or otherwise conditioned) everyone else below them that “it is what it is,” and there’s no changing it, leading to bureaucratic or other sorts of impediments at all levels of any process, and as long as people pay lip service to our better angels, the system continues as always.

Seriously, I recently had someone who’d spent weeks throwing up roadblocks to a given organizational goal I was working toward, say “Teamwork Indeed Makes The Dream Work” to me without irony once I’d managed to jump through all of their (and everyone else’s) hoops.

Grrr.

I don’t really have a solution here. The current system is broken, and in the last four years only more so, since the current American Powers That Be have made it permissable to shed even the thinnest veneer of cooperation or responsibility to the greater good. The national motto hasn’t been E Pluribis Unum for quite some time. In practice, for most of my lifetime, it’s “Fuck You, I Got Mine.”

For us to get past this era of selfishness and self-importance, things have to start changing at lower levels and work their way up to the Hallowed Halls of Power™, though there also has to be examples of such behavior at the top for people to emulate.

This is why Americans have politicized masks in the time of COVID. Masks aren’t so much about protecting yourself, but those around you, and looking out for your neighbors and fellow humans isn’t something that modern Americans do so well, especially when the guy in charge can’t or won’t model behavior to keep everyone safe and healthy.

Most days I’m not sure we can get past it, and that America as a nation is doomed. When the basic tenet of the religion the currently ruling faction pays lip service to is “Love Your Neighbor As Yourself” and the behavior of that faction advocates for the opposite of that at every turn….

I struggle to find hope.

I hate that qualities such as basic empathy are derided by those in power as weak. I hate that selfishness at the expense of others is rewarded. I hate that even listening to those on your team that have the expertise in a given area is not the basic standard.

I just don’t know. I try to do my part for the good of those around me, though I struggle to believe that anyone else beyond the absolute lowest lowest levels is interested in doing the same.

I just want people to focus on “what could be” rather than “what is.” I want people to look out for each other and do the best for us all. I’m not sure how we get there.

It’s for that reason I’ve already cast my ballot for Joe Biden in the Presidential election. He wasn’t my first choice, and we might not agree on absolutely every policy point, I know he’s the kind of guy who listens to others, has tremendous empathy, and will definitely model the kind of behavior that I’ve been talking about in the last however many paragraphs.

And if we get there, it might at least be a start, to allow us to work toward what could be rather than what is.