I hate waiting. Whether it's waiting for something to come in the mail, or waiting for a response on a submission, or waiting for... anything, really. I'm just not a naturally patient person. Then again, that lack of patience could just be a learned response. For most of my life, lack of response has meant 'no'.
I believe, quite firmly, in the principles of personal responsibility and free will. However, I wonder how much of each of our personalities, proclivities, and decisions are based or influenced by our subconscious memory of past experience rather than our conscious decisions. The problem with the subconscious, of course, is that it has no discretion, and conflates things terribly. In the example above, some people repeatedly used lack of communication to communicate 'no', and now my subconscious feels that any lack of communication means 'no'. That leads me to feel I should act as if I've received a 'no' response when I haven't actually had a response.
As a student of human nature, I'm curious about this because it affects how humans act. As a writer, I'm curious about this because to provide versimilitude (yes, I use that word in casual conversation, Matt) characters must act realistically. If the type of conditioning implied above is real, that includes responding to situations not as the situation requires, but as previous situations have conditioned them to respond.
No conclusions today, just food for thought.
Showing posts with label psychology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label psychology. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Friday, January 29, 2010
Despair; Toxicity and Tolerance
I had an interesting thought, one that I've been mulling over for a few weeks consciously, and have probably had echoing around in my skull for a few years (or more) now subconsciously.
Despair is a toxic substance. Like any other toxic substance, it generally doesn't kill by massive trauma, but by slow degradation. Like any other toxic substance, removing the source can prevent further accumulation. Even without further accumulation, unless the individual has a way to metabolize and expel the toxin the damage will continue. Finally, even once the toxin is removed from the individual, the damage may be permanent.
Now, those gloomy thoughts aren't all that I've been thinking about. There are quite a few toxic substances that can be tolerated. This doesn't mean that an individual can consume them without harm. It means an individual can continue functioning and even learn to thrive even while imparied by the substance. It's even possible for individuals to learn to tolerate toxicity levels that would kill unacclimated individuals outright. Despair, I've found, really is one of those.
There are desperate situations where observers are convinced that no one can survive. However, for individuals acclimated to immersion in despair, those situations are survivable simply because the pain of despair has become a background noise. Once that happens, it loses a great deal of its power. At that point, and likely only at that point, progress can be made toward removing the causes of despair.
I suppose this has all just been a longwinded way of saying that there is nothing more powerful than someone with nothing left to lose. Of course, in thinking about it, what might be even more powerful is someone who has become inured to loss itself. Someone with nothing left to lose can still be stymied by being given something to lose. Someone who has accepted that loss happens and moved past that realization is even more powerful; when they're given something, instead of fearing having it taken away, they enjoy it or use it to the fullest.
No real conclusion here, just thinking about situations I've experienced and seen.
Despair is a toxic substance. Like any other toxic substance, it generally doesn't kill by massive trauma, but by slow degradation. Like any other toxic substance, removing the source can prevent further accumulation. Even without further accumulation, unless the individual has a way to metabolize and expel the toxin the damage will continue. Finally, even once the toxin is removed from the individual, the damage may be permanent.
Now, those gloomy thoughts aren't all that I've been thinking about. There are quite a few toxic substances that can be tolerated. This doesn't mean that an individual can consume them without harm. It means an individual can continue functioning and even learn to thrive even while imparied by the substance. It's even possible for individuals to learn to tolerate toxicity levels that would kill unacclimated individuals outright. Despair, I've found, really is one of those.
There are desperate situations where observers are convinced that no one can survive. However, for individuals acclimated to immersion in despair, those situations are survivable simply because the pain of despair has become a background noise. Once that happens, it loses a great deal of its power. At that point, and likely only at that point, progress can be made toward removing the causes of despair.
I suppose this has all just been a longwinded way of saying that there is nothing more powerful than someone with nothing left to lose. Of course, in thinking about it, what might be even more powerful is someone who has become inured to loss itself. Someone with nothing left to lose can still be stymied by being given something to lose. Someone who has accepted that loss happens and moved past that realization is even more powerful; when they're given something, instead of fearing having it taken away, they enjoy it or use it to the fullest.
No real conclusion here, just thinking about situations I've experienced and seen.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Just because you say it...
...doesn't make it true.
I've been cruising through the archives of Not Always Right recently, and found this gem. Why is it that people can't understand that certain sets of behaviors have certain results that are dictated by the laws of physics? In my own experience, those people seem to be the same ones who feel that their own immoral / unethical / bastardly behavior is dictated by the laws of physics as well. The 'your valuables weren't secured well enough to stop me, so I had to take them' attitude.
I recently read a Brin quote (in character, this may not be his opinion) suggesting that humans are attractive as individuals, but horrifying as a species. I've always felt the opposite was true.
I've been cruising through the archives of Not Always Right recently, and found this gem. Why is it that people can't understand that certain sets of behaviors have certain results that are dictated by the laws of physics? In my own experience, those people seem to be the same ones who feel that their own immoral / unethical / bastardly behavior is dictated by the laws of physics as well. The 'your valuables weren't secured well enough to stop me, so I had to take them' attitude.
I recently read a Brin quote (in character, this may not be his opinion) suggesting that humans are attractive as individuals, but horrifying as a species. I've always felt the opposite was true.
Beauty and Truth
OK, probably more along the lines of 'Bob rambles on about Beauty and Castle's mom', but I couldn't resist.
My wife was watching Castle a few days ago and Castle's mom comes out with a line about women seeking things to cover their imperfections, and when those imperfections are covered the woman thinks she's beautiful, and that's what makes a woman beautiful. Which is, to a small degree, true. It is also, to a much, much larger degree damaging and counterproductive.
First, note that most people equate Beauty and Attractiveness. The two are not co-equal, and never have been. Beauty is a highly subjective thing. Attractiveness, on the other hand, has been studied to a fare-thee-well using reasonably scientific methods. There's even an amusing and informative series of shows on the topic narrated by John Cleese. Then again, if it were narrated by John Cleese, it could be about war crimes and be fairly amusing, but I digress. Point is that Beauty and Attractiveness are not the same, even if people tend to conflate them.
Standards of Beauty are subjective, but in most cases they are based loosely on the physical aspects of Attractiveness. Those aspects include a certain arrangement of features. for which there is a mathematical formula. The imdb for the series, which has more details, is here. Cleese will back me up on this, he's my homie and has my back. Not really, but I couldn't resist. At any rate, the physical aspects of Attractiveness are fairly straightforward. For the face, even features in a particular layout. For the female body, hip to waist ratio and hip in a narrow range and hip to bust ratio in a rather wider range. Everything else, like hair color, eye color, shape of individual features, height, weight and precise hip to bust ratio is more based on what culture tells us is attractive than what our genes tells us will make a successful mate.
So if we posit that Beauty is the bare bones of physical Attractiveness with the socially keyed 'everything else' layered on, that tells us two things. First, in a multi-cultural society each individual is going to have different standards of Beauty, with standards varying wildly in radically different segments of the society. Second, Castle's mom is full of it. There is no way that masking one deficiency is going to make a woman Beautiful, unless they're quite close to it already and the imperfection is fairly insignificant. In other words, some have it, some don't, and some can achieve it with varying levels of work.
However, there is another aspect to this discussion. When Castle's mom (Martha Rogers, played by Susan Sullivan) talks about Beauty, she's not talking about Beauty. She's either talking about Attractiveness, in which case she has a small yet important point, or she's talking about the philosophical concept of Beauty, which is such a massive divergence from the subject at hand, both in this essay and in the conversation she's having on screen that I'm going to set that idea aside for later. Like much, much, later. Maybe when I'm dead, or rich, or both. At any rate, assuming she's talking about Attractiveness, then her point is basically that confidence makes a woman Attractive. In this, she's correct. Healthy adult males like confident women. Note that differing societies have had differing ways for each gender to display confidence, and that there have been (are?) entire societies that were dominated by non-healthy adult males. My point here is that confidence* is probably one of the biggest general non-physical keys to Attractiveness**.
There is still a problem with Martha's statement, and it is what makes it so damaging and wrong. The statement basically posits that to be confident, a woman must find something external to herself which, when she uses / wears / carries it, makes her believe in herself. When she does, she will then be Attractive / Beautiful. Men will want her and women will want to be her. The problem with that approach is that it relies on something external, and confidence is not an external trait. The damaging part of the approach is that it teaches women to look outside themselves for the answer to a question which is, in the end, internal.
That's the real shame of the attitude illustrated in the show. It takes the one aspect of Attractiveness which could be attained by any woman and makes it something external to the woman herself, and then only if she seeks out the external thing which will offset some real or imagined flaw in the portions of Attractiveness which can't be changed short of plastic surgery. The problem, in other words, is not that women are trying to look like 'unhealthy' runway models. The problem is that women are trying to look like someone other than themselves.***
*Confidence, not bossiness. This does, unfortunately, require you to have something to be confident about. However, this can be as simple as knowing exactly what it is that you want. Or even confidence in what you do and don't know. Everyone can find something about themselves to be confident about.
**The other major key being attraction itself. Very little is more attractive than a person confident enough to say openly 'I find you attractive.' when they mean it. Please note, people who are very physically attractive may be inured, as they hear the same words uttered insincerely on a regular basis. Also note that extreme physical unattractiveness may torpedo the entire endeavor, but most people don't get that 'extreme' tag without poor hygeine and general maintenance, which are controllable.
***Men have an entirely different set of problems, which I shant go into here. OK, maybe if soemone asks me to.
My wife was watching Castle a few days ago and Castle's mom comes out with a line about women seeking things to cover their imperfections, and when those imperfections are covered the woman thinks she's beautiful, and that's what makes a woman beautiful. Which is, to a small degree, true. It is also, to a much, much larger degree damaging and counterproductive.
First, note that most people equate Beauty and Attractiveness. The two are not co-equal, and never have been. Beauty is a highly subjective thing. Attractiveness, on the other hand, has been studied to a fare-thee-well using reasonably scientific methods. There's even an amusing and informative series of shows on the topic narrated by John Cleese. Then again, if it were narrated by John Cleese, it could be about war crimes and be fairly amusing, but I digress. Point is that Beauty and Attractiveness are not the same, even if people tend to conflate them.
Standards of Beauty are subjective, but in most cases they are based loosely on the physical aspects of Attractiveness. Those aspects include a certain arrangement of features. for which there is a mathematical formula. The imdb for the series, which has more details, is here. Cleese will back me up on this, he's my homie and has my back. Not really, but I couldn't resist. At any rate, the physical aspects of Attractiveness are fairly straightforward. For the face, even features in a particular layout. For the female body, hip to waist ratio and hip in a narrow range and hip to bust ratio in a rather wider range. Everything else, like hair color, eye color, shape of individual features, height, weight and precise hip to bust ratio is more based on what culture tells us is attractive than what our genes tells us will make a successful mate.
So if we posit that Beauty is the bare bones of physical Attractiveness with the socially keyed 'everything else' layered on, that tells us two things. First, in a multi-cultural society each individual is going to have different standards of Beauty, with standards varying wildly in radically different segments of the society. Second, Castle's mom is full of it. There is no way that masking one deficiency is going to make a woman Beautiful, unless they're quite close to it already and the imperfection is fairly insignificant. In other words, some have it, some don't, and some can achieve it with varying levels of work.
However, there is another aspect to this discussion. When Castle's mom (Martha Rogers, played by Susan Sullivan) talks about Beauty, she's not talking about Beauty. She's either talking about Attractiveness, in which case she has a small yet important point, or she's talking about the philosophical concept of Beauty, which is such a massive divergence from the subject at hand, both in this essay and in the conversation she's having on screen that I'm going to set that idea aside for later. Like much, much, later. Maybe when I'm dead, or rich, or both. At any rate, assuming she's talking about Attractiveness, then her point is basically that confidence makes a woman Attractive. In this, she's correct. Healthy adult males like confident women. Note that differing societies have had differing ways for each gender to display confidence, and that there have been (are?) entire societies that were dominated by non-healthy adult males. My point here is that confidence* is probably one of the biggest general non-physical keys to Attractiveness**.
There is still a problem with Martha's statement, and it is what makes it so damaging and wrong. The statement basically posits that to be confident, a woman must find something external to herself which, when she uses / wears / carries it, makes her believe in herself. When she does, she will then be Attractive / Beautiful. Men will want her and women will want to be her. The problem with that approach is that it relies on something external, and confidence is not an external trait. The damaging part of the approach is that it teaches women to look outside themselves for the answer to a question which is, in the end, internal.
That's the real shame of the attitude illustrated in the show. It takes the one aspect of Attractiveness which could be attained by any woman and makes it something external to the woman herself, and then only if she seeks out the external thing which will offset some real or imagined flaw in the portions of Attractiveness which can't be changed short of plastic surgery. The problem, in other words, is not that women are trying to look like 'unhealthy' runway models. The problem is that women are trying to look like someone other than themselves.***
*Confidence, not bossiness. This does, unfortunately, require you to have something to be confident about. However, this can be as simple as knowing exactly what it is that you want. Or even confidence in what you do and don't know. Everyone can find something about themselves to be confident about.
**The other major key being attraction itself. Very little is more attractive than a person confident enough to say openly 'I find you attractive.' when they mean it. Please note, people who are very physically attractive may be inured, as they hear the same words uttered insincerely on a regular basis. Also note that extreme physical unattractiveness may torpedo the entire endeavor, but most people don't get that 'extreme' tag without poor hygeine and general maintenance, which are controllable.
***Men have an entirely different set of problems, which I shant go into here. OK, maybe if soemone asks me to.
Monday, May 25, 2009
Musing on Ignorance
So on rereading, I realized that the earlier Definitions post makes me sound a bit like an arrogant, elitist bastard. Which I really need to correct.
I'm not elitist at all.
Don't get me wrong, I used to be, but musing on those ideas was what actually made me realize one of the bigger failures of elitism. To start with, when talking about 'elitism', I'm talking about the idea that some group of people is just 'better' than other people. More desirable in any situation. I could keep describing, but I think you get the point here.
I was, at one time, what one might call a 'reverse elitist'. I wasn't for any particular group, but I was certain that deliberately ignorant people are worse in all possible cases. Of course, with that postulate in mind, I started thinking about why that might be the case. That's when I realized it wasn't true. Mostly because 'Ignorance' is so very ubiquitous.
Ignorance. Lack of knowledge. Everyone is ignorant of something. There is no one who knows everything. As an aside, I don't believe that it's impossible to know everything, as I find acceptance of impossibility to be something of a cop-out, but I do not believe that any human person currently possesses the sum total of human knowledge. Which means that Jay and Dom are wrong, but don't tell them I said that. So everyone is ignorant of something. Not only is everyone ignorant of something, but there are times when people deliberately refuse to acknowledge information. I'm sure everyone out there can think of an example.
Here's the sticking point. There are times when ignorance, even temporary ignorance, is required for some virtue. A fireman knows the risks of going into a collapsing structure. However, most of them who describe doing just that will usually say they 'weren't thinking about that'. They were 'doing what had to be done'. If you'll remember, I mentioned in my last post that I don't value judge (assign automatically as good or bad) ignorance. Courageous people are one reason why. They deliberately ignore physical danger in order to do something for the greater good.
In a wider light, I've been reading Science of Discworld recently, and it illustrates that all life is precarious, constantly threatened by catastrophe. In day to day life, most people choose to remain ignorant of that fact. That ignorance is all that keeps people going, that keeps them moving forward, that keeps them building a society that might, someday, become catastrophe proof. Much of which is done by lack of ignorance, but none of which would be possible without it.
So. I'm planning on becoming a teacher. To dedicate some portion of my life to the eradication of ignorance. I'm already writing, and like most science fiction writers putting bits of knowledge in to remove more of it. All this knowing that ignorance is a near requirement for success. In part, that's because I really don't think it's possible to eradicate ignorance. In part, it's because the neccessary ignorance can be manufactured at need with adrenaline and endorphins. In part, it's because I hope for a world which is both catastrophe proof and ignorance optional.
But mostly it's because I still don't like ignorance.
I'm not elitist at all.
Don't get me wrong, I used to be, but musing on those ideas was what actually made me realize one of the bigger failures of elitism. To start with, when talking about 'elitism', I'm talking about the idea that some group of people is just 'better' than other people. More desirable in any situation. I could keep describing, but I think you get the point here.
I was, at one time, what one might call a 'reverse elitist'. I wasn't for any particular group, but I was certain that deliberately ignorant people are worse in all possible cases. Of course, with that postulate in mind, I started thinking about why that might be the case. That's when I realized it wasn't true. Mostly because 'Ignorance' is so very ubiquitous.
Ignorance. Lack of knowledge. Everyone is ignorant of something. There is no one who knows everything. As an aside, I don't believe that it's impossible to know everything, as I find acceptance of impossibility to be something of a cop-out, but I do not believe that any human person currently possesses the sum total of human knowledge. Which means that Jay and Dom are wrong, but don't tell them I said that. So everyone is ignorant of something. Not only is everyone ignorant of something, but there are times when people deliberately refuse to acknowledge information. I'm sure everyone out there can think of an example.
Here's the sticking point. There are times when ignorance, even temporary ignorance, is required for some virtue. A fireman knows the risks of going into a collapsing structure. However, most of them who describe doing just that will usually say they 'weren't thinking about that'. They were 'doing what had to be done'. If you'll remember, I mentioned in my last post that I don't value judge (assign automatically as good or bad) ignorance. Courageous people are one reason why. They deliberately ignore physical danger in order to do something for the greater good.
In a wider light, I've been reading Science of Discworld recently, and it illustrates that all life is precarious, constantly threatened by catastrophe. In day to day life, most people choose to remain ignorant of that fact. That ignorance is all that keeps people going, that keeps them moving forward, that keeps them building a society that might, someday, become catastrophe proof. Much of which is done by lack of ignorance, but none of which would be possible without it.
So. I'm planning on becoming a teacher. To dedicate some portion of my life to the eradication of ignorance. I'm already writing, and like most science fiction writers putting bits of knowledge in to remove more of it. All this knowing that ignorance is a near requirement for success. In part, that's because I really don't think it's possible to eradicate ignorance. In part, it's because the neccessary ignorance can be manufactured at need with adrenaline and endorphins. In part, it's because I hope for a world which is both catastrophe proof and ignorance optional.
But mostly it's because I still don't like ignorance.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Defining Ignorant, Stupid, Intelligent and Dumb
One of the primary problems communicating with the English language is connotation and mutating meaning. However, it is one of the things that can make English such a powerful communication tool. With that in mind, from time to time I intend to post short essays defining how I use words.
In this case, I'll be talking about four words I think about often, two of which are really grades on the same scale.
The first word is Ignorance. The Bob Standard Definition of Ignorance is a lack of knowledge. Please note that I do not place any value judgement on ignorant people based on their ignorance. It is possible to be ignorant and not be at fault for your ignorance. Children are born ignorant. Those not taught to read face a much harder task combating or controlling their own ignorance. Judging someone for being Ignorant is like judging someone for being poor, just like judging someone for being knowledgeable is like judging someone for being rich. As an additional aside, there are a number of side effects of Ignorance. People possessing some of those side effects are also value judged by society at large. I do not, for the same reasons I don't value judge people who are ignorant for being ignorant.
The next word(s) are Intelligent and Dumb. Both are descriptors for processing and learning rates. The Bob Standard Definition of Intelligent is someone who processes information and learns more quickly than average. The Bob Standard Definition of Dumb is someone who processes information and learns more slowly than average. Again, no value judgements there, although in this case we're talking about inherent or inherited traits rather than default or acquired ones. Being prejudiced against the Intelligent or the Dumb is like being prejudiced against someone for the color of their skin or how tall they are. Like other inherent traits, it might predispose you to excelling at certain tasks, but talent doesn't make you a better or worse person.
The final word of the day is Stupidity. I reserve that word for the condition of being deliberately Ignorant. Until recently, I have placed value judgements on Stupidity, and they have been uniformly bad. I haven't stopped value judging based on Stupidity, but I have seen instances where I didn't find it bad. I have realized that there are times when the only way humanity has continued to thrive is that certain humans were ignorant. Since I like humanity thriving, because the quadruped has not yet been born who can create a good deep dish pizza or code a interesting and visually appealing video game, I am forced to judge judicious use of ignorance as the lesser of evils.
So, there you go. Ignorance is lack of knowledge, Dumb is lack of processing power, Stupidity is deliberate Ignorance. I'm going to be looking further into this later, when I talk about the side effects and grades of Ignorance, and discuss Weapons Grade Ignorance and similar concepts.
In this case, I'll be talking about four words I think about often, two of which are really grades on the same scale.
The first word is Ignorance. The Bob Standard Definition of Ignorance is a lack of knowledge. Please note that I do not place any value judgement on ignorant people based on their ignorance. It is possible to be ignorant and not be at fault for your ignorance. Children are born ignorant. Those not taught to read face a much harder task combating or controlling their own ignorance. Judging someone for being Ignorant is like judging someone for being poor, just like judging someone for being knowledgeable is like judging someone for being rich. As an additional aside, there are a number of side effects of Ignorance. People possessing some of those side effects are also value judged by society at large. I do not, for the same reasons I don't value judge people who are ignorant for being ignorant.
The next word(s) are Intelligent and Dumb. Both are descriptors for processing and learning rates. The Bob Standard Definition of Intelligent is someone who processes information and learns more quickly than average. The Bob Standard Definition of Dumb is someone who processes information and learns more slowly than average. Again, no value judgements there, although in this case we're talking about inherent or inherited traits rather than default or acquired ones. Being prejudiced against the Intelligent or the Dumb is like being prejudiced against someone for the color of their skin or how tall they are. Like other inherent traits, it might predispose you to excelling at certain tasks, but talent doesn't make you a better or worse person.
The final word of the day is Stupidity. I reserve that word for the condition of being deliberately Ignorant. Until recently, I have placed value judgements on Stupidity, and they have been uniformly bad. I haven't stopped value judging based on Stupidity, but I have seen instances where I didn't find it bad. I have realized that there are times when the only way humanity has continued to thrive is that certain humans were ignorant. Since I like humanity thriving, because the quadruped has not yet been born who can create a good deep dish pizza or code a interesting and visually appealing video game, I am forced to judge judicious use of ignorance as the lesser of evils.
So, there you go. Ignorance is lack of knowledge, Dumb is lack of processing power, Stupidity is deliberate Ignorance. I'm going to be looking further into this later, when I talk about the side effects and grades of Ignorance, and discuss Weapons Grade Ignorance and similar concepts.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Teaching, Lies and Patience
As some of you may know, I'm applying for a teaching certificate. Some of you who didn't know are probably saying 'wait, isn't that putting students into Bob's Head on a regular basis?'. Probably, but Only a very specialized part of it that deals with Biology. Ok, that might not be better. Biological Science is one of those fields that squicks people. Still, High School Biology only leaves so much room for squick. In point of fact, my own preference is for less squick; molecular biology rather than zoology. Anyhow, I still remember enough to ace the Praxis general science test and score over 90% on the biology test, so I know the material. Now it's just a question of background checks and such. With the level of checking done in the past, I'm not too worried about that bit.
There are advantages and disadvantages to teaching as a career. One disadvantage is a comparitively low pay rate. One advantage is that pay rate increases reliably once you've achieved tenure. Another advantage is benefits. I was recently talking to my dad, who is due to retire from teaching in another half dozen years or so. I asked him how much he pays for health insurance. His response of 'Pay? You mean deductible?' floored me. I've been used to having half a grand or more docked from my pay each month to pay medical. Actually, if I add that money back onto the pot, it makes up about half the difference from my old job and a teacher's starting salary. Retirement benefits are another perk. The only 'retirement' fund available to me previously was a 401K. Employer-paid pension funds don't happen often for IT folks, and they don't happen at all for IT consultants. My dad's retirement is going to be better than what I was making at my last job, by quite a good margin. Don't get me wrong; I don't begrudge him that, but I've been employed for roughly 18 of the last 20 years and not once have I had an employer do more than 'matching funds, vested when you've been with the company longer than we keep employees'.
So yeah. Teaching looks better and better from an economics standpoint. Then there's the work itself. I hear a lot of teachers complaining about a lack of respect, but I can't think of a single person I'd be embarrassed to tell what I did for a living as a teacher. More importantly, I don't think there's a single person I'd need to tell what teaching is. You just say 'I'm a teacher', and they reply 'what do you teach', and you respond with a subject or grade level for elementary teachers. I've had hour long discussions with people about what a Project Manager does, and there are people who still think I wrote code for a living. Then again, that's a popular misconception: if you are in IT, anywhere in IT, you write code. The popular belief is that you also know how to solder, can't spell, live with your parents and are bereft of meaningful social skills.
OK, each of those is accurate in some cases. Some IT guys write code, although they're mostly in departments that have broken themselves off from 'IT' now. Some IT guys can repair electronics, although most of them realize that it's cheaper, more reliable and faster to swap out the broken part for a new one. More than one IT person I know of can't spell beyond a phonetic level, but that's by no means a universal trait. I know of a few IT folks who lived with parents until later in life, but that was mostly a cost-saving measure, not a social one. Finally, I've known IT guys with no social skills, but I've known many other professionals with no socials skills to speak of either. Actually a final note is that I've known nearly as many women in IT as I've known men, so they're not all 'guys', except in a metaphoric sense.
That actually leads into my next point, which relates to teaching. Terry Pratchett nailed it in The Science of Discworld, where he referred to it as 'lies to X', the most repeated version being 'lies to children' which are generally imparted by teachers attempting to get students to understand something at a basic level. People tell lies for a variety of reasons, but a very common reason is when they can't understand something and need a simplified version to grasp. In the case of IT guys, the original IT guys were a iconoclastic bunch, with the only unifying characteristic being that iconoclasty and a rather different worldview, one in which things worked if you follow rules. Minus the iconoclasty, that's rather the same as clockmakers and engineers, so the stereotype of the IT guy was born as a 'particularly weird engineer'.
Similar things happen with the sciences at a high school level. I realized once I was in college that High School Biology covered biology up until, say, the mid 1800's, with vague allusions to the 1900's. Bio I & II in college covered that same ground, but actually pulled in some information from the 50's. It wasn't until I hit junior & senior level coursework that I started learning things from my own lifetime. Quite often, they contradicted things that I had learned in High School, just as later discoveries contradicted things that were believed earlier. In some cases it was clarification rather than contradiction, but there were some contradictions. There were some huge ones in my physics courses, as I recall, and even some in my Chemistry courses, although I couldn't be sure; my High School Chemistry was too involved with making things go 'boom'. So there exists the very real possibility that I'll need to simplify things to the point of being incorrect in order to simplify them enough for students to understand. I hope not, but we shall see.
Either way, Teaching will be a different kind of career for me. My previous career, IT, is all about speed. Make it work faster, get it done faster. Cheaper is often a goal too, but faster is the name of the game, especially as a consulting IT person. For those in need of clarification, a 'consulting' IT person is one who doesn't work for the company he's supporting. He works for a dedicated IT company, which lives or dies based on the contracts it gets. Teaching isn't.
About speed, that is. Short of reverse engineering the brain and uploading memories, there's no way to speed up the learning process. So I'll be forced to slow down, from a tactical perspective. From a strategic one, too. Ask anyone in IT, and they'll have a plan for early retirement, if they plan for it at all. It may not be a good plan, but they've got one. Teaching, on the other hand, is a long term thing. It's a different way of thinking, one more suited to patience and contemplation. Those of you who have read this far might guess that I'm all about contemplation. Plus, there are summers off. To a guy who once had multiple employers seriously care that people were 'unproductive' during the 30 to 90 second periods when we were waiting for the phone to ring, the idea of two to three months of scheduled downtime is downright odd.
So yeah. I'm hoping that CE comes through soon, because all in all, teaching looks like a place I'd like to be.
There are advantages and disadvantages to teaching as a career. One disadvantage is a comparitively low pay rate. One advantage is that pay rate increases reliably once you've achieved tenure. Another advantage is benefits. I was recently talking to my dad, who is due to retire from teaching in another half dozen years or so. I asked him how much he pays for health insurance. His response of 'Pay? You mean deductible?' floored me. I've been used to having half a grand or more docked from my pay each month to pay medical. Actually, if I add that money back onto the pot, it makes up about half the difference from my old job and a teacher's starting salary. Retirement benefits are another perk. The only 'retirement' fund available to me previously was a 401K. Employer-paid pension funds don't happen often for IT folks, and they don't happen at all for IT consultants. My dad's retirement is going to be better than what I was making at my last job, by quite a good margin. Don't get me wrong; I don't begrudge him that, but I've been employed for roughly 18 of the last 20 years and not once have I had an employer do more than 'matching funds, vested when you've been with the company longer than we keep employees'.
So yeah. Teaching looks better and better from an economics standpoint. Then there's the work itself. I hear a lot of teachers complaining about a lack of respect, but I can't think of a single person I'd be embarrassed to tell what I did for a living as a teacher. More importantly, I don't think there's a single person I'd need to tell what teaching is. You just say 'I'm a teacher', and they reply 'what do you teach', and you respond with a subject or grade level for elementary teachers. I've had hour long discussions with people about what a Project Manager does, and there are people who still think I wrote code for a living. Then again, that's a popular misconception: if you are in IT, anywhere in IT, you write code. The popular belief is that you also know how to solder, can't spell, live with your parents and are bereft of meaningful social skills.
OK, each of those is accurate in some cases. Some IT guys write code, although they're mostly in departments that have broken themselves off from 'IT' now. Some IT guys can repair electronics, although most of them realize that it's cheaper, more reliable and faster to swap out the broken part for a new one. More than one IT person I know of can't spell beyond a phonetic level, but that's by no means a universal trait. I know of a few IT folks who lived with parents until later in life, but that was mostly a cost-saving measure, not a social one. Finally, I've known IT guys with no social skills, but I've known many other professionals with no socials skills to speak of either. Actually a final note is that I've known nearly as many women in IT as I've known men, so they're not all 'guys', except in a metaphoric sense.
That actually leads into my next point, which relates to teaching. Terry Pratchett nailed it in The Science of Discworld, where he referred to it as 'lies to X', the most repeated version being 'lies to children' which are generally imparted by teachers attempting to get students to understand something at a basic level. People tell lies for a variety of reasons, but a very common reason is when they can't understand something and need a simplified version to grasp. In the case of IT guys, the original IT guys were a iconoclastic bunch, with the only unifying characteristic being that iconoclasty and a rather different worldview, one in which things worked if you follow rules. Minus the iconoclasty, that's rather the same as clockmakers and engineers, so the stereotype of the IT guy was born as a 'particularly weird engineer'.
Similar things happen with the sciences at a high school level. I realized once I was in college that High School Biology covered biology up until, say, the mid 1800's, with vague allusions to the 1900's. Bio I & II in college covered that same ground, but actually pulled in some information from the 50's. It wasn't until I hit junior & senior level coursework that I started learning things from my own lifetime. Quite often, they contradicted things that I had learned in High School, just as later discoveries contradicted things that were believed earlier. In some cases it was clarification rather than contradiction, but there were some contradictions. There were some huge ones in my physics courses, as I recall, and even some in my Chemistry courses, although I couldn't be sure; my High School Chemistry was too involved with making things go 'boom'. So there exists the very real possibility that I'll need to simplify things to the point of being incorrect in order to simplify them enough for students to understand. I hope not, but we shall see.
Either way, Teaching will be a different kind of career for me. My previous career, IT, is all about speed. Make it work faster, get it done faster. Cheaper is often a goal too, but faster is the name of the game, especially as a consulting IT person. For those in need of clarification, a 'consulting' IT person is one who doesn't work for the company he's supporting. He works for a dedicated IT company, which lives or dies based on the contracts it gets. Teaching isn't.
About speed, that is. Short of reverse engineering the brain and uploading memories, there's no way to speed up the learning process. So I'll be forced to slow down, from a tactical perspective. From a strategic one, too. Ask anyone in IT, and they'll have a plan for early retirement, if they plan for it at all. It may not be a good plan, but they've got one. Teaching, on the other hand, is a long term thing. It's a different way of thinking, one more suited to patience and contemplation. Those of you who have read this far might guess that I'm all about contemplation. Plus, there are summers off. To a guy who once had multiple employers seriously care that people were 'unproductive' during the 30 to 90 second periods when we were waiting for the phone to ring, the idea of two to three months of scheduled downtime is downright odd.
So yeah. I'm hoping that CE comes through soon, because all in all, teaching looks like a place I'd like to be.
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Writing, Inspiration and Schedules
So, as noted in last night's post, I'm writing about why I've falled off schedule.
There are quite a few reasons for the delay. Some of them have to do with my job search. Some of them have to do with having two little boys in the house. Most of them, however, have to do with the state of mind conducive to writing, when it happens, and the lack of writing implements of all kinds appropriate to those times.
OK, they're excuses more than reasons, but that's why I'm also going to be writing about what I'll be doing about it.
At any rate, I get most of my best ideas for writing when I'm doing something that might be described as active meditation. I'm not implying anything mystical by that, either; I simply can think more clearly when I'm doing something more or less mindless. I suppose it's because that part of my subconscious that reminds me about daily chores, bills to be paid, and eating lunch is busy dealing with something that I ought to be doing, so my conscious mind can pay attention to more interesting things, like ideas and wordplay. For whatever reason, though, I get a lot of writing ideas when I'm working out, cooking, or driving.
Yes, driving. Driving is a mindless activity. If I may be allowed a small tangent; a mindless activity is one where no decisions need to be made. In most cases, driving qualifies. Route? Mostly to the same places, the grocery store, the gym, work, relatives. No thought required. Speed? Mandated by law. General road behavior? Also mandated by law. A driver needs to be aware, but that's not the same as making decisions. It engages the senses and the body, but if you're having to make decisions about whether or not to do something while driving, you're probably doing it wrong.
Now that I think about it, that may be my next essay; how I learned to drive and why it worked.
This essay, on the other hand, is about writing, inspiration, and schedules. As noted, I get most of my inspiration for writing, whether fiction, essay, or just pithy little sayings, while I'm doing something that occupies body and subconscious. The trouble with this, of course, is that the former is required for recording those inspirations, even as very abbreviated notes. In some cases, stopping to take notes would be inconvenient and break the mental state I need to continue writing. Working out qualifies for one of those, as does chores. In others, like driving, stopping to take notes is actively dangerous. It does require the senses and body engaged, after all.
At any rate, writing nonfiction without ideas or fiction without plot, characterization, or dialogue is very likely to wind up as literary fiction. As the defining objective characteristic of literary fiction is that no one reads it, and I want people to read what I'm writing, writing that way is counterproductive.
Ok, new tangent, complete non sequitor. Has anyone else realized that the (not quite new) McDonalds commercial basically is positing that Ronald is the creator-god? For those of you that missed it, it's the one where the kids are looking through a telescope and there's nothing there. Ronald looks out, says 'oh, I know what to do', and throws out a handfull of star-stuff which then becomes the night sky. Now, whether you read this as Mickey D's asserting that Ronald is God, or read it as Mickey D's asserting that they've so much money that they hired God to play Ronald, I still find it vaguely offensive. For aesthetic reasons, not religious ones, but still.
Ok, back to the matter at hand; my best writing thinking is done when I've no way to get it on paper. That mostly has to do with state of mind. The question is how to get into that state while not in a situation where I can't use it. The answer is, unfortunately, rather prosaic. Practice, practice, practice. I've got to get into a habit where I can, if not turning the ideas and inspiration on and off like a tap, at least summon it up with a minimum of fuss. In order to do that, I've got to practice. In order to make sure I do that, I need to set up a schedule.
I've got to sort something out where the kids won't be jumping up and interrupting too bad. Right now I'm typing with a toddler over the shoulder, and trust me when I say we're all very grateful for the backspace key. That's very much a matter of scheduling. Since the wife and I swap days watching them, at least while I'm unemployed, I should be able to sit down to write once every two days. So that's the plan. Once every two days I'm going to sit down and write something here. It may be an essay. It may be an anecdote. It might, possibly, be a note that I'm going to write more of Ordinal. One way or another, I'll be writing something here on a regular basis.
Because it's the only way I can get this unruly head of mine tamed.
Yeah, like that's going to happen. Still, I have to try in order to have a chance at success.
There are quite a few reasons for the delay. Some of them have to do with my job search. Some of them have to do with having two little boys in the house. Most of them, however, have to do with the state of mind conducive to writing, when it happens, and the lack of writing implements of all kinds appropriate to those times.
OK, they're excuses more than reasons, but that's why I'm also going to be writing about what I'll be doing about it.
At any rate, I get most of my best ideas for writing when I'm doing something that might be described as active meditation. I'm not implying anything mystical by that, either; I simply can think more clearly when I'm doing something more or less mindless. I suppose it's because that part of my subconscious that reminds me about daily chores, bills to be paid, and eating lunch is busy dealing with something that I ought to be doing, so my conscious mind can pay attention to more interesting things, like ideas and wordplay. For whatever reason, though, I get a lot of writing ideas when I'm working out, cooking, or driving.
Yes, driving. Driving is a mindless activity. If I may be allowed a small tangent; a mindless activity is one where no decisions need to be made. In most cases, driving qualifies. Route? Mostly to the same places, the grocery store, the gym, work, relatives. No thought required. Speed? Mandated by law. General road behavior? Also mandated by law. A driver needs to be aware, but that's not the same as making decisions. It engages the senses and the body, but if you're having to make decisions about whether or not to do something while driving, you're probably doing it wrong.
Now that I think about it, that may be my next essay; how I learned to drive and why it worked.
This essay, on the other hand, is about writing, inspiration, and schedules. As noted, I get most of my inspiration for writing, whether fiction, essay, or just pithy little sayings, while I'm doing something that occupies body and subconscious. The trouble with this, of course, is that the former is required for recording those inspirations, even as very abbreviated notes. In some cases, stopping to take notes would be inconvenient and break the mental state I need to continue writing. Working out qualifies for one of those, as does chores. In others, like driving, stopping to take notes is actively dangerous. It does require the senses and body engaged, after all.
At any rate, writing nonfiction without ideas or fiction without plot, characterization, or dialogue is very likely to wind up as literary fiction. As the defining objective characteristic of literary fiction is that no one reads it, and I want people to read what I'm writing, writing that way is counterproductive.
Ok, new tangent, complete non sequitor. Has anyone else realized that the (not quite new) McDonalds commercial basically is positing that Ronald is the creator-god? For those of you that missed it, it's the one where the kids are looking through a telescope and there's nothing there. Ronald looks out, says 'oh, I know what to do', and throws out a handfull of star-stuff which then becomes the night sky. Now, whether you read this as Mickey D's asserting that Ronald is God, or read it as Mickey D's asserting that they've so much money that they hired God to play Ronald, I still find it vaguely offensive. For aesthetic reasons, not religious ones, but still.
Ok, back to the matter at hand; my best writing thinking is done when I've no way to get it on paper. That mostly has to do with state of mind. The question is how to get into that state while not in a situation where I can't use it. The answer is, unfortunately, rather prosaic. Practice, practice, practice. I've got to get into a habit where I can, if not turning the ideas and inspiration on and off like a tap, at least summon it up with a minimum of fuss. In order to do that, I've got to practice. In order to make sure I do that, I need to set up a schedule.
I've got to sort something out where the kids won't be jumping up and interrupting too bad. Right now I'm typing with a toddler over the shoulder, and trust me when I say we're all very grateful for the backspace key. That's very much a matter of scheduling. Since the wife and I swap days watching them, at least while I'm unemployed, I should be able to sit down to write once every two days. So that's the plan. Once every two days I'm going to sit down and write something here. It may be an essay. It may be an anecdote. It might, possibly, be a note that I'm going to write more of Ordinal. One way or another, I'll be writing something here on a regular basis.
Because it's the only way I can get this unruly head of mine tamed.
Yeah, like that's going to happen. Still, I have to try in order to have a chance at success.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
On Polymathy, Entrepreneurs, and Recession
Ok, Polymathy is a little strong, but I was looking for something with more impact than Dilletantism, a less corrupted connotation than Jack-Of-All-Trades, Multi-Talented usually implies a limited, if broad skill set, and I've recently seen Renaissance Man repurposed to describe those who engage in serial soft polygamy, so I'm stuck for a word. The idea I'm looking for is someone who performs at a level of professional competence or even excellence across multiple areas of expertise. The guy who can reliably fill any role in an organization. Some places they're called the 'go-to guy', but that again has connotations of connections rather than skills, and I'm really talking about someone who can do any task set in front of them, not someone who can find someone who can do that task.
For the sake of argument, let's assume when I use the word Polymath, I'm referring to a 'field expedient Polymath (f.e.p.)'. Someone who can by dint of vast experience, mental acumen, psychological flexibility, or whatever, pick up any task fast enough that people think they're already an expert at best, or 'relearning' something they've done before at worst. Someone who can speak intelligently on a wide range of topics; business, the sciences*, popular culture**, interpersonal relationships, and art of whatever stripe***.
Now, some people are immediately giong to disbelieve. That's fine. Not only are there the examples of the 'real' polymaths to counter that, there are likely enough examples than given reader knows one or has met one personally. Successful entrepreneurs often are, because they need either that or top notch networking skills in order to fill all the roles a starting business needs with the limited number of personnel available. What often happens is that the entrepreneur hires specialists in the core areas of the business, then steps up and fills all the empty roles until the business can afford to fill them with specialists. Most mid-sized and larger businesses have individuals with that same type of field-expedient polymathy; their the ones thrown wherever the fire is hottest. Small businesses tend not to get them, not because they don't want them, but because the individuals are uncommon. Not rare, really, more on the one in a hundred scale, and with one in the driver's seat running things, the odds are just that the business won't get another unless they're specifically selecting for them. If they are, they'll have different problems.
I recently was talking with a friend (who qualifies as a field-expedient polymath and an entrepreneur). He made the following observation: "The trouble with someone who is good at everything is that they have no clue what they should be doing." I really wish I could claim that line, but such is life.
If you're only good at one thing that you enjoy that pays the bills, you know what you're 'meant' to do. If in a professional sistuation there are ten things that need to be done, but you only have the skills to do one of them, you know which thing you ought to be doing. If the other nine jobs still need to be done, you may try after the one you're capable of, but there's no sense of personal failure if the job you can do is done. You're going above and beyond, if you reach for the stars and fail, you were still doing more than you really should have had to.
Now take our hypothetical f.e.p. If there are ten jobs that need to be done, odds are he can do between six and eight of them well enough to get the job done professionally. If it's a ten man job, odds are he has a few coworkers, hopefully nine, although there are times when he won't. The guy who can fill in any of the holes has to wait for the other nine to step up before he can fill the whole. The hesitation is often taken as laziness or lack of initiative, but it's actually a strategic choice. Were our f.e.p. to step into a role prematurely and fill a role one of the other employees is capable of, there is now an unfulfilled role and an excess employee.
All of that is pretty straightforward. Most of you playing at home can see the best use for someone like that; keep them on the bench until you have a job no one else can do, then throw them in the gap until you can get someone new. When you do, return them to the bench until the next gap appears.
Now, the failure modes, and I've seen a few.
The first failure mode is a growth failure. When a business is growing, having one or more f.e.p.s is a must; eventually you need more than just the owner / entrepreneur. However, companies often try to keep costs as low as possible, and the failure mode occurs when leadership fails to replace the f.e.p. with a speicalist once the need is identified. Instead, more and more hats are stacked atop one another until the f.e.p. fails due to overload. In our hypothetical ten role situation above, instead of having nine specialists and one guy to fill in the blanks, the company sees an individual who can perform six of the roles and repurposes five of the other people. One person, if pushed to complete six persons worth of work, is eventually going to fail, and not just in the 'fail to cmplete the task' way. Since the failure is usually a component failure, rather than a task failure, and that component was tied to several key tasks, the results are often widespread and fairly serious.
The second mode, which is related, is a failure mode that happens frequently during Recessions. When companies cut back, they frequently do the 'everyone justify their existence' thing. Ironically, the f.e.p. is often caught out. There are two common reasons. The first is excessive cycling roles, which causes the 'by the time I communicate this back to you, two of these four items will be out of date and three more will have been added' situation. When the evaluator sees the justification, he sees a person not fully justified, despite being over one hundred percent workload. the second is excessive small roles, which causes the 'None of these are justification' response. When the evaluator sees the long list, by the time he hits the bottom of the first page his eyes have glazed over, but nothing has jumped out at him, so the f.e.p. is marked as unjustified. Note that in both cases, the f.e.p. is likely holding down multiple mission-critical roles; that's what they do. However, it's often a case of 'none of these files in the windows folder look important, I'll delete them to save space'. By the time anyone realizes what happened, an implosion is usually well under way.
The final failure mode is actually what I mentioned above, the company comprised of nothing but f.e.p.s. It sounds great; anyone can do anything! However, think about the 'who does what' scenario. Instead of everyone grabbing a chore, each of them is waiting for the list to narrow to what everyone else can do. In addition, the company often has no 'core competency', nothing they're better at than everyone else. That's not quite correct; they're often quite good at things that require massive flexibility and broad skillsets in very little time, like innovation and crisis resolution, since in the first they can fit pieces together in ways others woudn't think of, and in the second, assuming they have at least one person who can manage the crisis that person can throw anyone anywhere at any time for the duration.
Ok, it's late, I'm rambling a bit. Short version, for those following along: there are folks in any business that do whatever the business needs. Every business needs some, too large a percentage can actually be a problem. They can't do everything all at once or they'll implode, and if you have one, it's a bad idea to get rid of them because they don't do any single 'critical' thing.
*Gaps in scientific knowledge are ok as long as areas of knowledge appear to outnumber gaps.
**Same here, only applied to details of pop culture.
***Ditto, although applied to areas of art.
For the sake of argument, let's assume when I use the word Polymath, I'm referring to a 'field expedient Polymath (f.e.p.)'. Someone who can by dint of vast experience, mental acumen, psychological flexibility, or whatever, pick up any task fast enough that people think they're already an expert at best, or 'relearning' something they've done before at worst. Someone who can speak intelligently on a wide range of topics; business, the sciences*, popular culture**, interpersonal relationships, and art of whatever stripe***.
Now, some people are immediately giong to disbelieve. That's fine. Not only are there the examples of the 'real' polymaths to counter that, there are likely enough examples than given reader knows one or has met one personally. Successful entrepreneurs often are, because they need either that or top notch networking skills in order to fill all the roles a starting business needs with the limited number of personnel available. What often happens is that the entrepreneur hires specialists in the core areas of the business, then steps up and fills all the empty roles until the business can afford to fill them with specialists. Most mid-sized and larger businesses have individuals with that same type of field-expedient polymathy; their the ones thrown wherever the fire is hottest. Small businesses tend not to get them, not because they don't want them, but because the individuals are uncommon. Not rare, really, more on the one in a hundred scale, and with one in the driver's seat running things, the odds are just that the business won't get another unless they're specifically selecting for them. If they are, they'll have different problems.
I recently was talking with a friend (who qualifies as a field-expedient polymath and an entrepreneur). He made the following observation: "The trouble with someone who is good at everything is that they have no clue what they should be doing." I really wish I could claim that line, but such is life.
If you're only good at one thing that you enjoy that pays the bills, you know what you're 'meant' to do. If in a professional sistuation there are ten things that need to be done, but you only have the skills to do one of them, you know which thing you ought to be doing. If the other nine jobs still need to be done, you may try after the one you're capable of, but there's no sense of personal failure if the job you can do is done. You're going above and beyond, if you reach for the stars and fail, you were still doing more than you really should have had to.
Now take our hypothetical f.e.p. If there are ten jobs that need to be done, odds are he can do between six and eight of them well enough to get the job done professionally. If it's a ten man job, odds are he has a few coworkers, hopefully nine, although there are times when he won't. The guy who can fill in any of the holes has to wait for the other nine to step up before he can fill the whole. The hesitation is often taken as laziness or lack of initiative, but it's actually a strategic choice. Were our f.e.p. to step into a role prematurely and fill a role one of the other employees is capable of, there is now an unfulfilled role and an excess employee.
All of that is pretty straightforward. Most of you playing at home can see the best use for someone like that; keep them on the bench until you have a job no one else can do, then throw them in the gap until you can get someone new. When you do, return them to the bench until the next gap appears.
Now, the failure modes, and I've seen a few.
The first failure mode is a growth failure. When a business is growing, having one or more f.e.p.s is a must; eventually you need more than just the owner / entrepreneur. However, companies often try to keep costs as low as possible, and the failure mode occurs when leadership fails to replace the f.e.p. with a speicalist once the need is identified. Instead, more and more hats are stacked atop one another until the f.e.p. fails due to overload. In our hypothetical ten role situation above, instead of having nine specialists and one guy to fill in the blanks, the company sees an individual who can perform six of the roles and repurposes five of the other people. One person, if pushed to complete six persons worth of work, is eventually going to fail, and not just in the 'fail to cmplete the task' way. Since the failure is usually a component failure, rather than a task failure, and that component was tied to several key tasks, the results are often widespread and fairly serious.
The second mode, which is related, is a failure mode that happens frequently during Recessions. When companies cut back, they frequently do the 'everyone justify their existence' thing. Ironically, the f.e.p. is often caught out. There are two common reasons. The first is excessive cycling roles, which causes the 'by the time I communicate this back to you, two of these four items will be out of date and three more will have been added' situation. When the evaluator sees the justification, he sees a person not fully justified, despite being over one hundred percent workload. the second is excessive small roles, which causes the 'None of these are justification' response. When the evaluator sees the long list, by the time he hits the bottom of the first page his eyes have glazed over, but nothing has jumped out at him, so the f.e.p. is marked as unjustified. Note that in both cases, the f.e.p. is likely holding down multiple mission-critical roles; that's what they do. However, it's often a case of 'none of these files in the windows folder look important, I'll delete them to save space'. By the time anyone realizes what happened, an implosion is usually well under way.
The final failure mode is actually what I mentioned above, the company comprised of nothing but f.e.p.s. It sounds great; anyone can do anything! However, think about the 'who does what' scenario. Instead of everyone grabbing a chore, each of them is waiting for the list to narrow to what everyone else can do. In addition, the company often has no 'core competency', nothing they're better at than everyone else. That's not quite correct; they're often quite good at things that require massive flexibility and broad skillsets in very little time, like innovation and crisis resolution, since in the first they can fit pieces together in ways others woudn't think of, and in the second, assuming they have at least one person who can manage the crisis that person can throw anyone anywhere at any time for the duration.
Ok, it's late, I'm rambling a bit. Short version, for those following along: there are folks in any business that do whatever the business needs. Every business needs some, too large a percentage can actually be a problem. They can't do everything all at once or they'll implode, and if you have one, it's a bad idea to get rid of them because they don't do any single 'critical' thing.
*Gaps in scientific knowledge are ok as long as areas of knowledge appear to outnumber gaps.
**Same here, only applied to details of pop culture.
***Ditto, although applied to areas of art.
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