CSotD: Good Intentions and Other Funny Things
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Alex provoked a split response. I just saw something on the news about young people applying to 50 or 60 jobs at a time, and my response was, as they say here, that it makes things complex for employers.
But also that you can’t possibly be qualified for that many jobs that don’t involve a spatula. I enjoyed grill-work, but it wasn’t hard to find a job doing it. Meanwhile, once I built up my skills to the point where I was looking for more career-based work, there weren’t that many openings that seemed appropriate.
I can’t help but think that, if you find 50 jobs to apply to, they can’t be very good fits.
When I got on the other side of the desk — before AI, thank goodness — I still got applications where I wondered why the person had bothered. If they couldn’t read the ad and figure out what we were looking for, I wasn’t likely to hire them as reporters.
And then there were the people who had paid some job coach, and given what a reporting job at a tiny paper paid, they would have been starting in a deep hole already, not only paying this quack but investing in expensive resume packets way out of proportion to the job we were trying to fill.
We weren’t corrupt enough to just hire friends and family, but what I wanted was someone who could write a letter explaining what they’d done so far and why they wanted to come work for me.
If you keep “experts” out of it at one end and HR out of it at the other, it works.
I wasn’t all that shocked to find myself agreeing with Mrs. Olson in this Sunday’s Frazz (AMS). She can be rigid, but she’s sometimes right. However, I was surprised to find Caulfield so far off base, because he’s usually on top of things, and the idea that sloppy research is justified by good intentions sets my teeth on edge.
If you want to mis-attribute a good quote, try the one that goes “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you in trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just isn’t so.” The Quote Investigator chases it down enough interesting rabbit holes that you may forget why you needed to verify it in the first place.
Here’s a phrase that covers the matter, and I’m getting around attribution with the dodge, “As they say” which is how you convey the gist when you don’t have the facts:
If you want to know what he thinks, find out who he spoke to last.
I first came across it in Maclean’s, applied to the premier of one of the prairie provinces, but I’ve since heard it used to describe our incoming president. It’s an excellent way to describe someone who doesn’t put much value on solid thinking and serious research.
I disagree with the Flying McCoys (AMS). I’ve never heard of a “homework strike,” but if you feel there is a just cause and you’re willing to take your lumps, go for it. That’s how civil disobedience works.
We were more into monkey-wrenching than direct confrontation. We’d come up with ways to undermine a bad teacher rather than risk open rebellion, though my senior class walked out over an apparent injustice to a classmate, which it turned out had already been resolved.
There was a flurry of frivolous walk-outs in the late 60s, but the current crop is more pragmatic. When my granddaughter’s cohort discovered a serious conflict of interest involving their high school principal, they dug in, got the facts and presented them to the board, resulting in her termination.
Proving that solid research is necessary for good intentions to triumph.
Another memory sparked, this time by the Buckets (AMS). I’ve known since childhood that museums had mummies and that they examined them to learn about ancient cultures, attitudes towards death, health issues and so forth. It seemed scientific and the sarcophogi made interesting art to display.
Then one day I went to an exhibit of ancient Peruvian artifacts and they included a mummy, only she wasn’t in an ornate sarcophagus and wrapped in linen. She was just … there. And it occurred to me that she had likely expected to remain wherever they found her.
Which brings to mind an episode of North of 60, a Canadian TV show about a native community in the NWT. The body was found of a white hunter from the city who’d gotten lost a decade before, but when his widow flew up to reclaim the body, it was missing.
The local bootlegger-villain explained that his grandfather’s remains were in a museum in Calgary, and when they were returned, he’d tell them where the hunter’s remains were. He never made clear whether he meant his biological grandfather or was speaking in more metaphorical terms, but if you’ve spent time among First Nations people, you’ll realize it didn’t matter.
Probably wouldn’t matter to that woman from Peru, either.
I got a laugh over this Existential Comics because I knew a little about Nietzsche and Freud and it’s cleverly put together. But then I looked up Lou Andreas-Salome and my head exploded, because as ridiculous as this pointed conversation is, it’s not all that far off base for the three people involved.
I’m used to the idea that brilliant people are frequently eccentric, but there’s often a kind of wall between their personal lives and their professional accomplishments. Not this crew. There seems to have been a certain lack of civilization in their discontent that makes Nietzsche seem less pietzsche.
To end on a lighter note, Drew Dernavich brings to mind that there was once a time when people with tight connections got to deplane before the other passengers, but crews now have enough to do just to keep everyone in their seats until the plane has come to a complete stop at the gate.
It also reminded me of when my ex moved to England and the boys became seasoned international travelers. I missed a connection once and called the 17-year-old to tell him I was stuck overnight. I got a stern lecture on what to demand and what not to settle for.
The child was, indeed, father to the man.
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