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Category Archives: ponderings

Why idiots often rise to the top

Guys.  I think I’ve inadvertently stumbled upon why the phenomenon of how idiots (as opposed to someone more qualified) are often found in positions of power occurs.  (I’m thinking of you certain possible GOP presidential candidate, certain former Venezuelan president, certain former Afghani president, a whole slew of former Taiwanese presidents, certain managers I’ve had the pleasure of witnessing in the act of managing, etc.)  Wanna know, wanna know??

Ahem…it’s because idiots are less dense than the surrounding matter and therefore, they will rise to the top (this totally needs to be on a shirt or a poster or something).

TADA!!  Makes so much sense, doesn’t it?

Think about it, say in a sea of normal, everyday employees, somehow the one with the least common sense and often the least courtesy toward fellow employees, the least idea about how a project should be managed, the least technical knowledge, the biggest ego, the most insecure, etc is somehow the one to be promoted to a management position.  Why?  Because everyone else with common sense is weighed down by their common sense (and technical knowledge and common courtesy).  The idiot managers don’t have (much) of that stuff, so they are relatively less dense and they rise to the top.

Have you ever thought about the expression “filled with hot air”?  I would argue that the idiot managers also tend to be filled with hot air.  Gasses at warmer temperatures are less dense than gasses at lower temperatures.  So again, idiots are less dense than the surrounding matter and therefore can rise to the top.

But what of the rare non-idiot manager, you ask.  Yes.  Those do exist.  I have worked for a few of them.  And well…you can get a metal pin to float on water.  Metal is denser than water so you wouldn’t think that would be possible.  But surface tension!  It’s probably surface tension that allows these rare non-idiot managers to achieve their management positions.  I guess the surface tension is all the employees with sense who like to work with caring, good managers.

The problem with this is that if you disturb the surface tension the pin sinks as you would expect it to.  I’ve unfortunately seen this with good managers too.  I guess they’re just too full of common sense (technical knowledge, common courtesy, actual care for their people, etc) to stay afloat.  It’s…so sad.

On priorities and time management

Whaaaat?  It’s a Monday and I’m posting.  I haven’t posted on a Monday in months.  There’s a post scheduled for Friday too.  Indeed, that is two posts for this week.  And the goal is two posts per week at least until the end of the year.  Why?  Well, take a listen to what Michael Aranda has to say.  Yes, I know it’s a roundabout way of quoting sources, but I can’t find the original reddit post but I remembered he mentioned the post.  The relevant part is from 2:49-4:06.

So, priorities and the subsequent time management around those priorities.

I have been thinking about my priorities a lot recently.  Actually, not so recently.  I started thinking about them even before I saw that vlog I linked to and that was from April.  But the vlog and the reddit post mentioned did help crystallize how I felt about some things.

For a long time now, I’ve prioritized work and fulfilling all my responsibilities outside of work.  This is a good thing.  I have a reputation for being responsible and dependable and I’m not trying to change that.  I quite despise dealing with flaky people and I have no intention of becoming one.  But I’ve been considering lately if maybe I’ve allowed work to dictate too much on how I allocate my time and whether I’ve taken on too many responsibilities outside of work.

There are 24 hours in a day and a certain number of those hours are dedicated to fulfilling basic biological needs. Everything else needs to fit into the remaining hours.  But if the remaining hours are: 8 hours dedicated to work (on a good day and maybe 10-12 hours on not a good day), 4 hours commuting (also on a good day), 2 hours on sundry other responsibilities, you’ll note that on a bad day that’s already at least 18 hours.  That leaves maybe 6 hours in which to eat, shower, sleep, and all the other basic maintenance activities for sustaining life.  This does not leave time for other maintenance activities that do not tie into biological need but should probably still be considered necessities for mental health.

It doesn’t seem sustainable, does it?  It probably isn’t.

I’ve been considering that perhaps 16 hour days at work, counting the commute, is unreasonable when it ends up being the norm.  That’s already 2/3 of the day.  That’s every work day.  While I do realize that my compensation for work is what funds the rest of my life, it still seems unreasonable that it would be 2/3 of my day and at least 5/7 of my week.  So, I’m making an effort to take back some of my time so I can dedicate it to other things, one of them being the blog, which I had started because I wanted an outlet for…stuff.

So let’s see what happens for the rest of the year.  Hopefully, I’ll be able to keep up the two posts per week at least until the end of the year and maybe even through it.  But it’ll mean that I can’t prioritize complaining and wallowing in self-pity over getting other things accomplished, like committing whatever strange idea is in my head to a post.