Scene - hysterical corporate fighting over FUBAR software release. This will kill the company!!!! finger pointing, calls to fire this or that person, reign of terror by nartsy high level manager (who ironically is the person most responsible for the mess) decent people cowering in their cubicles, ear buds on 24/7.
In the midst, my boss said some of the smartest advice I ever heard, "You can't fix people, only problems."
I repeated this to the narsty manager who started repeating this to his people as if this was his idea. This burned my butt but hey, the truth of this idea spread throughout the company and it worked. In my 25 years wage slaving for corporate America, I have never seen anything like it. People calmed down. All that hysterical energy went to fixing the software and cleaning up the client mess. Not many months later, the asshat manager got his comeuppance and was fired.
What does this homily have to do with the price of jack? Follow me over the fold to find out.
Most people, myself included, are fixated on personalities-- what they're doing or not doing, what they're saying or not saying or the doomsday future. It's just plain human nature and we shouldn't beat ourselves up for that. And maybe some is nec. and emotionally satisfying but the problem is, it gets in the way of solving problems.
People, people...let's collectively stop with the David Gergen is right (or wrong) or Jindal or Sarah Palin or Obama or BP.
Please, sirs and madams, more informed debate about the plus and minuses of their ideas, not them. And even if it's Satan with a good idea that will help, let's get behind it.
AND let's support the folks with informed ideas about how to kill Satan using legal damages and support scientists with novel ideas for cleaning up and restoring the wetlands and support new ideas for clean energy...even if these creative solutions will take place beyond our lifetimes. Let's send money to the environmental lobbyists who didn't and aren't sucking up to oil companies even if it seems like we're all doomed.
There are a thousand ways to contribute to solving the myriad problems this disaster has created. Do whatever you inclination and technical expertise leads you to do that is positive. Get a mop. Plenty to do for everyone.
Personally, I'm mentioning this oil spill tragedy in the young adult novel I'm writing. Fiction writing is what I passion for. It's one way I can contribute.
Finally, I'm out of work and don't have much money but still I want to send a few bucks somewhere. Can someone rec. a clean energy/environmental lobbying organization that has reasonably clean hands?