Dispatches from the New World of Work: Comments

Comment on "Fold 'em in Hell!"

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 10:17:26 -0500

Judith - For me the acts cannot be separated. While it is admirable as an act that he excelled as an athlete from humble means, I'm still more than a little uncomfortable about his shortcomings which do NOT allow me to celebrate his success. He didn't run a traffic light. Personally I could NEVER trust him around a minor again. While I may respect the performance, I do not respect the performer.

- Greg

Comment on "Creeping (Raging?) Cynicism"

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 09:36:47 -0500

I concur with most of the comments posted so far. Hospitals are staffed by people to care and are aware that improvements need to take place. Often, how to bring about those improvements is not known. However Hospitals and traditional healthcare have only marginal impact on population heath. They are by their nature low impact places. Nearly all the gain in life expectancy over the last 100 years has come from improvement in infant mortality (by adding such things as hand washing) and public health measures (for example, clean water).
Here is a simple Idea. Healthcare interaction should = Health= less need for healthcare. Currently Healthcare interaction = marginal or negative impact = more need for healthcare. The industry world wide is simply going in the wrong direction. (UK has been making significant directional changes over the last few years). Let me help point you in a better direction. For a high impact low cost healthcare services check out organizations like the American College of Lifestyle Medicine and the Coronary Health Improvement Project.(http://www.lifestylemedicine.org/)
P.S. I have all my skin in this game.

- Aaron Robinson

Comment on "Fold 'em in Hell!"

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 09:09:46 -0500

Mr. Watson -- Considering your comment here, I wonder if Taylor's comeback story could have even greater relevance. It must have taken him even more determination and faith to persist through his past failures and shortcomings. (How old were the girls, by the way?) Are convincted sex offenders allowed to compete in the Olypmics, to represent the US?

Now, I am not in ANY way justifying wrong doing, regardless of the offense. But at one point should we continue to hang our heads after we have owned up to our failures and being duly charged and sentenced? Sex offenders should indeed be watched and I would do so vigilantly around my nieces. But imagine being watched by the world, being constantly in the public eye. Perhaps there will not be a second offense.

Every such case should be judged individually while the act should be treated unilaterally. We are an overly sexed society. Our images, dress, speech all give off signals to young people in particular and they respond accordingly, often making their age unrecognizable. (Often times young people lie as well, while the responsibility is on the presumed elder.) Again, I am NOT condoning bad behavior in ANY way. What I am trying to do is decipher the law, intent, and societal norms and behaviors against this comeback story.

- Judith Ellis

Comment on "World's Worst Advice!"

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 08:35:17 -0500

Just what I needed. I'm 9 months into my first startup. Every brick wall can be an opportunity, if not for the business then for me to handle the next one better. Thanks again.

- Aaron Robinson

Comment on "World's Worst Advice!"

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 07:42:30 -0500

And, thank you, Daniel M. Harrison.

- Judith Ellis

Comment on "World's Worst Advice!"

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 07:34:05 -0500

Lark, I love your comment. Thank you.

- Judith Ellis

Comment on "100 Ways to Succeed #134:"

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 07:30:06 -0500

Thanks TP for the reminder of those who have given the ultimate price, not giving up but putting out in a strange place. (We have much to appreciate, much to be grateful for.) What brave young men they were - mostly sons, high school sweethearts. They did not give up.

This has been my mantra for years:

Never
never
never
give
up.

Winston Churchill

- Judith Ellis

Comment on "Fold 'em in Hell!"

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 06:58:39 -0500

Your point is well taken, Valerio. Thank you. There still remains, however, the question of what Taylor felt his greater purpose to be. (And regarding being a great success, if I feel that I have not succeeded, precious little can convince me otherwise.) It does not appear that Taylor felt that laying electrical wire was his ultimate purpose; he went back to what he loved most. But I have much respect for your comment, especially the notion of perceived value. Flash does not always represent the greater value for society. But who can argue with inspiration. This is invaluable.

- Judith Ellis

Comment on "Fold 'em in Hell!"

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 02:22:46 -0500

Thankyou for considering my question Judith. I guess the point I am making is that I have more respect for great layers of electrical wire than I do for Olympic athletes, as the former group are much more important to our society and are much less celebrated. In other words, I think I am saying that if Taylor was a great layer of electrical wire, he was already a great success, he did not need to win an Olympic Gold to prove it. Congratulations to him anyhow, it has been fun thinking about it.

- Valerio DiBattista

Comment on "Fold 'em in Hell!"

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 22:48:41 -0500

I suspect nothing at all, Valerio. The question is whether this particular skill was Taylor's raison d'etre. Being the passionate and curious person that I am, I have done a great many things for the sake of experience and discovery. (Sometimes I've even held side jobs in order to eat to keep doing what I loved most. Being an artist is no joke, neither is being an entrepreneur or consultant. But I would have it no other way.) While these things have not been my focus for many years, they have all made me who I am now and who I will yet be.

- Judith Ellis

Comment on "Fold 'em in Hell!"

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 20:26:07 -0500

What is wrong with laying electrical wire ? Please explain.

- Valerio DiBattista

Comment on "World's Worst Advice!"

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 20:21:02 -0500

I see by the posts that a lot of people talk about the downside of this behavior. Maybe you won't succeed, maybe it will never work.....
But (after doing 4 start-ups and working on number 5), if you don't believe, I promise you will never achieve any of your visions.

- Bruce Fryer

Comment on "1984 Backwards?"

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 18:44:55 -0500

You're taking a bow, Porus, and I'm smiling :-).

- Judith Ellis

Comment on "Fold 'em in Hell!"

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 18:20:48 -0500

Angelo Taylor the sex offender ??

They were teenage girls Angelo !!

The headline to your post today seems very relevant:
"Fold 'em in Hell!"

Like Angelo's Olympic glory to two time champion, he had molested two teenage girls in two different incidence's.

In 2006 DeKalb County: Taylor, 27, pleaded guilty last week to contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

Superior Court Judge Mark Anthony Scott also fined Taylor $2,500 and ordered evaluation for possible sex offender treatment.

With the plea bargain, his "first offender" status (even though there were two separate incidents with two different underage girls), and successful completion of his 3-year probation he avoided an infamous appearance in the DeKalb County Sex Offender.

"First Offender AND a Celebrity Athlete" others would have been jailed immediately...

- Tom Wattson

Comment on "World's Worst Advice!"

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 17:05:42 -0500

There is a time to continue and a time to stop, this is one of them...

- Steve Gray

Comment on "World's Worst Advice!"

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 17:01:25 -0500

Was on another long flight the other night -- this time Malaga (Spain) - Bangkok (Thailand) -- and so I brought along "Excellence" to keep me company (finding the currently fashionable claptrap re: global financial meltdown that is on all the airport shelves these days just too irritating, inaccurate, and downright insight-less to read).

It occurs to me that it contains pretty much the same message here -- focus on the winners, and focus on how they won; extra clue: they didn't win folding. (Incidentally, as an aside that also goes to explain why at 4.47 am local time I came to your site for a visit.)

One thing that pisses so many people off about your missives Tom, be they 120 words long or 120,000 words long, is that they consistently seek out the criteria for for success, rather than failure. To a lot of average middle managers/traders/economists/journalists/bureaucrats, that makes them feel like failures. It makes them feel like you're not being objective (as if the doomsayers are!)

But they miss the point: look at the failures, learn from them, and spin them into growth, into communities, into new ideas and hence new innovations. Disrupt the mediocre pattern of the old, the guys who get consistently taken in by the market swings, the bad habits, and the lay-offs ... and you're glimpsing the future.

I enjoyed re-re-re-(something like that) reading "Excellence" the other night, for the same reason I enjoy your blog. Your writing gives the reader, in whatever walk of life, permission to get beyond that innately North European/North American unforgiving doom-and-gloom, self-flagellating bullshit which weighs down on the bad times and always inevitably fails to capitalize on the good ones.

Random midnight scribblings, but anyway -- congrats again, and thanks!

- Daniel M. Harrison

Comment on "Fold 'em in Hell!"

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 15:17:57 -0500

Beautiful! But, of course, beauty also has an underside. World class athletes will tell you this, even lesser ones too. We should probably prepare on our journey to suffer a bit. I think we want things to come far too easily these days.

- Judith Ellis

Comment on "World's Worst Advice!"

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 14:29:50 -0500

I got the point but the people are ceratively different. As someone said, Different strokes for different folks!!! Some people will hold it and later decide to fold it; this folding means corrective action. And some people can continue to hold and make the impossible possible.

There are various ways to success. Quitting does not mean loosing as long as you are working towards your goal with new approaches. And continue to hold without renewed approach/strategy is not good either. If all the folks were charging ahead without folding; do not know what would it look like. We got to learn - unlearn - relearn all the time. In the end, I would say it works for some and not for others.

- virk

Comment on "100 Ways to Succeed #135:"

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 14:09:15 -0500

Great observation Job Doctor – thanks for a terrific insight.

My wife and I recently returned from a drama summer school residential week. We performed the Australian play ‘Cloudstreet’ from the novel written by Tim Winton. We were a cast of 24 thrown together randomly – we had never met - and we had 7 days to prepare for a public performance.

One of our cast was a young man in his early 20's who had Aspergers Syndrome. I’m pretty sure in some people’s eyes he may have appeared to have lacked ‘common sense.’

Interestingly enough this highly intelligent young man was without a shadow of a doubt the star of our 90 minute performance. He was outstanding. That was the unanimous view of all of us.

Never judge a book by the cover.

- Trevor Gay

Comment on "100 Ways to Succeed #135:"

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 13:50:42 -0500

Brilliant! I think that I agree with "The Job Doctor" here. Some of the most brilliant people that I know have a complete disregard for what others think.

I see it all too often in my workplace. People that act off of the safe assumptions are often wrong, and frequently miss the mark. It takes someone without "common sense" to truly innovate and get the real creative juices flowing.

If I am hiring someone, then I certainly want to surround myself with the innovative ones that will help break us out of comfortable molds that we settle into...

- Dan King