Happy New Year. I do understand it's not so new any more, but it was when I started writing this post.
I realize that people are gradually losing patience to read long posts, and the popularity of blogging has declined tremendously over the past few years making way for micro-blogging and stuff like that. I myself never liked reading long blog posts by readers of my own blog who expected, understandably, that I'd return the favor by reading theirs'; and also by writing some comments, which would prove that I did indeed read and also that the blog has some really interested readers. I find it quite difficult to focus for so long on long boring posts to figure out if they say something insightful. So, couldn't ever return the favor in the right manner. I often even find reading my own posts very boring. Writing is okay, it's just an additional task of typing along with what the mind constantly does anyway - thinking.
Of late I've been traveling a lot for work. And I've realized that Traveling is one of the most wasteful expense most companies incur these days, with complete belief that it is benefitting the company. Rather, the belief is expressed and owned by the very people - the top management - who themselves travel a lot and who make others travel... others - the middle management. The former probably truly believe that travel is benefitting some cause that is of interest to them. The latter are a mix of those who do it out of compulsion, coz their bosses have the belief, and those who do it with the belief. And there are also those in all layers of management who do it to have some fun at company expense.
I am one among the middle management whose bosses have the belief and who measure the effectiveness of an individual from the amount of travel he's done and the extent to which he has ditched his family and to which his family has given up on him. And I am being very ineffective in my job by choice. Or, in other words, I am unwilling to pay the price for seeming effective.
Jobs are full of shit. And I realize that each moment now, more than I used to a few years back, when I was less exposed to corporate decision making and greedy leadership opportunism. Lower down, in the early days of my career, it was more about hard work, quality job and honest day's work. Either that, or just fun. While getting paid, of course. Now, a bit higher up, it is about smart work, relationships and perceptions. And each word in the last line is a euphemism - for tons-of-bullshit. As organizations become huge, these things become more and more important as tools for the employed leadership to make merry from the huge riches the company is able to generate because of a mechanism of getting things done by smartly putting axes at the right throats and letting some blood drip, and create spots at the right places. And there is a layer of men whom the system rewards for holding axes and sporting wicked smiles while suppressing their giggles for private times. While their masks can generally be seem through, the axe is for real. And so is the death it can bring.
Sometimes I feel the world needs to be fixed. Humans need to be fixed. But if all this evolution and human civilizations have come to this, is there some reason for it? Are we more stable collectively as a species when we are a threat to each other? Is being civilized just another euphemism for being able to smartly lie and deceive while seeming to be kind and caring? Or is there still any hope for a different kind of world?
