Top or Bottom?
Power is bad for people...
We've all seen it--it can be bad for everyone from grade school teachers to social workers to corporate executives to politicians.
Maybe they were all already bad. But I choose to think that although they might have sucked up more than others in Jr. High they were once ordinary people like you and me...Well, mostly.
I see it in my own workplace--there are people who love the hierarchy (even when they aren't on the top-as long as they are above someone else)--those people will fight to the death to preserve the hierarchy and whenever an issue gets raised about someone else's being screwed the hierarchy-lovers main concern is to cling to the teeny tiny sliver of power they still possess.
Sometimes I wonder if this is not another reason (besides my tremendous ambivalence about virtually everything I choose to do and inability to fit in or take orders) for my tendency to underachieve and sabotage my own success. It seemed as if there was always a path before me to higher things and I noticed all the people on that path were sorta...yucky.
So I took the low road. And didn't make it to Scotland.
In any case, the most obvious thing just dawned on me: You can be on the top and have a 1 in 100 chance of not being a creep or you can be on the bottom and the odds of not being a creep are better.
And now I'm saying: Duh! Miel! If you are on the bottom the creeps are over you and you get squashed by the creeps.
Miel slaps forehead. Eep! No wonder my life is going to suck! Jeez...What a fool I've been.
Well, it's too late now. It was probably obvious to everyone else. Rumsfeld...all those people who run GE and Coca Cola and Chevron and General Motors. They are actually smarter than me. I think I assumed that because their arguments in support of capitalism, etc. were false they must just be dumb or something.
The consolation prize I suppose will be the opportunity for smugness about my moral purity. But now I'm thinking: I'd take power any day...over being squished? Isn't being a creep better than being ruled over by the other creeps and (possibly) being obliterated by them? Shucks. Why didn't I think of this before?!? All those good test scores down the drain. They never test for common sense.
Power is bad for people...
We've all seen it--it can be bad for everyone from grade school teachers to social workers to corporate executives to politicians.
Maybe they were all already bad. But I choose to think that although they might have sucked up more than others in Jr. High they were once ordinary people like you and me...Well, mostly.
I see it in my own workplace--there are people who love the hierarchy (even when they aren't on the top-as long as they are above someone else)--those people will fight to the death to preserve the hierarchy and whenever an issue gets raised about someone else's being screwed the hierarchy-lovers main concern is to cling to the teeny tiny sliver of power they still possess.
Sometimes I wonder if this is not another reason (besides my tremendous ambivalence about virtually everything I choose to do and inability to fit in or take orders) for my tendency to underachieve and sabotage my own success. It seemed as if there was always a path before me to higher things and I noticed all the people on that path were sorta...yucky.
So I took the low road. And didn't make it to Scotland.
In any case, the most obvious thing just dawned on me: You can be on the top and have a 1 in 100 chance of not being a creep or you can be on the bottom and the odds of not being a creep are better.
And now I'm saying: Duh! Miel! If you are on the bottom the creeps are over you and you get squashed by the creeps.
Miel slaps forehead. Eep! No wonder my life is going to suck! Jeez...What a fool I've been.
Well, it's too late now. It was probably obvious to everyone else. Rumsfeld...all those people who run GE and Coca Cola and Chevron and General Motors. They are actually smarter than me. I think I assumed that because their arguments in support of capitalism, etc. were false they must just be dumb or something.
The consolation prize I suppose will be the opportunity for smugness about my moral purity. But now I'm thinking: I'd take power any day...over being squished? Isn't being a creep better than being ruled over by the other creeps and (possibly) being obliterated by them? Shucks. Why didn't I think of this before?!? All those good test scores down the drain. They never test for common sense.
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