May 2013 – Spencer Heckathorn

I can't reconcile the difference between someone thinking they are too good for something and the possibility that someone else might truly be suited for the job. Interesting conversations have been happening to me recently. One of such had me considering the difference between being able and willing. The difference of course is obvious but the context in which they are used can draw some very strange conclusions. My head was left spinning when I overheard another conversation that was strangely related. I let my mind wander and tried to put myself in each situation [of the following situations: willing and able to do something but thinks is too good for it, willing but not able to do something but still thinks is too good for it, willing and able, and willing but not able.] It seems that these things are too often reliant on opinions and not facts, it is things we should not be looking at. When we decided that someone else is able to do something but decides they are too good for it, we have formed an opinion about the situation and have not actually objectively observed. Things get more complicated when situations arise in which we need to evaluate someone and pick the best person for a job. You or I might have to decide if someone is able and willing, but we can never know if, in fact, they think they are too good for something. I would argue that we can not know this even if they say it. Before I make this any more confusing I will tell you that I was talking with someone that has a no-nonsense approach to life and her family, and as we were talking it came up that sometimes we need to do jobs because they need to be done (obvious I thought), but she said something interesting [I was and maybe still do not fully agree with], “I teach my children not to pay someone to do something they are not willing to do themselves.” I let my thoughts wander and was playing with the wording a little like what if it was 'able', society may never progress. Another issue came up when right after I overheard someone else talking about a troubled individual, whom I must say is the only person I think I can say I know that he “thinks he is too good” for one form of work or another, not that he was able to do more and more needed to be done, but that he truly thought it was beneath him to do. I let my thoughts wander again, I asked myself, "would I be willing to pay someone to do work because I was 'unwilling', or what about again unable?" It seems like a good policy not to have someone do something I am unwilling to do but at the same time terms need to be much more strictly defined. Unwilling is not the same as beneath me. Things get a little more complicated when situations arise where more important work needs to be done. I honestly don't know why I let myself dwell on things that get me worried, and have no true outcome in my life. More recently a friend told me something that really was an insult disguised as a cry for help, and a want for understanding. Yet the truth was a bold statement was made that left me worrying about things that are truly beneath all of us. I have found no place in the Bible where God says, “never question”, “never wonder”, and “become an automaton in my image”. Yet so many assume that is what they are supposed to do, the only common thing I find among these people is they have never in fact studied the Bible, I dare say never actually read it for themselves. The confusion about all this comes in because some things are truly beneath us such as petty actions like lying about someone, but I would argue that maybe a job is not beneath us but more important work is to be done. If someone is better suited to one task, why take your talented guy from where talent is needed to have him take the task from the other? The only thing I can come up with is that it must be a power thing. This of course opens another can of worms one that is more putrid than the last. Now I am left asking myself: Are you saying my boss is taking me off the big project to sweep the floors because he wants to show his power? I can only hope not. I can only hope that he has a better plan in mind, one that I can not see or understand. If it was about power then it would mean it was about ego, and the boss is being petty. It is a struggle for me at this point, because I know when I get to the point that I hire people I want them to be far superior to me, I just want them to be loyal to me. Do you create loyalty by showing power? Because this is how so many bosses approach the problem. Personally, I have subscribed to a different camp, one that says loyalty is created by granting permission. Permission to try and fail, to experiment, maybe even to play, but it is going to be a hard road. The first time I tried this out, I did not have the words or understanding to know what it was I was striving for. The whole thing failed miserably, then I tried again, and again, and again. Each time it has been slightly different, with different people, places, and situations. Recently a failed partnership and a little later a failed hire. Thankfully I have some new information that puts so much of what I have gone through in perspective. Interesting Seth Godin has written his blog with good timing(I have something I would like to point out about this maybe another time [ he says he tries to write to read what his readers want to hear, he is good at this, brings that up in interviews where people ask, but also better points when they don't, he also values the audience that would email him if they had not received his email but I guess I miss the boat when they don't come and I go straight to his website to check out the blog] Today he wrote about viewing things and counting things that actually matter that happen for a reason and are correlated. It is interesting and timely because so much of what I have been worried about over the past few weeks is not in my control. Such as the opinions of others especially when it is their opinion of what I am thinking (truly like they know). It is also timely because I have been wanting to write about something that comes up over and over through the years. I may sit and count how many times I have written this in the past. But I know that 15 across 3 computers is a low estimate. A simplified and recent title is poker relates to life. The truth is I have written that particular article around 10-15 times on its own never finishing because it typically gets too long and drawn out. The jist is obvious to anyone that has thought about anything (I really mean anything, I have written this about fishing, driving, and hunting) but we can see traces of life playing out in anything we do people approach work, poker, or whatever with the same attitudes and biases that they approach life in general, even when they approach these things with opposite attitudes and they always have tendencies that appear. I have thought should I rewrite this or find the old ones. Lucky I have to leave for a bit. I am done for the night.