Observations From Hadleyville: PRACTICING WHAT YOU PREACH

Saturday, November 5, 2011

PRACTICING WHAT YOU PREACH

I'm sure you've been there; some Big-Cheese tells you how super-important you are to them. Then you find yourself blown off by the same honcho, sometimes within minutes. It might have been a corporate phone tree message or an employee meeting. It doesn't really matter. At one such meeting the CEO himself made that statement to us employees, then asked for input. Someone took what they heard at face value and responded with a criticism. The CEO's answer: "Perhaps you're not right for this organization."

I sat in one of those meetings again, today. Not employees this time, but volunteers for a large government entity. We heard the same assurances from the CEO; we are valuable, necessary, almost indispensable to the organization's mission.

YAWN. Been there, heard that. ...Not today.

Let me fill in the back story. The meeting took place in Los Angeles; a ninety-mile drive from my house. Since I am an important, valuable, irreplaceable asset, I got to drive a company vehicle--burning company gas--to the meeting. As they say in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, "I chose... poorly." The car I drove had a slight electrical problem. When I started the tank registered FULL. However, ninety miles later it still read FULL. Worse; after the meeting it read EMPTY.

I swallowed my pride and went back inside to ask if there was a company gas pump at this company meeting place. "Yes, there is," said the NUMBER-FIVE PERSON in this organization of over 4000. Then, "It's locked, let me take you to it." That person spent the next thirty minutes tracking down the gate combination and using his ID to fill my car. Need I complete the moral? That is practicing what you preach.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...: Don-Thanks for sharing this very pithy slice of life in America in the 21st century!This is not unfamiliar territory!; November 6, 2011 at 10:29 PM
Don the Baptist said...: Thank you for posting a comment. My fragile male ego is suffering and dying to know that someone is reading these posts.; November 7, 2011 at 7:21 AM

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WORDS OF WISDOM FOR WRITERS

The secret of becoming a writer is that you have to write. You have to write a lot. You also have to finish what you write, even though no one wants it yet. If you don't learn to finish your work, no one will ever want to see it. The biggest mistake new writers make is carrying around copies of unfinished work to inflict on their friends.

I am sure it has been done with less, but you should be prepared to write and throw away a million words of finished material. By finished, I mean completed, done, ready to submit, and written as well as you know how at the time you wrote it.
-Jerry Pournelle

WHAT'S THIS HADLEYVILLE THING?

Those of you familiar with Mark Twain’s works might recognize my blog title. As Samuel Clemons grew older, he became increasingly disillusioned with humanity. Towards the end he began referring to the Damned Human Race; employing the secular and religious epithet at one stroke.

I find I’ve not reached that level of despair myself. I still believe in redemption and I still see signs of nobility even among we fallen, damned creatures. So, I could not bring myself to call this blog “On the Damned Human Race.” I do however, resonate with another of Clemmons stories; “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg.” And viola, there you have it. “Observations From Hadleyville.”