Accepted Demands

Years ago, I was involved in an angry dispute between management and six new employees.  I was one of the six new employees.  A few months after we were hired, we all realized that many of the things we had been promised simply were not going to happen.  As a consequence, every single one of us submitted our resignations.

The CEO of the company quickly summoned us to a meeting, and asked about our grievances.  He seemed sympathetic, and quite surprised that the company had lied to us and completely failed to fulfill their obligations.  He agreed that we would all be justified in quitting, but asked what it would take to get us to stay.  Surprised, we began to lay out our demands.  After each demand, he would agree that it was reasonable, and turn to his second-in-command and instruct him to make it happen.  Eventually, we all agreed to stay, and walked out of the meeting quite pleased with all that we had gained.

Days went by.  Days turned to weeks, and weeks turned to months.  NOTHING CHANGED.  Not one of our demands was ever met; nothing that the CEO agreed to ever actually happened.

To this day, I do not know what transpired.  All of us eventually left.  I do not know whether we were consciously deceived, more than once, or if the CEO truly BELIEVED the changes would be made at the time he agreed to them, and then decided against it.  Or perhaps the CEO's instructions were never carried out.  I truly don't know.  Looking back, it has taken on a dream-like quality.  It's hard to believe they would agree to ALL of our demands, yet fulfill NONE of them.

Intentional or not, it was an amazing strategy.  We entered the meeting disappointed, disgusted, and truly ready to quit.  We left the meeting feeling happy, even elated, and ready to resume our duties with renewed vigor.  We truly felt that someone had listened, and we had "won", despite all later evidence to the contrary.

When I tell other people about this incident, they seem shocked, even disbelieving, but I have come to conclude it is a variation on a fairly common occurence.  Perhaps a more blatant version, but still, something that occurs commonly, and not just in negotiations.

Psychologically, it's much more complicated than simply broken promises.  We went from being frustrated, disappointed, angry, and ready for a fight, to being pleased, relaxed, and feeling quite victorious.  The fact that these feelings eventually were proved to be unjustified did not completely wipe them away, and the old feelings of anger never completely returned.  Actually, it goes back to the idea of "cooling the mark out" -- making the victim of a con feel less bad about being victimized.

I have witnessed the same phenomenon at modern slot machines, when flashing lights and ringing bells convince the gambler that he or she has "won" -- when perhaps the gambler has "won" two cents on a forty-or-fifty cent bet.

Recently, my mind keeps returning to this idea as I watch President Obama, and especially as I watch videos of President Obama from months and years past.  Somehow, President Obama seems almost immune from the charge of "broken promises".  Instead, he seems to be able to make people feel, at least on some level, that he has done exactly what he said he WOULD do, or at least to feel good about his promises.

For example, he has repeatedly pledged "openness", promising that his administration would be the most open, transparent in history.  Objectively, his administration has been one of the least open, at least in recent memory -- but on some level, people remain pleased about his openness.  He SAID he would be open, therefore he IS open.

A more specific example: During his first Presidential campaign, he pledged that all potential legislation would be published on the internet for public review days before it was passed.  This pledge has simply been ignored, yet on some level President Obama still gets credit for making the pledge.

Especially frustrating to me is the fact that President Obama routinely stresses that there is general agreement about ideas when the ideas are in fact hotly debated and controversial.  On some level, the public accepts his statement regarding widespread agreement, just as they accept his repeated claims of a "balanced" approach to solving problems, when in fact his approach is generally totally one-sided.

Perhaps I should be looking back at my earlier thoughts regarding stranded travelers.  Perhaps, since there is nothing anyone can DO about the Obama administration, it simply comes down to a choice of being unhappy, or trying to be as happy as possible in a bad situation --  and people are choosing to overlook the disappointing, disturbing facts and instead be happy with promises and misstatements.  Examined from that angle, I don't suppose I should criticize anyone for trying to make the best of a bad Presidency.

Truth is complicated.

Donald Sterling

There's a lot going on in the world right now.  I suppose there always is, but this seems to be a particularly dangerous and deadly time, with natural disasters and international unrest.  Recently, however, most American news outlets -- newspapers, radio, television, internet -- have included a notable degree of focus on the fallout from the released tape of a private telephone conversation.  In the conversation, the wealthy owner of a sports team made comments involving race.

Since the tape was released to the national media -- at this point, the precise details of how and why the tape was made and distributed are murky -- the owner of the team has been universally condemned as racist.  Among other punishments, he will be fined, and forced to sell his basketball team.  The story has been front-page news on every newspaper, and covered on most radio and television news broadcasts, with the media in a virtual frenzy.  By some accounts, the team owner has become the most despised man in America.

Only recently, many days after the story first "broke", have people begun to question the motivations of the person who apparently secretly made and released the tape -- an act which was quite possibly illegal.  Still, the overwhelming amount of criticism is reserved not for the person who made and released the tape, but for the person who made the comments.

ANY conversation involving race has become a dangerous minefield.  Curiously, the people speaking most freely about this incident on national television are the comedians.  All others are simply jumping on the bandwagon of condemning the man and his comments without delving too deeply into the details.

If I was a public figure, or ever hoped to run for political office, or ever hoped to be hired for a job, I would be afraid to write what I am about to write.  I am NOT defending the man or his comments, but my words could be twisted to claim that I was.

The fact is that we are dealing with comments made in a private phone conversation between two people.  The man was NOT making a speech, or writing a book, article, or blog, or posting to Facebook.  He was simply having a conversation.  He did not say anything threatening.  He did not lie.  He did not slander or libel.  He stated horribly-unpopular opinions in what he believed was a private phone conversation.  (To be honest, I have not paid much attention to precisely what he said.  It was a private phone conversation.  It's none of my business.)

This is dangerously close to punishing someone for their thoughts.  Actually, I suppose punishing someone for their opinions -- opinions rather than actions -- IS punishing them for their thoughts.  (In this particular case, people point out that the team owner had a history of racism, and had actually been charged with racial discrimination in the past -- but the fact remains that at this time he is being punished NOT for past misdeeds, but for this particular conversation.)

The idea of punishing someone for their thoughts, no matter how reprehensible and disturbing those thoughts are, is, to me, even MORE reprehensible and disturbing.  I believe that the greatest hope for solving our problems and living in a certain degree of harmony with each other comes from COMMUNICATION.  Anything that interferes with that communication, or discourages that communication, poses a threat to our very survival.

I will close with a quote from the great folksinger Arlo Guthrie, whose father Woody Guthrie is perhaps best known for the song, "This Land is Your Land."  In a live performance, Arlo stated, "... when people start bein' afraid that they're going to lose a job or lose some of this or that because of what they've got to say, it's gonna start to get dangerous.  It's better to say the wrong thing than to feel like you ought not to say anything."

We cannot solve our problems by making people afraid to address them.  We cannot bring about racial harmony by making people afraid to mention race.  We cannot control our thoughts and opinions, we cannot force others to conform with our thoughts and opinions, and we should not punish others for their thoughts and opinions.

Truth is complicated.

Unintended Consequences

Today I read an article on the internet regarding a sex discrimination lawsuit.  This is the first time I had heard of this particular lawsuit, and all of my information comes from that one long, detailed article.  From the article, it's impossible for me to discern whether or not the lawsuit is justified.  A woman worked for a large corporation, rising through the ranks to a vice president there, and earning over a million dollars per year.  The article states that in her final year employed with the company, she reported fourteen million dollars of income, including stock options that she cashed in.

In going over the paperwork after the company was sold, the woman realized that a man who had previously worked for the company -- a man she identifies as her "predecessor" -- earned significantly more money than she did.  The company contends, however, that the man's job was different than the job occupied by the woman, involving far more responsibility, and that both the man and the woman were paid fairly for the particular duties that they performed.  The company further contends that the woman was paid a salary similar to what she would have been paid for performing the same duties with a different company.  The woman disagrees, and argues that throughout her employment with the company she was subjected to different treatment than the male employees.

From the information available to me, I have no idea whether or not the lawsuit is justified.  It's always difficult to compare the pay of two different employees, since employees rarely have precisely the same qualifications, backgrounds, and talents, and since employees rarely perform precisely the same jobs.  I think that most people would agree that two identically-qualified and identically-capable people performing the same job in the same region at the same time deserve the same pay, regardless of gender -- but in the real world, there are an infinite number of variables that complicate the issue.

What strikes me, however, was my initial response after reading the article.  I immediately thought to myself, "Under the circumstances, it would be a foolish risk for a major corporation to hire a woman, if they could find a man that could perform the job just as well.  Why would any corporation open themselves up to the risk of a sex discrimination lawsuit?  It would be irresponsible."

I am not proud of these thoughts, and believe that a person's gender should have no role in hiring decisions.  At the same time, it's difficult to argue with my initial reaction to the article.  Why WOULD a corporation take the risk of hiring a woman, when the risk could be avoided by simply not hiring her in the first place?  Of course, then there is the risk of being sued for not hiring her.  Here again, since no two people are precisely identical, it's always difficult to say which candidate is truly the best for the job.

I can take some solace in realizing that I will never be involved in the hiring/firing decisions for any company.  I have never had any employees, and probably never will.  In terms of the people that I pay to perform tasks -- people like doctors and lawyers and barbers -- I have dealt with both men and women in each role, and I have never been aware of their gender playing any role in the job performance, or in the fees I have paid them.  Crucially, though, all of these people set their own fees, or at least, they send me a bill, and I pay it.  I do not decide how much their job is worth.

Still, I keep coming back to my response to the article.  After reading the article, it truly DOES seem irresponsible to even CONSIDER hiring a woman for an important position, and therefore risking a major sex-discrimination lawsuit.  And I doubt that I am the only one who would come to that same conclusion.  So, by filing the lawsuit, the original plaintiff ends up discouraging employers from hiring female executives.

I am NOT saying she was wrong to file the lawsuit.  I AM saying this is a classic case of unintended consequences.  By filing the lawsuit, she is contributing to sex discrimination in the workplace -- the very thing she is supposedly fighting against.

I have no answers here.  Truth is complicated.

NOTE:  This is my first blog entry in a LONG time.  The reasons for my long absence, appropriately enough, are complicated ...