One of the things that you might not suspect about me is that I really like happy endings, and I think that they're possible in actual life. I don't see them in actual life, actually; I just believe in them. I want to believe that they're possible. As a result, Barnes and Noble almost made some money from me tonight.
We had gone out for a drive, just the two of us, celebrating the rise of gas prices -- doesn't it just make you want to take to the open road, seeing those higher digits on the price placard? I know it makes me want to. Sometimes I just sit there in the garage with the engine running, just so I can go buy more -- or something like that, and thought to wander through B&N. While there, I came across a book talking about excellent small businesses. These are businesses that may or may not be profitable -- some make just enough to pay their way, others make just enough to buy a Lear Jet or two -- but they manifest a total grasp of the social ethic, a willingness to forego individual profit for the good of all. I had picked it up because I'm a sucker for such things -- as I said, I need to believe in them -- and opened to a story of a fellow talking about how he'd found that one of his employees was working a second job at night. We can't have this, he thought, and so the next day he called the woman in and told her that this would not do; they needed her fresh and alert, and so she would have to quit the other job. Which, he added, he understood paid her $75 dollars a week; so that she would not lose by the deal, they were immediately raising her pay by $75 a week...Aw..... I flipped to another story, and began to read about a fellow who'd turned down $120 million dollars for his company, deciding that it was more important to him that the company continue as it was, and looking for ways to make it more everyone's company, not just his. Okay, that settled it. I started carrying the book around as I looked for other books to get.
But I finally put it back. I really wanted to believe that it was possible. I wanted to believe that real people exist who can make this kind of egalitarian enterprise succeed; people who can bring humanity to the workplace. Hmm.... the workplace. I thought myself of the management books I've read -- the ones that say how you grow your business by growing your people, involving them, making them part of the fabric of the business, turning each one of them into an entrepreneur -- and I thought: how often have I seen that? Even a little bitty bit of it? Answer: Not very much, at all. So I put the book back. On the way out, I told my wife about it, and I joked 'So I said why yes, I do have a part time job, and it would be dandy if you could match my salary there. What do I do? Why, I'm a neurosurgeon." And so on. Because who believes in that kind of thing, anyway?
Me.
2 comments:
My favourite part of a story is "and they lived happily ever after". ;) Sounds like this book had alot of positive caring business owners sharing their stories in hopes to change the world one reader at a time? Maybe it's a good thing you didn't buy it. There could have been equally amounts of horrible stories too. hee!
You might be right, Rach. Certainly, given my tendencies, I have learned that I need to read these feel-good stories skeptically. I need to look for the 'then a miracle occurs' ones and discard them. I don't want magic, I want to know, when it works, WHY did it work. And, truth to tell, I would almost rather know about the attempts to do it that failed than the ones that worked. Not because I want to say 'see, it doesn't always work' but because those are when the rubber hit the road, and failed. Thats where you see the world as it is normally, not when everything goes right, and you learn to deal with it. Kind of like learning to babysit by babysitting the ill-mannered kids as well as the gems. Does that sound strange?
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