COVER -> RECOMMENDED DAILY REQUIREMENT
IN THE GARDEN OF HOPE & GREED - Last Friday, we fired my intern/assistant. My boss and I discussed it, he even gave me a chance to talk him out of it; I probably could have, but I didn't.
My intern had a lot of nice, superficial features: cute, young, energetic, easily impressed, decent typing speed. What she was lacking was work ethics. Last "in" each morning, first "out" each evening, breakfast at her desk, lunch at her desk PLUS leaving for a one hour lunch break and a steady stream of phone calls and "drop-ins" by her boyfriend and family. A basically unskilled, high-school "squeak-through", being paid $10 per hour for a clean, 9-5 desk job with learning and income potential.
But she got greedy. She made a final, pathetic jab at us for:(a) the monotonous work (photo-copying and letter stuffing); (b) criticizing her attendance when, "you come in whenever you feel".
WOW! Talk about being out of touch, she obviously hadn't considered that OUR BOSS is an attorney with multiple degrees, who is often in Court long before any of us have even got in to the office. To say nothing of experience, knowledge and/or years of consistency.
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Information, on the other hand, was hoarded by the rich in an elitist fashion, to set up a separation between the "knowledgeable and noble" and the "unwashed masses".
Now the rich have usually had more Hope, but it isn't of the robust quality of the poor's Hope. This is due to the fact that Hope doesn't need lots of information to thrive; a lack of information actually helps to develop stronger, more clearly defined varieties of Hope.
So no matter how poor you are in material goods, if you have just a little information, you can usually raise some Hope.
Not gobs of Hope, but good, solid Hope, the kind that'll keep you going through the worst of times.
A balanced diet of Information and Hope is healthy, helping you prevail against all sorts of things: hunger, the weather, death, illness and the failings of your fellow man.
Since mankind often has minimal amounts of information, we have gotten good at raising Hope under the worst conditions; sometimes, even in the midst of pools of almost pure ignorance, containing very little information. There are unlimited subjects with low enough levels of information for us to practice growing Hope on: disease, homophobia, racism, politics , religion.....
Case in point: Religion. Look at the phrase,"With God, Hope springs Eternal"; we have very little solid information on this subject and look at all the Hope that springs out of it! Meanwhile, we have lots of information, free for the taking, and many people seem less Hopeful than ever. So, Hope's getting drowned under conditions of too much information? Nah, those people just forgot about Work.
See, "Real Hope" is tricky to raise: regardless of the amount of information available, Hope requires continuous, personal Work. You have to cultivate Hope, weed out "False Hopes", monitor your levels of information AND continuously apply great quantities of work. Hope also doesn't grow good on stolen work, it becomes a patch of greed. You definitely don't want to grow greed, it's a lot like raising pigs: everyone wants the end result, but they say the farmer, the farm and his work, STINK! The "cubicle farmers" at Redmond get that complaint constantly.
"Work: to exert oneself in order to do or make something; to do work; to labor; to toil."
Different people perform different types of work; some people create information as part of their work. This "information work" covers music, literature, software, scientific research and the general heading of "performing arts. Now, as part of creating this information for the use of others, to help THEM grow Hope, the information workers generally plan to use some of THEIR hard earned information to grow their own stash of Hope.
They certainly have put forth the Work; what could possibly stand in the way of their plans of being "Hope-Full"? Information theft.
Look, information workers only have so much time and work they can supply toward the goal of growing Hope for the rest of the world; approximately, 16 hours a day, 5 days a week, just like everyone else. When people steal their work, they destroy the Hope of the information worker, and the world becomes awash in low quality Hope and Hope deficiencies. Seriously.
Everyone wants to have Hope and most people want to grow THEIR Hope through the careful application of work and information. If/as you steal work and accumulate information, remember that: YOUR Hope may also fall victim to theft; you too are responsible for maintaining the levels of good quality Hope in the world; and, stolen work only grows a good crop of greed.
~ EC
P.S. I don't have much Hope my ex-intern will find a job that suits her work ethic; then again, maybe I just have too much information. :O
RDR RECOMMENDED SITE OF THE DAY: I'm not even sure how these folks found us, but they suggested we share the site with you. We're happy to do so. Bizcotti rocks. Take a look, Pilgrim!
