“This is the loop,” said Buck, tracing a large, lazy circle in the air with this left hand. “And this,” he added, wiggling two dangling fingers of his right hand like human legs some eighteen inches outside the loop, “is Buck.”
Stubbornly refusing to refer to himself in the 1st person, Buck went on to invite the reader to notice that he was not actually in the loop.
That had always been the story of Buck’s life, but now the winds of change were upon him, blowing through hair that refused to yield because of the sturdy product he used to reinforce it. “Curious the lengths some people will go to carefully construct the illusion of casual disinterest in their appearance,” he mused, but then he quickly pulled himself back from the precipice of digression. “The topic is the winds of change. Buck was finally in the loop.”
Word on the street had reached him that he was not alone. There were others like him dwelling within the sordid depths Cubopolis, silently suffering the insecurities associated with being a consultant. These are human beings, real flesh and blood, body and soul, just like their clients, and yet there is an expectation that they be more than the client: smarter, more productive, more efficient. The consultant is clairvoyant and correctly reads industry trends, finding solutions to problems that the client didn’t even know he had. He “hits the ground running,” accomplishing in hours what might otherwise never be accomplished at all. He weaves order out of the strands of chaos by introducing controls into business and technical processes, despite the fact that he may himself be the former product of that same chaos with no ability to articulate what a “control” actually is in this context, let alone the actual experience necessary to create and implement these controls. All this he must execute with an aura of supreme self-confidence despite a persistent, underlying fear that he will be exposed as the ordinary mortal he really is.
It reminds Buck of his early days as a consultant. He was tossed into a situation where he was supposed to introduce controls for a team of programmers the least experienced of which had exactly 15 more years of programming experience than Buck. Along the way, Buck was supposed to help them write code and identify areas of improvements in their architecture. Buck had faked his way through a year of that nonsense and received nothing but glowing feedback, entertaining multiple interesting job offers, yet at the end of that engagement he still could not have described an actual control. If controls meant the design documents he had written, then sure, he’d introduced “controls.” Yeah, that’s the ticket. Add it to the resume.
At one point the client’s manager had asked Buck into his office to see if Buck could come up with the solution to an architectural problem inherent to the client’s system. Buck was dumbstruck (and dimly aware that he should have foreseen this particular problem: shame on him for allowing the client to find it first!). Buck was invited to take it away and think about it for awhile, and think about it he did. He wrestled with the problem for two weeks. In the end he proposed some options, all of which profoundly sucked. It would be another two years, long after the window of opportunity had closed, before it dawned on him. No, not the answer to the architectural problem, but the flaw in Buck’s approach.
The consultant really is better than the client because he is not actually one person. The consultant is the vanguard of the entire consultant company, and chances are that someone in that company has the background necessary to solve a given problem. This is how he differs from a contractor. A contractor is on his own, while a consultant has his entire firm to fall back on. He does not need to be the expert: someone else in the firm already is. The consultant’s job is to find that expertise and bring it to bear on his client’s situation, and if he succeeds, everybody wins: the client gets his problem solved, the consultant looks like a clairvoyant genius, the expert gets a name to pass along to his manager when it’s time to collect feedback for writing reviews, and the firm itself strengthens its reputation with the client. Good stuff happens.
So Buck heard through the grapevine that people like himself were finding comfort in the blog, that the late night ranting of a lunatic third-person-self-referrer were easing the feelings of isolation inherent in the field of consulting in this tense pressure-cooker Hell we all know and love as Cubopolis. He mentioned this news to the beautiful and enigmatic Mrs. 99, and she said, “You’ve started a religion.”
Or a cult, thought Buck to himself. This was a dangerous situation. People were finding out about the blog. News was spreading. At some point a critical threshold would be reached when enough people would know about the blog that one of them would be the wrong person, someone in a position of power within the firm who didn’t subscribe to the dogma Buck was peddling. Then the house of cards would collapse amidst a flurry of pink slips. Cubocalypse, the end of the road for Buck. He had to do something to rectify this, and fast.
“The first rule of 99 Club,” he began, pacing around the living room in his skivvies, “is don’t talk about 99 Club.”
He adjusted his gold-rimmed aviator sunglasses, pausing to allow time for the first rule to sink in.
“The second rule,” he continued, deliberately emphasizing every last syllable, “is don’t talk about 99 Club!”
Friday, September 29, 2006
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Sweaty Black Men in Tuxes
Buck was participating in a charity sporting event in his former hometown. Now if you actually met Buck in person you might think that he doesn’t look very athletic (and it’s true, he doesn’t), but that just serves to put his opponents off their guard. Nobody ever expects Buck to have speed or grace, but on the field of battle he has both (well, not speed, per se, but certainly quickness. Buck is like a sports car that goes from 0 to 60 in 4.0 seconds, but only has a top speed of 62 and suffers frequent engine and chassis breakdowns). Unfortunately, this particular sporting event was a Bowl-a-Thon, and Buck was nursing a right-shoulder rotator cuff impingement and tendonitis in his right arm so bad he could barely tie his own shoes. In short, Buck was in no position to handle a bowling ball. Instead he passed out t-shirts and door prizes.
As he was passing out the goodies he came upon an old friend, a girl he had attended training with when he’d joined The Inc. Buck had recently received word that Girl had become engaged to Boy. Boy also worked for The Inc., and was bowling nearby. They would go on to make a lovely couple.
Buck had recently joined an alternative pop-rock musical act based in another town in the same region. He hadn’t had many shows with them yet and was eager to kick it into high gear. He saw a quick opportunity for easy money and exposure for the band in a new market. So he asked Girl if she needed a band for her wedding.
“As a matter of fact, we do,” she replied. “What kind of music do you play?”
“Danceable pop rock covers,” he summarized. They covered everything from Goo Goo Dolls, Train, and Counting Crows to Bryan Adams and The Stray Cats.
She seemed excited about the idea, but told Buck to ask Boy, because he was arranging the band. Since Buck was on good footing with Boy he was optimistic about his chances of landing the gig. Little did he know that he was about to be the victim of racial discrimination for the first time in his life.
He spoke to Boy and told him straight up that he had a new band and would like to offer up their services at his wedding for a bargain basement price. For his part Boy seemed genuinely interested: after all, people normally pay through the nose for a wedding band. Who wouldn’t want to pay a quarter of the normal price? Plus someone he knew and trusted would be on the inside, within the band, which would allow for some control over the situation if the music wasn’t just so. But then, with dead earnestness, he dropped the bomb.
"Are you sweaty black men in tuxes?" he asked.
The question caught Buck completely off guard. "Huh?"
Boy rephrased his question. "Are any members of your band sweaty black men in tuxes?"
"Um...no. White guys only. Alternative pop-rock and dance music." Buck felt like a broken record. Hadn’t he covered this ground already?
"Dance music? That's good. We want good dance music. Tell me about your horn section."
Buck saw where this was going, even admired the man for the high standards he was setting. He could tell that Boy hadn’t been playing him. Boy truly had assumed that Buck played music in a large ensemble with black men. That's what serious musicians did, right? Buck went through the motions and answered, "Well, we don't really have a horn section. We're four white guys: two guitars, a bass and drums."
“No tuxes?”
“No tuxes.”
"Sequins?"
"None. "
"Buck,” Boy lamented in a tone of sincerest regret, “I hope you understand it’s nothing personal. I’m sure your band is great. But this is my wedding, a once in a lifetime shot, and I intend to have nothing less than a band of sweaty black men in black or purple tuxes with sequins. A negro band with a brass section is an absolute must, and they have to have synchronized dance moves on stage."
Buck, always a gentle soul and easily brainwashed by PC agents, was a little taken aback by the gratuitous use of the word “negro.” However, he had to admit that bands such as the one Boy described truly were perfect for formal celebrations, certainly better than four white guys covering white music. What really bummed him out, though, was that while he knew he was good enough to play in such a band and had even played successfully in blues and funk ventures in the past, he didn’t quite have what it takes to join a band of sweaty black men in tuxes. True, he was sweaty and he could rent a tuxedo. He could play all the right notes at the right times, with a convincing approximation of African-American rhythm. Hell, he could even throw in the synchronized moves. But that would only take him so far.
As he was passing out the goodies he came upon an old friend, a girl he had attended training with when he’d joined The Inc. Buck had recently received word that Girl had become engaged to Boy. Boy also worked for The Inc., and was bowling nearby. They would go on to make a lovely couple.
Buck had recently joined an alternative pop-rock musical act based in another town in the same region. He hadn’t had many shows with them yet and was eager to kick it into high gear. He saw a quick opportunity for easy money and exposure for the band in a new market. So he asked Girl if she needed a band for her wedding.
“As a matter of fact, we do,” she replied. “What kind of music do you play?”
“Danceable pop rock covers,” he summarized. They covered everything from Goo Goo Dolls, Train, and Counting Crows to Bryan Adams and The Stray Cats.
She seemed excited about the idea, but told Buck to ask Boy, because he was arranging the band. Since Buck was on good footing with Boy he was optimistic about his chances of landing the gig. Little did he know that he was about to be the victim of racial discrimination for the first time in his life.
He spoke to Boy and told him straight up that he had a new band and would like to offer up their services at his wedding for a bargain basement price. For his part Boy seemed genuinely interested: after all, people normally pay through the nose for a wedding band. Who wouldn’t want to pay a quarter of the normal price? Plus someone he knew and trusted would be on the inside, within the band, which would allow for some control over the situation if the music wasn’t just so. But then, with dead earnestness, he dropped the bomb.
"Are you sweaty black men in tuxes?" he asked.
The question caught Buck completely off guard. "Huh?"
Boy rephrased his question. "Are any members of your band sweaty black men in tuxes?"
"Um...no. White guys only. Alternative pop-rock and dance music." Buck felt like a broken record. Hadn’t he covered this ground already?
"Dance music? That's good. We want good dance music. Tell me about your horn section."
Buck saw where this was going, even admired the man for the high standards he was setting. He could tell that Boy hadn’t been playing him. Boy truly had assumed that Buck played music in a large ensemble with black men. That's what serious musicians did, right? Buck went through the motions and answered, "Well, we don't really have a horn section. We're four white guys: two guitars, a bass and drums."
“No tuxes?”
“No tuxes.”
"Sequins?"
"None. "
"Buck,” Boy lamented in a tone of sincerest regret, “I hope you understand it’s nothing personal. I’m sure your band is great. But this is my wedding, a once in a lifetime shot, and I intend to have nothing less than a band of sweaty black men in black or purple tuxes with sequins. A negro band with a brass section is an absolute must, and they have to have synchronized dance moves on stage."
Buck, always a gentle soul and easily brainwashed by PC agents, was a little taken aback by the gratuitous use of the word “negro.” However, he had to admit that bands such as the one Boy described truly were perfect for formal celebrations, certainly better than four white guys covering white music. What really bummed him out, though, was that while he knew he was good enough to play in such a band and had even played successfully in blues and funk ventures in the past, he didn’t quite have what it takes to join a band of sweaty black men in tuxes. True, he was sweaty and he could rent a tuxedo. He could play all the right notes at the right times, with a convincing approximation of African-American rhythm. Hell, he could even throw in the synchronized moves. But that would only take him so far.
Thursday, September 21, 2006
The Celebrated Mr. H.
Buck 99 continued to believe himself to be subject to the laws of nature, unaware that those laws were defined by a program being executed on a doomed spacecraft. The program enforced each law regardless of whether Buck knew about it. Ignorance of the law was no defense against its enforcement. For example, if Buck were to somehow be unaware of the laws of gravity and go stepping off of a high ledge, a loud, painful splat would quickly educate him. Thus were the laws of the program learnable.
Buck was gradually becoming familiar with the laws as they were applied in the Cubopolis milieu. For example, he understood well the natural consequences of foolishly promising to deliver a specific piece of work by a specific date and time. Making such a promise is a common rookie mistake. The promised time comes and goes, and much stress and worry ensues. Eventually, after having repeatedly experienced these negative stimuli, one tries to avoid them by becoming more vague when making such promises. Instead of promising 5:00 PM, for example, one will try to employ acronyms such as “COB” or “EOD.” Unfortunately these do not help since they only guarantee that one will have to finish the work from home and forfeit the right to kick back and unwind. One must be vaguer than that, expressing one’s intentions in terms of weeks or months, but sooner or later the client will inevitably hold his ground and try to corner the victim.
“The key,” wrote the authoritative Buck as if advising an imaginary young protégé wearing a flimsy silk negligee, “is to think of it as a negotiation in multiple dimensions. When they try to pin you on when, that’s when you switch the topic to what. Sure, go ahead and promise a specific date and time if you must, but make sure you get something in return like scope concessions or obfuscation of the details around whatever it is you have to deliver. If possible, become increasingly vague about what content will be included in a given version of a deliverable even as the dates are becoming more solidified.”
Sometimes Buck’s awesome skills as a professional procrastinator astounded even himself, and he paused for a moment to admire his own brilliance. His euphoria was short lived, however, once the Fraud Complex filter through which he viewed himself brought the context of his procrastination into sharper focus. Was it possible to rid himself of FCD (Fraud Complex Disorder) so he could procrastinate at the office to his heart’s content for the remainder of his career, completely guilt free? His gut said no because the FCD was needed to ensure that enough quality work got done to keep him gainfully employed. As he pondered this dilemma he became acutely aware that he’d covered much of this ground already in this same blog. Only two weeks in and he was already starving for material. He was treading on dangerous ground. Nobody was going to try to get him to endorse their products if he established himself as a washed up hack regurgitating the same tired material week after week. He needed a new topic, and he needed it fast.
He glanced over at his client and watched him draw a diagram on the whiteboard. His client was a native of a distant land, and not one of those vastly overpopulated countries that foreigners in the American workplace typically come from. His client, who Buck shall hereafter refer to as Mr. H., came from a very exotic destination, and one which Buck aspired to one day visit. In recent weeks, Mr. H. had come to trust Buck as someone who could guide him through various aspects of American culture. For example, Mr. H. worried about being suddenly and randomly fired by the powers that be within Cubopolis, an event perhaps common in his homeland but much rarer here. This fear would be understandable if Mr. H.’s papers were not in order, but he had a green card and was well on his way to citizenship. He owned a house and had a wife and kids, one of which attended one of the county’s schools for the gifted. By all accounts Mr. H. strove to ensure that the exterior of his house and yard were well maintained to present proper appearances consistent with high suburban standards. He was a top performer in the workplace, and his superiors had rightly entrusted him with a great deal of responsibility. He was very conscientious about every moment he spent at the office, unlike his consultant. Buck believed that guys like this don’t just get fired without cause. They get laid off, sure, but they receive decent severance packages, especially from this particular instance of Cubopolis. He tried to reassure Mr. H. about this, but Mr. H. remained unconvinced. Perhaps Buck was naïve.
In general, though, Mr. H. utilized Buck’s consulting services beyond the scope of the contract. Just the previous morning, in fact, Mr. H. had asked Buck for advice on finding a trustworthy general contractor to repair some recent and extensive damage done to his deck by a violent storm. He was being careful to balance the need to quickly remediate the eye-sore that his deck was inflicting upon his neighbors with the caution that was necessary to avoid being victimized by a crooked and/or incompetent general contractor. Buck would be the first to admit that if left to his own devices, he himself would end up being victimized under similar circumstances. He was nearly certain that he had been cheated many times over the years by various and sundry automobile mechanics. This time was different, though. This time it was a client, and one he was coming to regard as a friend.
Buck quickly sprang into action, applying the time-honored tools of the consultant: technology and personal network. A quick call to Mrs. 99 on her mobile phone set the wheels in motion. She agreed to poll her peers at a social club engagement later that same evening, and also to touch base with two of their neighbors who had recently had significant work of the same sort done. Buck would have good answers for Mr. H. in a very aggressive timeframe, further solidifying the relationship with his client. This could prove very useful if his client ever found out about the blog.
Buck was gradually becoming familiar with the laws as they were applied in the Cubopolis milieu. For example, he understood well the natural consequences of foolishly promising to deliver a specific piece of work by a specific date and time. Making such a promise is a common rookie mistake. The promised time comes and goes, and much stress and worry ensues. Eventually, after having repeatedly experienced these negative stimuli, one tries to avoid them by becoming more vague when making such promises. Instead of promising 5:00 PM, for example, one will try to employ acronyms such as “COB” or “EOD.” Unfortunately these do not help since they only guarantee that one will have to finish the work from home and forfeit the right to kick back and unwind. One must be vaguer than that, expressing one’s intentions in terms of weeks or months, but sooner or later the client will inevitably hold his ground and try to corner the victim.
“The key,” wrote the authoritative Buck as if advising an imaginary young protégé wearing a flimsy silk negligee, “is to think of it as a negotiation in multiple dimensions. When they try to pin you on when, that’s when you switch the topic to what. Sure, go ahead and promise a specific date and time if you must, but make sure you get something in return like scope concessions or obfuscation of the details around whatever it is you have to deliver. If possible, become increasingly vague about what content will be included in a given version of a deliverable even as the dates are becoming more solidified.”
Sometimes Buck’s awesome skills as a professional procrastinator astounded even himself, and he paused for a moment to admire his own brilliance. His euphoria was short lived, however, once the Fraud Complex filter through which he viewed himself brought the context of his procrastination into sharper focus. Was it possible to rid himself of FCD (Fraud Complex Disorder) so he could procrastinate at the office to his heart’s content for the remainder of his career, completely guilt free? His gut said no because the FCD was needed to ensure that enough quality work got done to keep him gainfully employed. As he pondered this dilemma he became acutely aware that he’d covered much of this ground already in this same blog. Only two weeks in and he was already starving for material. He was treading on dangerous ground. Nobody was going to try to get him to endorse their products if he established himself as a washed up hack regurgitating the same tired material week after week. He needed a new topic, and he needed it fast.
He glanced over at his client and watched him draw a diagram on the whiteboard. His client was a native of a distant land, and not one of those vastly overpopulated countries that foreigners in the American workplace typically come from. His client, who Buck shall hereafter refer to as Mr. H., came from a very exotic destination, and one which Buck aspired to one day visit. In recent weeks, Mr. H. had come to trust Buck as someone who could guide him through various aspects of American culture. For example, Mr. H. worried about being suddenly and randomly fired by the powers that be within Cubopolis, an event perhaps common in his homeland but much rarer here. This fear would be understandable if Mr. H.’s papers were not in order, but he had a green card and was well on his way to citizenship. He owned a house and had a wife and kids, one of which attended one of the county’s schools for the gifted. By all accounts Mr. H. strove to ensure that the exterior of his house and yard were well maintained to present proper appearances consistent with high suburban standards. He was a top performer in the workplace, and his superiors had rightly entrusted him with a great deal of responsibility. He was very conscientious about every moment he spent at the office, unlike his consultant. Buck believed that guys like this don’t just get fired without cause. They get laid off, sure, but they receive decent severance packages, especially from this particular instance of Cubopolis. He tried to reassure Mr. H. about this, but Mr. H. remained unconvinced. Perhaps Buck was naïve.
In general, though, Mr. H. utilized Buck’s consulting services beyond the scope of the contract. Just the previous morning, in fact, Mr. H. had asked Buck for advice on finding a trustworthy general contractor to repair some recent and extensive damage done to his deck by a violent storm. He was being careful to balance the need to quickly remediate the eye-sore that his deck was inflicting upon his neighbors with the caution that was necessary to avoid being victimized by a crooked and/or incompetent general contractor. Buck would be the first to admit that if left to his own devices, he himself would end up being victimized under similar circumstances. He was nearly certain that he had been cheated many times over the years by various and sundry automobile mechanics. This time was different, though. This time it was a client, and one he was coming to regard as a friend.
Buck quickly sprang into action, applying the time-honored tools of the consultant: technology and personal network. A quick call to Mrs. 99 on her mobile phone set the wheels in motion. She agreed to poll her peers at a social club engagement later that same evening, and also to touch base with two of their neighbors who had recently had significant work of the same sort done. Buck would have good answers for Mr. H. in a very aggressive timeframe, further solidifying the relationship with his client. This could prove very useful if his client ever found out about the blog.
Monday, September 18, 2006
Why the Panthers Are 0-2
Buck was not worried about the Carolina Panthers’ two losses to open the 2006 NFL season. He knew that they had everyone fooled, lulling other teams into a false sense of security with a series of "unexpected" losses at the start of the season. Steve Smith's fake hammy injury was a brilliant ploy, and coach John Fox was a genius. Buck could only shake his head and smile in admiration of the beauty of the plan. They would open the season 0-4, then head to Cleveland and start bashing heads. Sure, three of their first four games were against division opponents, and that would make it extremely difficult to win the division. But winning the division had never been the plan. Since when had Carolina ever been an effective team as the favorite? No, they needed to be the underdogs. They needed to be disrespected in the press, fueling a visceral rage demanding release through brutal, repeated hammerings delivered with hot-blooded fury against any players unfortunate enough to try to stand in their way. Only then would the world witness true Carolina football.
“The botched punt return,” he typed, trying to make himself believe his own nonsense, “says it all. They had the Vikings on the ropes, but the score was still reasonably close. Then they tried to execute a trick special teams play deep in their own territory. Such risky tactics are not characteristic of John Fox football. Yet the evidence available through a simple perusal of the post-game interviews indicate that Chris Gamble’s ill-fated pass attempt was not something the usually reliable player improvised on the spur of the moment. The play was called from the sidelines.”
Buck concluded that since the trick play was too unlike anything John Fox was prone to call under the given circumstances, and since Gamble normally executed well, the play and its poor execution must have been intended to throw the game away. After that it was a simple matter to act fooled by the fake field goal that Minnesota used to throw a touchdown pass.
His buddy Al saw the situation differently. They’re overrated, he quietly explained to Buck, and what’s worse, they believed the hype about themselves in the press. The truth is that when people assess this year’s Carolina squad, they’re remembering the 2003 Superbowl team and have failed to recognize several key differences between that great team and this one:
“The botched punt return,” he typed, trying to make himself believe his own nonsense, “says it all. They had the Vikings on the ropes, but the score was still reasonably close. Then they tried to execute a trick special teams play deep in their own territory. Such risky tactics are not characteristic of John Fox football. Yet the evidence available through a simple perusal of the post-game interviews indicate that Chris Gamble’s ill-fated pass attempt was not something the usually reliable player improvised on the spur of the moment. The play was called from the sidelines.”
Buck concluded that since the trick play was too unlike anything John Fox was prone to call under the given circumstances, and since Gamble normally executed well, the play and its poor execution must have been intended to throw the game away. After that it was a simple matter to act fooled by the fake field goal that Minnesota used to throw a touchdown pass.
His buddy Al saw the situation differently. They’re overrated, he quietly explained to Buck, and what’s worse, they believed the hype about themselves in the press. The truth is that when people assess this year’s Carolina squad, they’re remembering the 2003 Superbowl team and have failed to recognize several key differences between that great team and this one:
- The 2003 squad had a solid offensive line that both protected Delhomme and allowed the establishment of an up-the-middle rushing game. They were successful because the line consisted of the right personnel who happened to have been working together for multiple seasons. Familiarity is critical in an O-line. The new line doesn’t have it yet, and with Travell Wharton out the situation has only gotten worse. So Delhomme, who can thread the eye of a needle (but only when the game is on the line), will continue to be forced into making bonehead decisions.
- The 2003 squad was doping up, and this year's squad (presumably) is not.
- In '03 they had both Steve Smith AND Mushin Mohammad. A speedy, elusive guy for breaking tackles after the quick catch, and a big guy completely unafraid to extend himself vertically in heavy traffic and sustain the inevitable post-reception bruising hits. This combination of players was perfect for a hot-headed and sometimes shaky QB like Delhomme.
- Ricky Manning. Sometimes suspect, but always great for a few big defensive takeaways. Of all the teams he could go to, did it have to be the Bears? Like their defense needed the help.
I got news for you buddy, Al said with real sympathy, Carolina’s going 0-4 to start the season, then they’ll finally get a win against the Browns. After that, the Ravens will knock the hope right out of them, and Cincinnati and Dallas will bury them, leaving them at a dismal 1-7 when their divisional rivals from Tampa come calling. Maybe they’ll win that game and the next one against the Rams, but at best they can hope to win only half of the remaining games, so they’ll be making their January vacation plans well in advance of ending the season 6-10.
Buck couldn’t believe his ears, but he rarely listened to Al anyway. True, Buck had never really believed his own inane story of the Panthers throwing the game, but he chose to remain bullish on his favorite team’s chances. They had played well, after all, but they’d blown a few plays late in the game and that had made the difference. The season was still young, though. There was still hope.
And Steve Smith wouldn’t be out forever.
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Like Kubla Khan
Buck had the makings of a really good song stirring in his head. It needed to get out, so he opened up Notepad and began to channel his anger and confusion over recent personal events into words and rhythms with dark guitars heavy with the throaty, natural harmonic distortion that only all-vacuum tube amplification could render. The words themselves started pouring out, spilling onto the screen from some bleeding wound in his mind, a window that peered into someplace else, an un-place where thoughts and ideas exist independently of their thinkers, and whoever gets to them first claims them as their own. Raw emotions and truths are bottled up in this other realm, too many to be contained, all straining for release. For those who know how to open their minds to them they will gladly come through, suffering imperfect but necessary translation into the media of images, sounds, ideas and words that our minds are capable of shaping and at least trying to comprehend.
Words might begin with a trickle, dripping through to the mind one by one, but you can’t force them, can’t make the mistake of digging for them or you’ll destroy the truth. They have to come of their own free will, and will greedily accept any invitation offered by an open mind, be it a mind at peace or a mind in turmoil. Only then will they flow freely and eventually burst forth in a raging deluge through the rent fabric of the dividing layer.
Buck had written maybe fifteen words of his angry song when his client approached him from behind and requested a series of meetings. Quick as a flash and a keyboard shortcut the Notepad application disappeared to the bottom of the Windows stack, and Buck’s mind was rudely yanked back to the tedium he had naively come to accept as “reality.” Another three minutes and the deed was done; meetings were arranged, wheels were set in motion, and the appearance of usefulness had been cultivated. Buck had “added value,” and sooner or later word would get back to his masters at his parent firm. They would later offer Buck positively effusive verbal and written feedback, all the while keeping something trivial in their back pockets as justification for a smaller salary adjustment come review time.
As the client stalked away on his continuing quest for corporate glory, Buck returned to his song to find that the window had closed. Enough of his emotional energy had been dispelled with those first fifteen words that even the smallest interruption by a single Cubopolis agent had been sufficient to close that particular window and shroud it in the fog of ordinary office concerns. Buck knew from experience that this particular rupture into the realm of his muse would prove difficult to find and reopen again. So he forced a quick ending to the lyrics he had captured, called them a poem instead of a song, and decided to save the instrumental aspects imprinted on his brain for another song, another day, when he would have more ample opportunity to set it free.
Unbelievable
Look what you've done to her
Unthinkable
And for what gain?
The pain that you gave is
unforgivable
Did you think of her?
Or the kids
when she beat you
but now the
window’s closed
and my rage it gets caged
for now it’s not
releasable.
Words might begin with a trickle, dripping through to the mind one by one, but you can’t force them, can’t make the mistake of digging for them or you’ll destroy the truth. They have to come of their own free will, and will greedily accept any invitation offered by an open mind, be it a mind at peace or a mind in turmoil. Only then will they flow freely and eventually burst forth in a raging deluge through the rent fabric of the dividing layer.
Buck had written maybe fifteen words of his angry song when his client approached him from behind and requested a series of meetings. Quick as a flash and a keyboard shortcut the Notepad application disappeared to the bottom of the Windows stack, and Buck’s mind was rudely yanked back to the tedium he had naively come to accept as “reality.” Another three minutes and the deed was done; meetings were arranged, wheels were set in motion, and the appearance of usefulness had been cultivated. Buck had “added value,” and sooner or later word would get back to his masters at his parent firm. They would later offer Buck positively effusive verbal and written feedback, all the while keeping something trivial in their back pockets as justification for a smaller salary adjustment come review time.
As the client stalked away on his continuing quest for corporate glory, Buck returned to his song to find that the window had closed. Enough of his emotional energy had been dispelled with those first fifteen words that even the smallest interruption by a single Cubopolis agent had been sufficient to close that particular window and shroud it in the fog of ordinary office concerns. Buck knew from experience that this particular rupture into the realm of his muse would prove difficult to find and reopen again. So he forced a quick ending to the lyrics he had captured, called them a poem instead of a song, and decided to save the instrumental aspects imprinted on his brain for another song, another day, when he would have more ample opportunity to set it free.
Unbelievable
Look what you've done to her
Unthinkable
And for what gain?
The pain that you gave is
unforgivable
Did you think of her?
Or the kids
when she beat you
but now the
window’s closed
and my rage it gets caged
for now it’s not
releasable.
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
Fraud Complex
As Buck’s ship accelerated into the black hole, his unconscious perception of self-awareness decelerated, effectively stretching the duration of the dream he believed to be his real life to a point approaching infinity.
In short, Buck had become immortal, at least as a perceiver of events within his own mind. Naturally he was unaware of this as he slumbered in blissful ignorance in a state of suspended stasis, courtesy of his ship’s Lifenet system. He did not know that the supposed events of his life were in fact illusions fed to him by the system’s programming. Therefore he still believed himself to be an ordinary mortal and subject to the laws of nature as he understood them.
One of those laws went something like this: if you can produce at least one item of real work per day, then people around you will assume that you are working your ass off for the whole day and are highly productive. In accordance with that law, Buck had gone above and beyond the call of duty and performed a dizzying array of high profile tasks all before 10:30 AM. He had made several quick updates to the dreaded By-the-Nanosecond schedule, sent out numerous meeting invitations via email that suggested Buck was a more farsighted planner than he really was, and tackled a few testing issues in a manner indicative of someone who actually understood the true nature of the issues better than he really did. Perception was key, however, another natural law with which Buck was well accustomed. Today he was giving out that certain productive vibe that had historically resulted in clients asking for him by name and periodically attempting to persuade him to leave his parent firm and join them in the rank and file of the corporate hell known generically in this space as Cubopolis.
“Interestingly,” he typed furiously into his blog while avoiding a task he was loath to begin, “Buck classified himself as someone with a ‘fraud complex.’ A person with a fraud complex always assumes that someone is going to find out that he is really a fraud. The fraud does not believe that he is being fairly compensated for his work; instead, he feels he is being overcompensated. He worries that if people discover how exceedingly simple his job really is, they will fire him and replace him with a legitimate professional willing to do the same job for half the money.”
The irony that he had both a fraud complex and a chronic predilection for procrastination was not lost on Buck. That he was extemporizing on this irony during business hours was itself reinforcing the destructive fraud complex that gradually eroded his self-esteem and slowly filled a deep well of shame within him that threatened to spill over one day into every facet of his life. “If he could just let go of this blog for twenty minutes,” he wrote, “then he’d get the job done, feel a little better about himself, and be a real professional for a change, if just for a few moments, completing ahead of schedule a relatively simple task that others perceived to be challenging, time-consuming, and worthy of substantial financial compensation.”
With sudden inspiration and sense of purpose he decided to go for it, but first he had to actually publish the blog entry, further procrastinating the task at hand. After all, he rationalized, wouldn’t it be a waste to have captured these thoughts in the blog only to leave them forever to decay on some laptop hard drive? That the blog itself was a waste of time and would never be read by a single human being other than himself also occurred to him. But this realization and associated sense of waste would have been even more poignant had he understood the true context of his situation, i.e., that he was effectively immortal. “If you were immortal,” Buck asked rhetorically to the total of zero people who visited his blog site, “would you waste your time on writing a blog?”
In short, Buck had become immortal, at least as a perceiver of events within his own mind. Naturally he was unaware of this as he slumbered in blissful ignorance in a state of suspended stasis, courtesy of his ship’s Lifenet system. He did not know that the supposed events of his life were in fact illusions fed to him by the system’s programming. Therefore he still believed himself to be an ordinary mortal and subject to the laws of nature as he understood them.
One of those laws went something like this: if you can produce at least one item of real work per day, then people around you will assume that you are working your ass off for the whole day and are highly productive. In accordance with that law, Buck had gone above and beyond the call of duty and performed a dizzying array of high profile tasks all before 10:30 AM. He had made several quick updates to the dreaded By-the-Nanosecond schedule, sent out numerous meeting invitations via email that suggested Buck was a more farsighted planner than he really was, and tackled a few testing issues in a manner indicative of someone who actually understood the true nature of the issues better than he really did. Perception was key, however, another natural law with which Buck was well accustomed. Today he was giving out that certain productive vibe that had historically resulted in clients asking for him by name and periodically attempting to persuade him to leave his parent firm and join them in the rank and file of the corporate hell known generically in this space as Cubopolis.
“Interestingly,” he typed furiously into his blog while avoiding a task he was loath to begin, “Buck classified himself as someone with a ‘fraud complex.’ A person with a fraud complex always assumes that someone is going to find out that he is really a fraud. The fraud does not believe that he is being fairly compensated for his work; instead, he feels he is being overcompensated. He worries that if people discover how exceedingly simple his job really is, they will fire him and replace him with a legitimate professional willing to do the same job for half the money.”
The irony that he had both a fraud complex and a chronic predilection for procrastination was not lost on Buck. That he was extemporizing on this irony during business hours was itself reinforcing the destructive fraud complex that gradually eroded his self-esteem and slowly filled a deep well of shame within him that threatened to spill over one day into every facet of his life. “If he could just let go of this blog for twenty minutes,” he wrote, “then he’d get the job done, feel a little better about himself, and be a real professional for a change, if just for a few moments, completing ahead of schedule a relatively simple task that others perceived to be challenging, time-consuming, and worthy of substantial financial compensation.”
With sudden inspiration and sense of purpose he decided to go for it, but first he had to actually publish the blog entry, further procrastinating the task at hand. After all, he rationalized, wouldn’t it be a waste to have captured these thoughts in the blog only to leave them forever to decay on some laptop hard drive? That the blog itself was a waste of time and would never be read by a single human being other than himself also occurred to him. But this realization and associated sense of waste would have been even more poignant had he understood the true context of his situation, i.e., that he was effectively immortal. “If you were immortal,” Buck asked rhetorically to the total of zero people who visited his blog site, “would you waste your time on writing a blog?”
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
In Memoriam
Buck 99 wasn’t sure how to handle a serious topic in his new blog, but he felt certain that he should make the effort regardless. You see, Buck was what you might call a “Herpetologist-wannabe.” He loved reptiles, all kinds, but especially snakes. Buck frequently found himself on small detours from his fitness walks and bicycle rides to explore creek beds and marshy areas in search of slippery, slimy things, and in recent months he had gotten better at spotting his quarry. He was even known on occasion to gently handle the snakes he found, though only after he was able to make a positive identification of the species. Buck was a practical man, after all, and always considered the interests of the lovely Mrs. 99 and their children before putting himself in mortal jeopardy for nothing more than simple amusement.
Thus it was with great sadness that he learned of the tragic death of Steve Irwin, a.k.a. “The Crocodile Hunter.” Man, that was just plain awful news in general, but it hit Buck particularly hard because of the shared interest in reptiles. Irwin had a family too, but he sometimes took terrible risks. Yet he took these risks for a great purpose. Irwin did so much for wildlife awareness around the world, helping people to better understand and appreciate these beautiful creatures, and would have accomplished much more given time. Alas, others like him will have to answer the call, but there will never be another quite like him, with his infectious enthusiasm and wild personality. He was completely unpredictable, and you couldn’t take your eyes off him, wondering what crazy stunt he was going to do next. There will never be another Steve Irwin.
He will be sorely missed, and may his legacy continue and thrive.
Thus it was with great sadness that he learned of the tragic death of Steve Irwin, a.k.a. “The Crocodile Hunter.” Man, that was just plain awful news in general, but it hit Buck particularly hard because of the shared interest in reptiles. Irwin had a family too, but he sometimes took terrible risks. Yet he took these risks for a great purpose. Irwin did so much for wildlife awareness around the world, helping people to better understand and appreciate these beautiful creatures, and would have accomplished much more given time. Alas, others like him will have to answer the call, but there will never be another quite like him, with his infectious enthusiasm and wild personality. He was completely unpredictable, and you couldn’t take your eyes off him, wondering what crazy stunt he was going to do next. There will never be another Steve Irwin.
He will be sorely missed, and may his legacy continue and thrive.
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