Lying With Your Job

March 11, 2014 By David Griesing 1 Comment

Recent weeks and months have provided several reminders of how often people lie with their jobs.

Priests, lawyers, policemen, doctors, parking enforcers, tax collectors: guardians of ethical and lawful behavior, with power that comes from standing over the rest of us in their appointed roles. The obvious disconnect between what our supposed guardians tell us to do, but don’t manage to do themselves, can be either tragic or comic.

The problem (I’m afraid) is when we stop being surprised by confrontations like this. When they no longer make us either laugh or cry–or even matter.

The part of the world where I live—the malodorous Northeast Corridor—produces more than its share of “now you caught me’s.”

Of course, punishing commuters from a place where the majority of voters didn’t vote for you by complicating their commutes (As governor, I will perform the duties of this office faithfully, impartially…) is currently getting the most press. But others compete “like hell” for the ink.

Hermit Gosnell (whose oath as a physician included having the “utmost respect for human life from the beginning”) was recently sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison for systematically killing babies born in his West Philadelphia abortion clinic, and the priests of the Philadelphia diocese who preyed for years on altar boys, their brothers and occasionally sisters (after vows of chastity) are regularly profiled as they traipse through our justice system.

Of course, there are plenty we can snicker at when they lie with their lesser jobs too, a hook that a cable network recognized several years ago when it started broadcasting “Parking Wars,” a real life comedy about the men and women who ticket and tow our cars here. Each one of these “enforcement officers” is like a bank for the Philadelphia Parking Authority, writing several times their annual salaries in violations each year: but that speaks more to their motivation and our resentment.

Last month, it was Mwanamke Jordan, (at least until recently) PPA’s Deputy Manager for Ticket Enforcement, who gave the still suffering public here some comic relief. As profiled in our newspaper of record, Deputy Jordan recently had her own car “booted” (a dreaded device that disables you from driving your car until you pay all the parking tickets and penalties that you’ve accumulated). Her picture here is from an earlier newspaper profile which began: If Mwanamke Jordan’s love life were a reality TV show….”

Last but hardly least in the Comic Division is Richard Cosentino—not for what he did, but for his picture when he got caught. Cosentino, a former NYPD sergeant received more than $200,000 after claiming that he was allegedly “too depressed to go outside” after the World Trade Center attacks on 9/11. In January, he and 81 other ex-cops, firefighters and corrections officers were busted for allegedly soaking taxpayers for $21.3 million for stress-related injuries they fabricated so they could collect disability payments. Allegedly.

Richard Cosentino 553x369 — COSENTINO AND HIS TUNA

Does the non-stop perp walk of these stories and pictures (and all the others like them) deter us? Deter me or you? Is there any moral dimension left in them at all?

At this point, I’m reminded of that timely update of Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter in Quentin Tarrantino’s Inglourious Basterds. It comes in the very last scene, where the Gestapo’s Hans Landa (who goes from exposing Jews “like rats” to “ratting out” the Nazi leadership to the Allies) is now about to get his reward: a nice little place “on Nantucket” for all his help. It’s the moment right before his freedom, where Lieutenant Aldo “The Apache” Raine takes out a ridiculously big knife and carves a swatskika on Landa’s forehead. Why? Because you just shouldn’t get to change “your clothes” so easily afterwards.

It might be different for the oath breakers and job hypocrites if others could see it on their foreheads too, like soot from Ash Wednesday.

Different for all of us.

The Glimpse of a Better World on a Snow Day

February 16, 2014 By David Griesing Leave a Comment

Snow. Snow. More snow.

Disasters can bring out the best in people, but our wintry circumstances here in The City That Loves You Back have not gotten that bad yet.

We’ve not had that much snow in Philadelphia.

But while “record-breaking” exaggerates our hardship, there have certainly been kindnesses and conversations that would not have occurred without our almost daily 3, 6 or 12 inches. Unfortunately, glimmers of community are less apparent than the impatience and irritability that have begun to feel like a tantrum.

It’s probably been more encouraging in pockets where snowy conditions produced clearer disasters. For example, where a cohort of drivers, thrown together by chance and icy roads, responds to their shared misfortune by helping one another, sharing their water, groceries and first aid kits, and finding a laugh in what they could not change.

Did the drivers in all those cars and trucks below just sit tight and assume the authorities would come and straighten everything out? How long do you think it took them to turn to one another for a helping hand and camaraderie during the slow sorting out?

crash 634x423 — 100 Vehicle Pile-up on PA Turnpike near Philadelphia on February 14

In A Paradise Built in Hell: the Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster, Rebecca Solnit looked into natural and man-made catastrophes like the San Francisco earthquake and fire of 1906, 9/11, and Hurricane Katrina and found remarkable evidence of community re-building by victims from every station in life. Her argument is that “in the suspension of the usual order and the failure of most systems, we are free to live and act another way.” People rise to the occasion and become more generous, more enterprising and (paradoxically) more light-hearted than they were before.

For example, Solnit recounts dozens of individual stories after the 9/11 attacks, including that of Tobin James Mueller, who starts a single table donut dispensary for aid workers that expands dramatically into a way station for hundreds of firemen and ambulance workers on Pier 59 over the ensuing days.

Everyone here was rejected by the city’s official [emergency relief] sites. I accept anyone who wants to help and anything anyone wants to donate. We find a place for everything and everyone. A hopeful would-be volunteer comes up to me and asks if there is anything she can do. I give her a task, and that’s the last direction I need to give. Each volunteer becomes a self-motivated powerhouse who does whatever it takes to get the job done. Then they find a hundred more jobs to do. There is so much to do. It’s so much fun to participate in. I forget to sleep. Many of my volunteers have been working for over 36 hours. It is difficult to bring oneself to go back home. The thought of closing my eyes makes me tremble.

The people Solnit celebrates in A Paradise Build in Hell are not “nasty and brutish and short” and in need of managing by official society. Overwhelmingly, they are people who know perfectly well how to act when the social order has ground to a halt and they are free to rely on their resourcefulness and shared humanity.

Time and again, in post-disaster zones, she finds that it is representatives of the broken social order (such as the police and the military) who resort to violence because of their erroneous assumption that victims will quickly devolve into savages once society’s “safeguards” are removed. Solnit’s message throughout is that nothing could be farther from the truth. In philosopher William James’ observation during the aftermath of the San Francisco earthquake: “energies slumbering” are awakened, and suffering and loss are transformed when they become shared experiences.

On this snow day, the questions are really quite simple.

-Why can’t problem solving in our everyday communities be more satisfying, resourceful, engaged and light-hearted, so that “disasters can just be disasters” and not the random opportunities for liberation that they are today?

-Why don’t our fleeting experiences of a better world after disaster give us the confidence to come together and build a more humane society?

-Why didn’t the solidarity so many of us experienced after 9/11, Hurricane Sandy, the terrorism at the Boston Marathon or the massacre of first graders in Newtown have a more permanent half-life?

-Why do we revert so readily to fear instead of to trust?

It is the middle of February. There hasn’t been enough snow in Philadelphia yet.

But we still have a few weeks left.

You Need Money to Make Money

January 31, 2014 By David Griesing 4 Comments

The promise of a free market is that you can get ahead with hard work and sound investment.

In other words, you need your hard-earned money (or “working capital”) to make more money. But if you’re not earning enough to have money left over in savings at the end of the week, chances are no family member is willing to give it to you and no bank is willing to lend it to you. Access to capital—or rather the lack of access—is changing the promise that you can get ahead if you work hard.

Productivity isn’t just about, or even primarily about making money, but money is part of it. Money makes a better life possible. Beyond the essentials, it buys time off for enrichment to read a book, connect with your neighbors or just smell the clover. It gives you time to think about the quality of your work, and not just recover from it.

That’s why it’s a problem when those who want to work can’t earn enough to live on. Everyone in a community should be able to earn a living wage if they have the discipline, skill and desire, and everyone in the community has a stake in creating that opportunity. Escape from social dependence rests on the willingness to work and develop new skills. Work allows “the pursuit of happiness.” A community that fails to support that kind of self-reliance and personal fulfillment is at risk of unraveling.

Productivity is also about seizing the opportunity to build new wealth with talent and elbow grease. It’s the Korean market in a poor Philadelphia neighborhood where the whole family works 8-12 hours a day, saving every penny, while the kids do school work between customers so they can get into Penn. The dream is that hard work, savings, and self-improvement will get you to a better life tomorrow. Our communities also used to support that dream.

Unfortunately, as you know, the news is full of statistics about threats to upward mobility in developed countries today (most recently in the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report, published for this week’s conference in Davos, Switzerland). For the middle class, it’s become harder to live on what you earn. With reduced savings at the end of the day, increasingly it is only the wealthiest wage earners who have enough money to invest in an even better future.

Aside from the spigot of student loans, it’s been difficult if not impossible for most Americans to gain access to capital by borrowing money. You need capital to grow your business, and the kinds of companies I work with can’t get it from the banks, even when they’re doing well. In other words, unless the business owner has her own source of funds, she cannot finance her company’s future growth.

It’s the same for innovation. While there are more ways to crowdfund your brilliant idea, unless your family and thousand new friends can be your bank, bringing a new product or service to market is a longer shot than ever. Banks no longer come even close to satisfying the need that business owners have for capital.

Not so long ago it was different.

In his article “Less Innovation, More Inequality,” Nobel laureate (in economics) Edmund Phelps notes that American inventiveness and therefore general prosperity has been in decline for more than 50 years. Even with the disruptions of war and depression, from the1820’s to the 1960’s in America there was:

a frenzy of creative activity, economic competition and rapid growth in national income provided widening economic inclusion, rising wages for all and engaging careers for most.

Today, the consequences of the fall-off from a flourishing economy are becoming apparent. New wealth is increasingly produced by and new innovation is increasingly funded by those who are rich already.

The fear is that this accumulation of wealth is creating the kind of permanent nobility last seen in 17^th and 18^th century Europe. Today, rich people increasingly go to the best schools with, marry, do business with, and eventually inherit much of society’s wealth from one another. (I’ve talked elsewhere about Charles Murray’s take on this relatively new cultural divide.)

In terms of your work today, these are some of the questions that are worth considering:

What happens to how you view your work when an economic system that rewarded talent, discipline and sacrifice evolves into an aristocracy?

What happens when only a fortunate few have access to the capital that makes future dreams come true?

An article in the Wall Street Journal last week noted:

For some, this would be a dystopian vision, skewing incentives across the economy, and making inherited wealth even more important to signaling social status. It runs contrary to the idea of a meritocracy and equality of opportunity that many in the U.S., on both sides of the political spectrum, see as forming the bedrock of a just society.

It’s certainly a nightmare vision for those of us who believe in the ennobling qualities of work.

Clearly, it’s time to shake things up.

Thanks

January 6, 2014 By David Griesing Leave a Comment

There is always some let down when the holidays are over. With snow and ice and the coldest day Philadelphia has seen in awhile “on tap” for later today, the outlook can seem pretty bleak when you don’t bring some lightheartedness into it.

The rebalance can be as simple as identifying what we have to be grateful for. It doesn’t need to take the gloom away; a lot of that is just January. It just restores some of the hope.

Lillian - July 2, 2013 — LILLIAN’S GREAT HAT — July 2, 2013

Like you, I’m tired of year-end lists–I guess because I’ve looked at so many of them. Books, songs, movies, people to watch in the coming months. It’s the year’s fulcrum when you look back at what happened around you & in your own life, while trying to look forward with anticipation. For me at least, nothing gives anticipation the glow of hopefulness like gratitude.

So with apologies in advance for yet another list, here are some categories for gratitude that might help you to dispel some of the gloom today (with some personal “thank yous” attached).

1. A better response than you ever thought you’d get. You get less than you hope for but still keep on asking. It’s hard to create the space for a suitable response from someone when you’ve been disappointed so many times before. A customer service representative, someone you’ve hired to do something for you, a neighbor or family member. But your disappointment can also disable those who want to give you what you’re looking for. For those times when you didn’t let your disappointment over past experiences get in the way—or even when you do, but the person on the other end wouldn’t take “no” for an answer—what are some of the responses you got in the past 12 months that were a cause for gratitude? Thank you: AOL’s Romanian service desk, Patti, Colleen, Kim, the doormen at 250, Bill and Jason!

2. For people you have not seen in awhile but who show up as delightful as always. Some folks are always in your life, while others only stop in occasionally. For the occasional visitors, you always wonder beforehand how time has treated them, and sometimes are delighted by the effervescence they manage to keep giving off. Over the past 12 months, visitors like this provide moments of real grace: Irene, Jim, John, Richard.

3. Surprises. You can organize yourself so tightly that surprise has a hard time breaking in. It’s what makes us smile when babies and dogs disrupt the best laid plans in our movies and storytelling. You can’t manufacture surprise, but you can make room for it. When you do, it can be a blessing: Lillian with stories about her 75 grandchildren and new business on a busy trail in the Tetons, Peter (from Scotland) & Jon-Albert (from Norway) hitch-hiking to adventure on Wyoming I-80, Wally the dog.

4. New Ideas. There may be no such thing as a “new idea,” but it can seem like new to you. More often it’s a different “way of thinking” about something familiar: a slant or perspective that you never considered. In The Golden Notebook, Philip Pullman talks about spaces in the fabric of time that provide passageways from one reality to another. When you return, of course, nothing is quite the same. What ideas changed your mind this year? Some of mine came from Jaron Lanier (on the commerce in our personal information), Brene Brown (on Wholeheartedness), and Russell Baker (on how to talk about your life so others want to know more about it).

5. Collaboration. When the sum becomes greater than the parts while working on something together, that’s the best of partnership. It doesn’t always happen, but when it does, those partners are worth celebrating: Ryan, Marc.

6. Feedback. This is something you need to hear about yourself that manages to come back to you. The speakers can be friends and loved ones, but some of the most appreciated remarks can come from strangers with nothing to gain or lose. People don’t always tell you the truth, so you have to be listening when they do. That also goes for kind words when you least expect them and for tributes when they come. A waiter for the Princeton Breakfast Group, Gina, Dorothy, Jon, Dina.

7. Perspective. It’s easy to get lost in the demands of the day or in worrying about yourself. Whatever reliably takes you out of your busyness and insecurity and gives you some perspective on the day is also deserving of some gratitude. It’s an escape you return from refreshed. Hearing a special person’s voice can do it. Laughter can too. Whatever it is deserves to be celebrated, like: Good neighbors.

Identify the people and things you’re grateful for and give them a party in your head.

Here’s to a wholehearted year!

Tallying Up

December 28, 2013 By David Griesing Leave a Comment

It’s the time of year to tally up what we’ve accomplished and what we haven’t, what we might have done differently, or not at all.

Perhaps because of that, Todd May contributed an op-ed to the New York Times a few days ago in which he pondered the notion of good years, best or “peak” years, and years when you’re simply rolling downhill toward your final whimper.

For me, I’d like to think that I’m on an upward trajectory, that I’ll continue to engage and grow, and that tomorrow will be better than today. But it’s more than my optimism and sense of purpose. A lot of it also has to do with how the world engages back.

photo by Susan Melkisethian — (photo/Susan Melkisethian)

Everyone will agree that Edward Snowden had something of a peak year in 2013.

Yesterday, when Professor May was interviewed on NPR about his op-ed, John Hockenberry mentioned Snowden in his introduction, noting that he may never have “another change the world moment” like he had in 2013. But when he got into his Q&A, Hockenberry thought it was at least “conceivable” that Snowden could “acquire an influence that could give him as big a year, say in 10 years, as he had this year.” May disagreed, noting that the American government will never let it happen, a point he elaborated upon in his op-ed.

Snowden’s actions, regardless of whether one supports them or not, have had a prodigious impact on the debate about privacy in the United States and will likely continue to do so. They have had roughly the impact that Snowden wanted them to have. That is, they have altered how many of us think about our relation to the government and to our own technology, and because of this, they infuse this period of his life with a luminescence that will always be with him. He will not forget it, nor will others.

There is an assumption I would like to make here, one that I can’t verify but I think is uncontroversial. It is very unlikely that Edward Snowden will ever do anything nearly as significant again. Nothing he does for the remainder of his life will have the resonance that his recent actions have had. The powers that be will ensure it. And undoubtedly he knows this. His life will go on, and it may not be as tortured as some people think. But in an important sense his life will have peaked at age 29 or 30.

I don’t know about that.

Like many of you I am “at 6s and 7s” about Edward Snowden, and like most of you l viewed his “Alternative Christmas Message” this week in the hope that it would help me sort through my impressions. I realized that while I had seen his picture a thousand times, I had never heard his voice. Indeed, almost no one had.

Was his message “Hyperbole? Self-marketing?” Hockenberry wondered in his interview. Well, maybe. But then again, maybe not.

The part of me that believed Snowden had spoken a kind of truth to power that no one else had dared to speak could find both sincerity and conviction in him and in his words. That part of me believed him when he said that he repeatedly raised his concerns about the extent of surveillance with his superiors. Only when they did nothing, did he turn to the press to find out whether the rest of us would see the stakes involved in the same way that he did.

So as we hear Edward Snowden’s voice and tally the costs (if any) of 5 months of asylum on his face, it’s equally hard to believe that he’s already begun his slow descent into irrelevance. We will keep talking about how much privacy we are wiling to sacrifice to be safe because it is one of the great conversations of our age. More than anything, it is Snowden’s continuing willingness to contribute to that conversation and our continuing engagement with his thoughts and actions that will determine the pitch of his trajectory.

Was it a good year, a peak year, or a way-station to irrelevance? It comes down to the same two factors for all us: our willingness to keep raising our voices and the connections we forge with others by doing so.

As I watched Edward Snowden’s counterpoint to the Queen’s Annual Christmas Greeting, I was pretty sure of one thing:

He, for one, doesn’t think that his peak year is behind him.