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What the author of this post is actually mad about is that most people don't care about him. The people who designed the DMV don't care about him. The people wh
by ivraatiems 2y ago
What the author of this post is actually mad about is that most people don't care about him. The people who designed the DMV don't care about him. The people who made the crappy Oracle HR software he probably has to use don't care about him. The people who designed the bike lanes don't care about him.
It's not their job to. They have about a million other priorities, they're not sorry about it, and they shouldn't be.
The DMV, the HR software people, the engineering people, they care about lots of things: Following the laws they are required to follow; maintaining regulatory compliance. Handling the latest set of changes and rules from a higher office who demands they be implemented yesterday. Not overwhelming the underpaid staff they have on-hand. Figuring out how to deal with a generally unpleasant general public, including the guy who wrote this. Holding back an ounce of sanity so they can get home at the end of the day and be happy and not drink themselves to death.
The reality is that life is a series of tradeoffs. Even if I am giving 100% at work (and I have a family and a life, so often I am not), that 100% does not get allocated entirely or even mostly to "deliver the best experience for the specific needs of the author of this article." It's dedicated to getting work out the door at an acceptable level of quality; monitoring our systems so they don't crash and lose us money; complying with the rules and procedures my employer demands I comply with; being tolerable and decent to my colleagues so they don't resent me and make my life harder. If I think about the needs of one specific customer out of the millions that transact business with my employer every day, it's because something extraordinary has happened with implications for one of the things above.
What sets people like Elon apart is that they are single-mindedly dedicated to getting people to appease them, and also pretty good at it. All Elon cares about is whatever interests him day-to-day, his ego, his impact on the world, whether people like him or hate him. He's "successful", by this author's metric, because he's self-obsessed.
All that said, the UK has a phrase for someone who cares only to do the bare minimum: a jobsworth, as in, more than my job's worth. A jobsworth is unhelpful on purpose, or because enforcing apathy is more valuable to them than doing anything that might impose upon them later an obligation to act. The thing is - those people are universally reviled. They are not liked or approved of in society. They're also a severe minority.
Most people are doing their best to stay above water on a dozen different things, and you are only one of them. The author ought to have some humility and realize that.
- kmoser 2y agoThen why the huge disparity between cultural attitudes in the USA vs. Japan? Clearly the Japanese tend to take more pride of ownership, which is OP's point.
- ivraatiems 2y agoJapan also has an entire group of people so disillusioned with society they completely lock themselves off from it (0), record high suicide rates (1), record low fertility rates (2), and a far lower rate of self-reported happiness. I don't know why they prioritize differently, but I don't think it's working out for them. Which set of tradeoffs would you rather live under? (0) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hikikomori https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hikikomori (1) https://www.bbc.com/news/world-33362387.amp https://www.bbc.com/news/world-33362387.amp (2) https://apnews.com/article/japan-birth-rate-declining-population-82662ea061286cb907fd7d071e5b0b9b https://apnews.com/article/japan-birth-rate-declining-popula... (3) https://countryeconomy.com/demography/world-happiness-index/japan https://countryeconomy.com/demography/world-happiness-index/...
- johnnyanmac 2y ago>Which set of tradeoffs would you rather live under? I'll take the one that doesn't lay me over every year to hit record profits, thanks. There's degrees of not caring and the US is very far on the "you are just a number" peg. The fake drinking parties at least try to make me feel involved.
- aprilthird2021 2y agoHe only thinks it's that way because in Japan, he's the big man with the big bucks the whole society caters to. An average Japanese person probably makes a terrible salary, has few if any economic prospects, sees a stagnant economy, and also is very unlikely to even start a family. I'd much rather have a family than have store clerks obsses about serving me. If you have tons of money in Seattle area and live in an exurb, and only go to Seattle for the orchestra and a baseball game in a box, you probably think everyone in America cares too