Tag: No More Stupid

Dec282021December 28, 2021December 28, 20210Commentby Tony Hunt

Vilifying people for being people…

Posted in Events, Randomosity...
overconfidence - when you assume you can make people be more or better without their consent.

Bad things happen when you expect the world to exist according to your whims. 😉

Don’t expect heroes, but encourage them.

People are going to be people, it’s great to hope they’re going to be amazing, but you’re setting your self up for disappointment if you expect consistent social acceptance or heroism. It’s great to hope for it. It’s even okay to help people be their best version of themselves, thats what people do for each other right? I guess maybe its the pragmatist in me that is also saying “If you tell them its mandatory they are going to flip out.”

That’s pretty much what happened according to SFGate

About 15 years ago, I came up with this awesome program to drive engagement and improve public perception of the work my team was doing. 2-4 times a year we were going to shine. A few times a year, we were going to, instead of a regular work day, help on Habitat for Humanity builds. You can call it what you want, helping people, teambuilding, character improvement, improving public awareness was my gig. You would think this is a really cool thing. So many good people on our teams, amazing people. But you know what…half of them we’re pretty pissed off. You see some people arent here to do anything but what they want. Its a fact of life. They arent evil though.

The level of consideration it takes to prioritize something that does not directly or tangibly benefit people over their own wont is actually pretty considerable. It’s not bad manners, it’s not poor social engagement…it’s just their prerogative is not aligned with whatever you’re intending. Everyone seems surprised when some employee that makes mad money doesnt want to do something he or she doesnt want to do. Doesnt make them a bad person…just means they dont want to do something.

But what happened on our little Habitat program? My people @#$%ing 100% revolted. No joke. I had to actually sit down and remediate my own @#$%ing program because of it. I lost friends over this, no joke. The program completely flatlined and my awareness and charity program fell apart.

Learning this the hard way wasn’t fun.

Regardless of the workload, the type of work, or the character of the people affected…you will find a boundary you dont want to cross twice even in requesting something small, like asking for help loading office supplies. In new york, you can’t even get on a damn latter to do something yourself, you have to hire a damn porter($40/per hour for dude that climbs ladders) and if you dont you’re open to a business-killing state case against you because porters unions lost wages.

In today’s banter it’s about someone who (as an engineer) doesnt want to have to make food deliveries for a delivery service we ALL use…seems like an abstract but it isnt. People dont want to do what they dont want to do, and I will go so far as to say even if its helping people. So an engineer the makes bank doesnt want to do a delivery for Doordash. Doesnt make them evil, yall.

But now lets say DURING COVID said person that drives almost never gets told they have to go out and deliver cheeseburgers because of some corporate policy. I would say no too. Its not like lives are on the line, and I know damn well it doesnt make me evil.

Fast food isnt an essential service. So corporate policy or not, there is an argument here that maybe its not exactly the time to be telling employees they have to go out into the wild and risk exposure so that someone can get their wings on.

Yes its probably an unpopular opinion, but its not like its someones last meal, we’re talking about a company policy that really has no place in our current social safety outlook.

Having in the past required people to help build houses periodically for families that dont have homes 4 days a year taught me alot about human nature. Stop expecting everyone to be shine like a rockstar. Hope for it YES…but expecting if of them pisses them off.

I write rants like this occasionally under the tag “No More Stupid” if you want more. Dont hold your breath though I dont post often 😉

Be amazing to one another.

-T


Tags:

Aug192017August 19, 2017August 19, 20170Commentby Tony Hunt

Why we need to let go of the hate.

Posted in Randomosity...
tonytow tony hunt gets angsty

Some things just absolutely tick me off.

For reasons that don’t matter here, my usual stance is that I am an equal opportunity hater to all political parties, lately we have relied on politics to clarify events, rather than vice versa. This sounds really antithetical considering the title of this post, right?

Here is why. We need No More Stupid. We need to think, and be better.

I think we’ve stopped holding ourselves accountable for the results of what we say and why we say it, and more often say what we want without regard to consequence, rather than ensuring what exits our mouths is at least more appealing than fingernails on a chalkboard. This would not be so bad, but this candor is now taken to the streets, because protesting is legal (well it is supposed to be legal anyway.) Protesting is great for making an issue more known, but as last week’s events show…it is now an opportunity to foster fear rather than to enlighten the masses.

All that said, I firmly believe everyone has a right to have confidence, faith, or lack thereof in anyone or anything they please…. until their sentiment presents a danger to or otherwise interrupts others’ access to those same freedoms. Period. This means that if you don’t like someone that is your prerogative, as long as you aren’t running them over with your car, laying in front of their car on a highway, shooting at them, talking down to them, deliberately provoking them, and/or otherwise being a complete asshole to them. At that point, I stop allowing you to affect my life and my loved ones. Period. It is amazing how many good friends stick around when I have these rules, but it’s also pretty sad to see where other convictions are so narrow in scope that they feel it is necessary to provoke others that don’t share a disposition.

Sometimes also it is a harsh disappointment when it is indifference that is the motivator, because indifference is social/moral/ethical cowardice, but I think that will be the topic of another post.

Lately I am seeing some people get violent over racism. I have to admit there is a kneejerk reaction to kick a person in the face upon hearing that they seriously somehow think that any demographic of humans is inherently less deserving of freedom, happiness, respect, and love than any other. But that inclination never stays long, and the urge to high-five them in the face (with a chair maybe) easily turns into a smile and as long as they are not getting in the way of others freedoms, peace be until them. Unfortunately, how things work for me is not happening for many many others, and now far too many people are posturing themselves to promote violence rather than rise above and inform and educate.

I’ll be honest, I don’t really care about statues. Being practical, war monuments will always piss people off. Always. We protect a lot of sick shit in the name of preserving history, but it’s not unilateral and not all offensive to the entire world. I care that the American people are letting themselves be the monster we all hate by fostering hate to fuel the importance of their agenda. Instigating violence

I think it is best stated that in fighting to clarify what is at best a turbulent national identity, we all strive not to redefine our history, and thus doom ourselves to forgetting very important and hard-won lessons in the many wrong choices we have made. Let’s not doom ourselves to repeating histories mistakes by omitting it. So yeah, do whatever with statues. But don’t cry ignorance to historical precedence when people stop having any historical clarity because we’ve sanitized the shit out of our culture in the effort to keep a sensitive subject unspoken and without reminder.


Tags:

Dec032015December 3, 2015June 7, 20166Commentsby Tony Hunt

Ambivalence and Experience

Posted in Randomosity...

I feel more and more ambivalent about opinions in Facebook – well actually almost all social media – because of this specific misconception:

“Having equal rights does not mean having equal talents, equal abilities, or equal knowledge. It assuredly does not mean that ‘everyone’s opinion about anything is as good as anyone else’s.’ And yet, this is now enshrined as the credo of a fair number of people despite being obvious nonsense.”
–Tom Nichols (The Death of Expertise)

There are a lot of things wrong in this world, among the worst is the voice that carries and and presents inexperienced, uneducated, uninformed, and/or misinformed opinion as fact. Not only does it saturate social media, but it has begun rearing its ugly head in the workplace…where the more experienced and/or knowledgeable voice is drowned in the sea of people basing their comments, opinions, and knowledge on 5 minutes of internet searches.

This is what unlimited access to information has become: The ability to rely on unvetted conclusions and winging it when the shit doesn’t work. You have only to read the first few posts in your facebook feed to get an example. People have neither the ambition nor need to invest themselves in an issue, ergo they rely on the scope of their internet searches. This is awesome is your looking for solid ways to get the stain out of a favorite shirt…but hardly the evidence necessary to substantiate a decision in the hiring process or voting…yet we’re doing this every $#%#ing1 day.The really sad part is we’re all guilty of it. It’s almost impossible to avoid ingesting some party’s rhetoric or agenda while checking out your friends awesome baby pictures. A few days into it and you now, without having researched or read any documentation, proof, or report, exactly how many people carry a gun, got killed last year by guns, and most importantly, how important people feet it is to contribute rhetoric on the color of a !@#$ing coffee cup.

This is who we are now: a great big society chuck full of people too preoccupied with themselves to invest in knowing what the !@#$ they are talking about. Ugh.

-T

Show 1 footnote

  1. Yes, I am actually putting an effort into keeping the language *somewhat* civil. 😉 ↩

Tags:

1 2 3 … 5

  • Funny Shit Friends Say:

    Patience is temporary. Indifference is forever.

    — Paul Woodard

  • Tagged Stuff

    Tony's Music No More Stupid Amtgard Stupid Rants google tonytown Randomosity... freedom Dancing with Death... Tony Hunt business Youtube blog @Tony_Hunt Prose vacation Work twitter Everyone TED government Hell Tony Geek education sheeple tony is a dork tonytown.com Being Libra...

  • Recent Posts

  • Old Rants