Intractable Problems

Welcome To Starfleet Academy

Comment from Stu about the problem with commuting to the local community college got me to thinking about similar problems, where you are darned if you do, and darned if you don't. (You can tell I am feeling a little mellow today.) There is the oft retold tale of Captain Kirk (Star Trek) back when he was in Starfleet Academy. The instructors had set up a simulation for which there was no possible solution. The intent was see how the students held up when faced with disaster. Kirk hacked into the simulator and reprogrammed it so it was possible to come out on top.

Then there was a story I heard from a guy who used to work for a Big 8 accounting firm. On one hand they had the president of the company telling them they should not be working more than 40 hours a week. On the other, he had a supervisor telling him to bill as many hours as possible. 70 or 80 hours a week is what he expected. This guy compromised and worked 50 to 60 and that seemed to satisfy both bosses. I thought the accounting firm was really screwed up if they couldn't get their story straight. It would be one thing if they were engaging in some kind of psychological harassment to whip their troops into line, but I doubt it. They were probably just like many overachievers: flaming volcanoes of spew. Oops, not quite so mellow now.

So, if we lived in conspiracy land, we could imagine that the powers that run PCC have deliberately set up this parking problem to see how the students respond to it. You know, I like conspiracy theories as much as the next guy, but I don't buy this one. I think we just have a bunch of bureaucrats trying to force us into a model that might have worked 50 years ago, but which is now obsolete and counter-productive.

Update January 2017 replaced missing picture.