The Bullshit Factor

Another 1-to-1 chart:

The legend on the right hand side of the chart labels the red line as "Rate of Pay", and the blue line as "Actual Work Performed".

I have recently come to the conclusion that your pay grade is directly proportional to the amount of bullshit you have to put up with in your job. (Yes, I know, I am a slow learner.) The lower your pay grade, the less BS you have to put up with. Yes, I know when you are at the bottom of the heap, the amount of BS may seem like a lot, but it only gets worse as your pay goes up. The problem is that dealing with things is relatively simple, and things do not actually pay you. People pay you, and people are complicated and difficult.

I saw a show on PBS that followed some students through medical school. One of the students was a guy who was kind of late coming to the medicine. He had had a number of jobs before he decided to become a doctor. While he was in school he was a member of a group of students that would have a weekly meeting to discuss various things that had come up during the week. From his point of view, the hardest thing for him to learn was how to deal with statements from other students that he flat out knew to be wrong. His first instinct was to call them idiots, but he learned that the appropriate response was to say something along the lines of "that's an interesting idea".

It's all very well to do the actual work, but someone has to decide what work is to be done, and that cannot be done in a vacuum, you have to talk to other people to find out what they want and/or need, and most importantly, what they are actually willing to pay for. And that can be a time consuming and onerous process, and it does not qualify as actual work, because no goods are actually produced.

Update January 2017 replaced missing image.

Hot Button

Another 1-to-1 correlation.

California Bob writes:

An article about how people overestimate their self-control when in a satiated, 'cold state' (opposite of the "gripped by impulse" state).

... raises some interesting questions. We're always critiquing other people, "why don't they just; why can't they just...." Turns out our advice to ourselves isn't even constant from one moment to the next, for example, when we are a buoyant optimist vs. a depressed realist.

If we can't relate to our own selves from situation to situation, how can we hope to relate to others?

' ...In addition, he added, the study results suggest people often can't predict how they will react in a given situation.

"It's not just about eating and addiction, but the 'cold self' has a really hard time understanding what you're capable of, for example, in a moment of despair, in a moment of rage," Nordgren said. '

Update January 2017 replaced missing image and dead link, fixed gif.

Endurance versus Enthusiasm

Newborns are full of enthusiasm, but they have no endurance. They wake up long enough to eat (drink) and then they fall asleep. As people age they start to lose some of that enthusiasm, but they are able to put up with more delay, problems, difficulties, etc. Eventually as you get older you lose all your enthusiasm. At that point all you can do is endure. If you have lost all of your zest for living, if you cannot muster any enthusiasm for anything, you may as well turn out the lights.

I heard (read?) a story one time about some guys on a ship that sank out from under them. I think it was in the North Atlantic, but it could have been farther South. The Northern Atlantic is too cold for anyone to survive very long in the water (see "Titanic"). It may have been during WWII, but then again, maybe not. Does not really matter to the story. Anyway, these guys were on a ship, the ship sinks, they don't have any lifeboats, so they are in the water just trying to stay afloat. They had gotten a message off before they went down, so another ship might be coming to their rescue. Might be. Might take a while. So there they are a dozen or twenty guys floating in the water, waiting. They are there for a while. Hours pass. People start dropping off, they just give up, or get worn out, can't stay afloat any longer, slip beneath the waves and drown. Hours pass. More people disappear. Eventually after some infinitely long period of time a ship appears and pulls the survivors from the sea. The ones who are left are the old guys. All the young guys gave up and drowned.

That's my story about enthusiasm and endurance.

Then there was a comment made by Lucky Jack Aubrey (from Patrick O'Brian's series of sea stories) disparaging enthusiasms in general. He was referring what we now call fads. I looked for the quote, but I could not find it.

Update January 2017 replaced missing image.

Financial Graphs

Note to Bob:

Since things are looking so grim all around (financially speaking) I thought I ought to take a look at the statement that came in the mail this week. The only part that held any interest for me was the graph of "Sources of Portfolio Growth". At first glance it looked very dire: the value appears to have fallen to near zero. A closer examination reveals that is not in fact the case, it is just the partial scale along the left hand edge that makes it look that way. Using a partial scale makes the graph look really good when things are booming, but on the down side it makes things look absolutely horrible, when in fact there are just awful.

This has been one of my complaints about financial reporting for years. I understand why it is done, and I can understand it when newspapers do it. But I expect better from my broker. I know you guys don't personally prepare the graphs, but you might put a bug in the ear of whoever makes these kind of decisions. And give him (or her) a sharp tug on their ear lobe when you do it.

Update December 2016 replaced missing image.

Dope & Whores

I saw this on Roberta X's blog a while back, and it's still the best thing I've seen in a while.