Cynicism and Success

My manager is a moe-ron. Why else would someone agree to be a human fire hydrant every single day? His manager, the crew, staff and customers circle the hydrant, all jockeying for a clear shot.

The people who I work with are moe-rons. They punch in, punch their minds out and hang on by their fingernails to the day's end. They could care less about the company and customers. They care even less about themselves. Professional development? Huh, that's about a pro ball player going from the minors to the bigs. It has nothing to do with them.

The people who own this company are moe-rons. There's no connection between them and their employees. Reality has left the house. Customers? Oh yeah, they buy our stuff. The owners treat them like farm animals - give em some feed and box up the milk and eggs.

This guy sure has a distorted point of view, doesn't he? A cynical sot, isn't he. Sure not like us, is he?

He was me. He was so tired of the passion-less, focused-less, caring-less business world around him that he sank to cynicism. In the beginning he thought Dilbert was for losers. In the end he worshiped Dilbert. The system and the drones who ran it and those who trudged through it wore him down. His inability to escape from it brought illness to his body.

There were people who were not cynical. Either their body and minds were made of Kevlar - negativity and apathy fell harmlessly at their feet or they were surrounded by passionate, focused and caring people who were driven to improve. Seems as if these were the folks who wrote the books telling him how he could be successful.

One day, as his beaten body and mind turned another page in another magazine in search of another way, he came upon an article that penetrated a seam in his Kevlar. He suspects that his guard was down. Instead of reading one of his main stay business magazines, he happened to be reading Men's Health that day. The article's main character was a movie star. He read the article like eating peas. Open mouth, hold nose, swallow, gulp liquid...and hope that was enough for Mom. Movies stars? Come on!

Dogbert, Catbert, Dilbert and he could hardly wait to write a snarky blog post. Life doesn't workout this way. Pie in the blue sky Mr. Magazine writer. Pen strokes about Derek Jeter however, and the mindset that he takes to the plate in clutch situations opened his mind. Derek believes in himself. But then his old friend Cynicism elbowed all others from his mind: of course Derek Jeter believes in himself. You would too if you were a world class athlete. But then he thought: Holmes (this is how davo refers to himself when writing for and to himself), Holmes, there's gotta be at least one, positive thing that you believe about yourself. Forget about the boss, the coworkers and the customers. It's just you and me. What do you think you can do fairly well?

Mr. Blue Sky goes on to say that of all the successful people he has interviewed, none have been cynical. Holmes begins to slip: of course they weren't cynical, they were successful. Visions of farm animals danced about - what came first? The chicken or the egg?

Forget the famous people Holmes. Focus on the dude in the mirror. What one thing does this cat do fairly well? Get a toe hold on it and don't let go. Believe in it.

Dilbert eh? It appears that dave has made some progress today. Give up Dilbert though, to unchannel his inner cynical self? Too many years, too many knuckleheads, too much healing to go. Not yet.

Go here to read Mike Zimmerman's most excellent article: The Hazards of Cynicism

Thanks to Scott Adams for the Dilbert strip. Go to Scott's site to keep your fix in tact.

Comments

[Joanna Paterson]

A toe hold is enough :-)

Brave and honest stuff you're sharing here... something you do so well

Hope things are okay

Joanna

[dave]

Hi Joanna, thanks for your kind words!