The rat race or headless chicken?

Ever wondered why it's called the rat race? I've never had the inclination to look this up in the venerable encyclopaedia of encyclopaedias. I've never 'wikied' it. Until now. And boy, did it let me down. The first 5 seconds of scanning the Google results page did not yield a result that seemed to make sense. Then I found this at Wapedia and it seemed to make know what it was talking about.

Wapedia seems to think the corporate game of keeping that promotion or progression oh-so-elusive causes a rat race. I'm sure the term progression was the love child of Human Resources/Human Capital honchos who sat up at night wondering what jargon they could come up with to make this process any more palatable. I digress, as usual.

Apparently, rats run around in tunnels, pretty much in circles and end up going nowhere. I'll save my comments on what I think of the scientists who did the 'study' on rats running around in circles in tunnels ending up going nowhere for another post. I suppose, it turns out some amused CEO of a company saw the way his executives were keeping themselves on edge and running around purposefully - and knew they were going nowhere, just because he was the boss. He decided to call it a rat race.

I've always equated the race for progression to the final dance of a headless chicken. For one, its frenzied, its urgent and most importantly, the poor chicken probably thinks it can have its head back when it gets to where it's going (how it can think without it's head, I am not too sure). However, a rat race sounds more positive. The word race evokes thoughts of a competition, with an outcome and a winner. However, it does not reflect reality, for in a race, you cannot legally influence the outcome with contacts, making it look like you're running the fastest and sucking up to the guy who holds the timer. You do it by winning the race fair and square.

My gut feeling leans toward headless chicken, quite simply because, there is a mad scramble to get to the next level, often without a clue on direction, means or methods. The chicken that does make it to the next level fastest is the one that has taken the most direct route, by lying still and letting the butcher have his way. The only issue is that the poor little chicken doesn't know that the next level is a boiling pot of oil. Catch my drift? The next level is no better; in fact it is only worse.

Why am I having this long winded whinge? Simply because I am a headless chicken too. All my life, I have looked at the next level and thought life would get easier. Such frivolous thoughts were fuelled by not-so-innocent bystanders who have confirmed just that. When I let the rope slack in 12th grade, I was goaded on with someone saying the hard work now will lead to a life of relaxation at graduation for I will have that extra edge, in CA, the constant thought that accompanied me in all those sleepless nights was that this struggle will lead to a plum job and life of relaxation. I am now sure that 5 years and 3 promotions down the line, life will be cool once I make it to the next level. Pucka puckk puckk...

Note to self: quit smoking

Right upto a decade ago, governments in general and tobacco companies in particular vehemently denied any links between smoking and what's that called, cancer of the dungs or bungs or, ah, its lungs. They cited several very competitive studies involving, let's say, a 1000 people. If less than 10% of the population studied did NOT get lung cancer from smoking, the study concluded that there was insufficient evidence to support a link between lung cancer and smoking. So you could smoke wherever you wanted and the tobacco companies were happy with all the revenue, government was happy with all the additional tax revenue, celebrities were happy with all the endorsement revenue and the lousy lout who paid for all this was happy thinking it was cool to do so. All was fine and dandy. The sun shined and birds chirped and all that.

Around a decade ago, a particularly chirpy lad sat up and said, hang on, if less than 10% of the population did NOT contract a disease of some form or the other, it means 90% did. To add insult to injury for the tobacco companies, the lad found people around smokers, were more badly affected. That's not a good thing. This lad being well connected, lobbied and lobbied hard. Suddenly, the fashionable thing to do in government circles was to ban smoking in public places. 

Considering I'm not a smoker, and detest any form of smoke, I'm all for banning smoking in public places. However, like all good things, there was a catch. Anything relating to banning is required, by law, to be brought about by the government. Paragraph 1 above clearly demonstrates that the government is not very good at defining things. True to their reputation, they messed up on the definition of public places. They included almost every place but the kitchen sink within their definition of public places, making smokers an exiled species, who were forced to go outside every time the urge to light up got the better of them. It was no longer fashionable and they became the equivalent of social outcasts. In all their wisdom, the government forgot to include the most of public of public places, sidewalks and pavements.

This blasted oversight has created more smokers than before. Thanks to this loophole, non-smoking walkers were left with two choices. They could walk in a smog of carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, methane, nicotine, acetone, acetylene, formaldehyde, propane, hydrogen cyanide, toluene, and many others or they could walk in a smog of carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, nitrogen monoxide and particulates. Each option is less appealing than the other. However, most pedestrians choose the slow route to hell simply because they prefer not getting run over. 

It's extremely annoying when one is walking along the pavement, minding your own business and pottering about and you're stuck behind a block-head with a death stick, who is also, incidentally, pottering about. One then speeds up and overtakes said block-head, only to get stuck behind death stick toting block-head in front of the one one just overtook. The result is that one is always smoking if one is walking. 

In light of the above, I can do one of two things, I can quit walking or I can quit smoking. I have decided to do the latter, but in order to do that, I need help in raising money to do so. I will be gratefully accepting any monetary assistance from philanthropists who would be willing to help a poor bean counter buy a gas mask. Thank you.

Buzz kill(ed)

The noodle's been stretched thin, real thin. Faced with one deadline after the other, its been disentangled and laid out in a straight line. I've read somewhere that the noodle is at its best when its all tangled and messy. Combined with the fact that men in general are accused of being incapable of multi-tasking, I must admit that I'm guilty of not being able to handle more than 4 tasks at a time. That completes my leave letter explaining my absence from the blogging world over the last month.

With most of the storm now past me, I can say with a reasonable amount of confidence that said noodle is slowing getting knotted and messy again, so I'm going to take a crack at some posts I've been wanting to post for the past month, but haven't gotten around to doing so (provided I can remember what they were!)...