MentorWords

Are American advertising firms dumbing everything down because Americans are lazy thinkers, or are Americans lazy thinkers because we are confronted — no, assaulted — by a constant barrage of stupidity? When we find cultural leaders – thinkers – who respect our intelligence, we demand a great deal of them. And rightfully so.

Most of us do not understand the history of our religions, the social contexts in which our religions were developed, and the ways in which all of the sacred texts have been manipulated by various kings, religious leaders, emperors, and tribal chieftans to support their personal political agendas. We understand the religious history that was taught to us by our parents, their parents, and their parents’ parents, and we accept this verbal history as the truth.

The young lady entered the conference room at the behest of the VP of Product Development. She presented herself well, from her perfect business suit to her direct communication style. As the VP launched into a description of the new product – an application designed to serve industrial toxicology analysts – the impressive young lady [...]

I have been acutely aware as my peers, all of us teenagers roughly a quarter of a century ago, begin to judge teenagers for their clothing, their speech habits, and their music. I don’t have the best memory, but I sure do remember my dad bemoaning my wardrobe, my parents telling me to turn down my music and what-was-I-listening-to-anyway, and being constantly corrected and chided for using teen slang. As an adult I have had very entertaining conversations with my parents about how their own parents were convinced that they (my parents) represented the end of society as they (my grandparents) knew it. And while we didn’t turn out so bad, I have a sinking feeling every time I see an adult behave poorly in public, act disrespectfully to other adults in front of their children, and show up regularly on the evening news as perpetrators of a broad range of crimes. If we are going to ask “what is the world coming to,” shouldn’t we be asking it of ourselves?

How often I have observed this to be true at work. People would get into all kinds of drama that caused frustration and sadness to everyone involved, and when you tried to help them mediate it – or just stop it! – they resisted the help. It would become clear that the drama made them happy.

I changed a car battery for the first time today. For me this was a cause for celebration, though you may be wondering why a 43-year-old woman has never changed a car battery before. I can’t get the alternator tested before tomorrow, because I don’t have a voltmeter, but if the alternator is bad I’ve [...]

Nearly a year ago I logged on to linkedin.com and set up a profile. I was curious about it because a reviewer in some magazine, Time maybe, referred to it as “Facebook for grownups.” Anyway, I set up a profile, searched around a bit, and decided that not much was going on. About two weeks ago [...]

Dale Dauten’s most recent column should be required business reading. Of course, that’s sort of a teasing thing to say, because I can’t find an electronic link to it anywhere. The title is “Let Us All Praise the Quirky, Weird Ones,” and it starts with a quote by William James that says “A great many people think [...]

The folks who worked in the call center were in an uproar.  Apparently they heard that a new person was hired at a wage comparable to what the more tenured agents earned, and they felt that was unfair.  They brought it up in a department meeting, asking why new people weren’t brought in at the starting [...]

Since the majority of us are either just finishing or just beginning our Sabbath, or possibly using some part of the weekend for the restoration that a bit of meditation can bring, I thought it might be a good time to do a whirlwind ethics review.  You say it’s been a while since you took a [...]