One of the most frequent post-pandemic conversations I'm having with younger people is over the choices and dilemmas they face in their career choices and jobs.
After such a long stretch working from home, many of them seem restless and ready to make a change. It's a natural thing; I'm sure many people are going through similar transitions.
A subtle feature of these conversations is the person asking my advice usually seems to already know the answer they want to hear.
In that way, I'm less of a sounding board than a mirror.
In the past, when I was still employed myself, I would have focused on providing the most practical advice possible. You know --- money, location, prestige, future opportunity for growth. Those kinds of things.
And I can still do that. But from the vantage of being retired and older and done with the pandemic's restrictions myself, I'm more likely to ask what their dreams are.
This seems like a moment everyone should be pursuing their dreams.
***
So somehow I've migrated into the business of giving career advice, albeit unpaid, which at least guarantees people will get their money's worth. But what I won't do is encourage people to try and get more power, a fancier title, or greater responsibility over the lives of others.
They'll do that on their own without my help. And of course those who become the worst bosses never ask for advice.
A long career taught me that assuming responsibility over others at work is every bit as risky and dangerous and rewarding and scary and meaningful as becoming a parent.
In both roles, you can either rip away the underbrush in the jungle to clear a path for somebody to achieve their dream or you can crush their hopes like an aluminum can for recycling.
Recycling is a good thing, so you may think that is a very odd image for me to have chosen.
But it isn't. When I sense that an individual would make a bad manager, I want to help recycle them back into the workforce for more seasoning.
Bad managers, like bad parents, crush people's dreams in pursuit of their own ego, power and prestige. They manage others for their own benefit and remain blithely oblivious to the harm they are doing in the process.
I've known plenty of bad managers. Many of them try to come off as nice guys, with good families and a sophisticated sense of humor.
But the truth is that they are dream-crushers.
The great irony of management is the best bosses turn out to be the people who don't think they want to be, and by far the worst managers are those who want to be.
Work is about the collective, not the individual.
But there is another side to this story of bad bosses. Encouraging anyone to pursue utterly unrealistic goals they will never achieve is not a service to them or the rest of us. And there is a sense of entitlement among certain classes of young people accustomed to get whatever they want, perhaps thanks to over-indulgent parents and well-meaning others.
At the end of all of this, you ask, how can any one of us, least of all me, be so presumptuous as to know what is best for somebody else at all?
Well, I don't presume. All I can do is listen, reflect, and share my own experiences.
And then I say, "Pursue your dreams, but never at the cost of harming others. Life is way too short for that."
***
The news:
* A leaked UN report warns 'worst is yet to come' on climate change. -- The draft report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change paints the starkest picture yet of the accelerating danger. (PBS.org)
* Biden Aims to Bolster Police Departments as Homicides Increase -- The president made clear that he intends to approach crime prevention by investing in, rather than defunding, the police as he waded into an urgent national debate over policing. (NYT)
* 'We have deal’: Biden, bipartisan senators on infrastructure (AP)
* Tension grips Michigan as Trump’s attacks on election continue to reverberate (WP)
* Michigan state Senate Republicans who investigated the election for months concluded there was no widespread fraud and urged criminal investigation of those claiming otherwise "for their own ends." The panel's 55-page report dismantles the lies of ex-President Donald Trump and his allies in considerable detail. [AP]
* Trump's fixation on his election defeat and on exacting revenge on those who have crossed him appears to be driving away two of his closest advisers: his daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner. The couple reportedly cringe at Trump's "constant harping on the past and his inability to move on." [CNN]
* Many restaurants in California, faced with a severe shortage of workers, are being forced to cut operating hours or leave tables open. (AP)
* Inside the extraordinary effort to save Trump from covid-19 -- An excerpt from the book “Nightmare Scenario” details how Trump’s illness was far more severe than the White House acknowledged. Advisers thought it would alter his pandemic response. They were wrong. (WP)
* Canadian indigenous group finds 751 unmarked graves at former residential school (Reuters)
* Supporters Rally as Hong Kong Newspaper Prints Final Edition -- People cheered for staff outside the headquarters of Apple Daily on Wednesday. The pro-democracy newspaper said it would be forced to close after the government froze its assets and arrested top editors. (Reuters, AP)
* New polls released Thursday show just how far Republicans were willing to go to support then-President Donald Trump's unprecedented efforts to subvert the 2020 election. The research was conducted by the Democracy Fund, a nonpartisan foundation that studies voter attitudes toward democratic institutions and works to strengthen democracy in the U.S. Their polls found that after the election, a supermajority of Republicans backed Trump's efforts to overturn the results: 86% said his legal challenges were appropriate, 79% said they weren't confident in the national vote tally, and 68% said Trump really won. Another 54% said Trump should never concede, and a plurality said state legislatures should override the popular vote. (CNN)
* Voting reform cannot die. The future of democracy is at stake. (WP)
* Rudy Giuliani is suspended from law practice in N.Y. over false election claims (Reuters, AP)
* As shootings and murders rage out of control, President Joe Biden announced an effort to crack down on illegal guns and pour government money into law enforcement. He's ordering the ATF to yank licenses of dealers who peddle guns illegally (he actually had to tell the regulator to do its job!) and will work with state officials to hold gunmakers accountable for mayhem caused by their weapons. “This is not a time to turn our backs on law enforcement,” Biden said. [HuffPost]
* Microsoft challenges Apple's business model with new Windows 11 operating system (Reuters)
* Pentagon linguist sentenced to 23 years for exposing U.S. sources in Iraq to Hezbollah in rare terrorism espionage case (WP)
* Delta variant puts Africa at risk of third wave (AP)
* Why We Keep Telling Legends of Sea Monsters -- From the biblical Leviathan to the modern Japanese ningen, some of humanity’s favorite stories conjure creatures of the deep. (WSJ)
* Scorching heat breaks records in Europe, Russia (WP)
* 159 people still missing in building collapse that killed at least four, according to Miami-Dade police (CNN)
* More Than Half Of U.S. Buildings Are In Places Prone To Disaster, Study Finds (NPR)
* To stop Republican authoritarianism, subsidize local journalism. (WP)
* Fed officials say employment is down significantly, businesses reluctant to hire (Reuters)
* Ken Burns is an optimist. But he’s very worried about America. (WP)
* NASA’s Perseverance Rover Begins Its Search for Life on Mars (WSJ)
* Pacific Northwest braces for triple-digit temperatures as historic heat wave develops (WP)
* Shortstop Brandon Crawford is a huge reason why the SF Giants (48-26) are in first place in the NL West and not the Dodgers (44-31) or Padres (45-32). He leads all shortstops in Win Probability Added (ahead of Fernando Tatis Jr.), which means he's making a real impact on his team winning games -- and San Francisco has the best record in baseball and is on track for an improbable 105 wins. (MLB.com)
* Infrastructure Talks Come To Halt After Giant Sinkhole Swallows Capitol Building (The Onion)
***
Life’s Too Short (outtake)
To give us a fresh start
But now that you're like WOW
It's all like warm in the heart
Elsa: I'm so glad you like it sis
'Cause this is the real me
You have no idea, how great it feels to be free
Anna: We've been falling out for way to long
So let's forget who's right
Elsa: and forget who's wrong
Both: Okay!
Elsa: Why don't you stay,
There's room for family in my court
Both: Cause life's too short
Anna: To always feel shut out
And unloved by the sister I long to know
Both: Life's too short
Elsa: To never let you celebrate me, the true queen of the ice and snow
***
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