Friday, July 15, 2005
Maintaining the natural order
Nothing gets up my goat more than smart-arse kids! There was a time when the little blighters were seen and not heard. When their elders would issue a rumbling growl, and the kiddies would scurry off to their bedroom, knowing that if there was any uppittyness then there would be trouble in River City.
Those were also the days when seniority counted. When if you worked in some organisation, or the government, the only way you’d ever get a promotion was when some old fogey who was higher up the hierarchy croaked. It might have been a stultifying arrangement sure, I grant that. But it was nice and predictable. The only thing you needed to concentrate on if you wanted to be a success was to outlive everyone else.
In those days you could derive comfort from the knowledge that there was a progression. A simple linear relationship between age and respect, but no more dear reader. Those days are gone.
In the latest horror story of tweenie arrogance. A ten year old Pakastani girl Arfa Karim Randhawa, has shirt-fronted the worlds richest man, 50 year old Mr. Bill Gates.
The grasping little tot, has apparently received her Microsoft Certification, and has fronted up at Mr. Gates office and demanded that he give her a job.
Moral blackmail is what it is. It takes a strong character, when some doe-eyed child asks if you’ll kick the footy with them, to say “bugger off”, so you can imagine the pressure that Mr. Gates must be under, being forced to confront this diminutive upstart, with the press hovering, microphones at the ready, just waiting for him to slip up.
That’s the good thing about age though, and Mr. Gates clearly kept his cool. Smiled indulgently at the precocious little pumpkin, and said he’d "certainly look into it", and was "most enlightened by the meeting". It’s later on of course that he gets even. A little bit of white-anting here, some sudden budget cuts there, and balance is eventually restored.
It’s a hard climb up that greasy pole, and the purpose of those underneath is to provide you with enough purchase so that you can safely take on that useless old bugger above. This is the way of the world folks. Respect it, and it’ll look after you.
via JWalk
Note: 3000 character limit on comments Those were also the days when seniority counted. When if you worked in some organisation, or the government, the only way you’d ever get a promotion was when some old fogey who was higher up the hierarchy croaked. It might have been a stultifying arrangement sure, I grant that. But it was nice and predictable. The only thing you needed to concentrate on if you wanted to be a success was to outlive everyone else.
In those days you could derive comfort from the knowledge that there was a progression. A simple linear relationship between age and respect, but no more dear reader. Those days are gone.
In the latest horror story of tweenie arrogance. A ten year old Pakastani girl Arfa Karim Randhawa, has shirt-fronted the worlds richest man, 50 year old Mr. Bill Gates.
The grasping little tot, has apparently received her Microsoft Certification, and has fronted up at Mr. Gates office and demanded that he give her a job.
Moral blackmail is what it is. It takes a strong character, when some doe-eyed child asks if you’ll kick the footy with them, to say “bugger off”, so you can imagine the pressure that Mr. Gates must be under, being forced to confront this diminutive upstart, with the press hovering, microphones at the ready, just waiting for him to slip up.
That’s the good thing about age though, and Mr. Gates clearly kept his cool. Smiled indulgently at the precocious little pumpkin, and said he’d "certainly look into it", and was "most enlightened by the meeting". It’s later on of course that he gets even. A little bit of white-anting here, some sudden budget cuts there, and balance is eventually restored.
It’s a hard climb up that greasy pole, and the purpose of those underneath is to provide you with enough purchase so that you can safely take on that useless old bugger above. This is the way of the world folks. Respect it, and it’ll look after you.
via JWalk
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