Smart is not enough

I just finished reading a very good article in the New Yorker about Enron. Well, it's ostensibly about Enron, what it's actually about is the fallacy that hiring lots of smart people and letting them do what they think is the right thing is a good way to run a business.

Now, I'm pretty smart myself, and I've worked and chatted to a fair number of smart people. And I can certainly see why you'd want a fair number of smart people to work at your company. But smart people tend to be arrogant, have different interests to the majority of the population and believe that the world is set up for their enjoyment. These are not factors that tend to lead to profit, or at least not on purpouse. I don't like being managed any more than the next person, but the fact is that without managers your average smart person would be off doing personal projects the whole time, playing with software and designing better mousetraps.

I thought I had quite a lot to say on this one, but on reflection it's so incredibly obvious that this is not the way to run a company that I just can't think of any way of hammering it home any harder. Read the article, and slap your forehead in disbelief at the people who thought it was a good idea.

Good Friends

This was inspired by Adam saying:
Anyway, I was thinking about this, as Ilistened to the song again, and I wondered if anyone had ever even put faith in me. I'm starting to become more and more worried that I'm hollow. I don't seem to have strong emotional ties with anyone, and no one seems to have any strong emotional ties to me. I know I have good friends in Scotland.... but... I think I'm just being paranoid....

Oh, I'm moving to Edinburgh, by the way. At the end of July. It all feels rather sudden to me, but at the same time it feels right, like an idea whose time has come, or (in some ways) like an idea whose time is overdue. More on that some other time.

The whole Good Friends thing has been going through my head (on a very occasional basis) for a while now. I've definitely got several people in Stirling that I like a lot, and whose company I enjoy. People who I will definitely miss when I'm mostly in Edinburgh. But I don't have the same pseudo-tribal feeling that I had a few years back - the feeling that I belonged with these people and fitted in.

Part of it is the fact that I don't spend as much time with people as I used to - the combination of girlfriend, job, less gaming and being up a hill means that I see some people on a very erratic basis. Part of it was the way that things went last year, when things fractured badly and it felt like everyone retreated a couple of steps. Part of it is definitely changes in me, where (whether it's tiredness, age or just changes in interest) I just don't feel the same way I used to about all sorts of things. I'm not convinced that the changes are permanent in any way (or that all of the bits of the changes are permanent, anyway, you can't go back to where you came from, yadda, yadda, yadda), but something's definitely different for me.

I definitely have strong emotional ties to a few people, but they're very much tied to events I went through with them. The further away I get from those events, the less I have in common with the me who went through them and the more the connections fade. I definitely feel that you need to do things with people in order to have a strong connection, and the more emotional those things are, the stronger the connection. Playing computer games doesn't engender much of a connection, roleplaying gives a better one because I invest emotional energy in it, going out and having real experiences is a step further and supporting/being supported through a crisis has given me the strongest connections so far.

I originally stayed in Stirling because this is where my friends were. Having many friends was a new experience for me, one I was desperate not to give up. I've learnt a lot living here, had some fantastic times and some fucking awful ones. In many ways I used to be terrified by the thought of moving anywhere else, of having to start from scratch and build those friends again. Now it feels almost like a chance to start over and see what happens; like shedding a skin - painful in some ways, but freeing in others.

I'm engaging in hyperbole, of course - I'm moving less than 40 miles - an hour on the train, less by car. I've got at least 4 friends living in Edinburgh, as well as a brother and his wife. It's a small step, but one that seemed so unlikely for so long that in some ways I can't believe that I'm doing it. I feel like if I look back I won't be able to leave; I have too much comfort here, it's definitely the easy option, but right now I don't think I want that.

It's night and there are so many stars up there. Gradually the cruiser gathers speed; the nose lifts as I prepare to tear free of Moab's gravity. It feels like a web, straining against me, growing taut, finally snapping strand by strand. And them I'm out. Just out.
- Halo Jones Book 3, Alan Moore