Interesting Links for 02-02-2024

[andrewducker]

1. Wherein Book Aziraphale and TV Aziraphale have a chat. (I still wish the TV series had been more like the book, but I know I'm in the minority there)

(tags:TV books neilgaiman writing fanfic comic )

2. What are Edinburgh's bold new plans for congestion?

(tags:edinburgh transport )

3. How to do things if you're not that smart and don't have any talent

(tags:success advice )

Comments

[greenwoodside]

On a gut level, I think that embracing an identity as an office drudge/a drone/a talentless hack is unhealthy and damaging to the person that does it. People get a large part of their social status and self-worth from their job. In my case, I spend most of my 'best' energy there -- the morning and afternoon energy to work and get things done and be productive. And doing that while saying to yourself 'well, I don't have any meaningful abilities so I'll do all the boring jobs for the Better People so I can go on existing' can ultimately lead to a situation where you don't want to go on existing all that much.

Objectively, I recognise that people are innately unequal in their abilities. I went out with a physicist with a near eidetic memory. Some people have perfect pitch and beautiful singing voices. Others have bodies that allow them to become top athletes. I learn a language as a hobby, but I know I'll never reach a native speaker's level of proficiency because I long ago aged out of being able to do that.

And even outside of innate talent, of course, there are people who've had extensive training in field x or immersion in specialism y, meaning that they're competent to do certain jobs and others aren't.

I suppose if I were to try and argue against self-labelled dronery in professional terms, rather than emotional ones, I'd say that it stunts professional development and can harm organisational outcomes. Imagine someone doing a low-paid, routine job noticing things in the course of their work that it could be useful to their employer to know. But making pertinent observataions is above their pay grade; they've decided that they're the Z Team, and so don't believe what they think has any value. And the higher status people in the organisation have sensed that they view themselves as a robot stand-in, and have started treating them that way, and don't ask. So the chance of the possible benefit or avoided harm is lost, because the information has fallen down a black hole of absent self-esteem and fixed hierarchies.