CSotD: Choices about choices
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The first choice today is from Retail, and is about Rules and Procedures.
This story arc has been going on for a little while, but the strip's overall flow is such that it's not always easy to point out when to tell people to jump in. The overarching development that brought this on is that Marla's assistant manager quit and she has been stuck with a stickler.
After his inauspicious introduction to the staff, Marla challenged him to work a shift and hit corporate goals without having everything collapse around him. It's as good a place as any to go and catch up.
My father and grandfather each preached the gospel of looking behind the scenes before making decisions. They also both observed, with some wonder, how often common sense is hailed as extraordinary behavior in a world where sense is apparently uncommon.
To understand my grandfather, you simply have to be familiar with Victor Borge, because he had that same genial twinkle in his eye while he was saying something straight-faced that was really kind of foolish. Maybe it's a Danish thing.
He advised that, rather than taking credit for everything, including things that were actually done by your staff or someone else, you should take credit for nothing, including things you actually did yourself
Given how people's minds work, he explained, once they find that, in fact, you deserve credit for some of it, they'll assume you deserve credit for all of it, including things you had nothing to do with.
I have no idea the extent to which he actually put this theory into practice, but I have no trouble believing he brushed off praise, simply as a matter of his own personality, if not an actual policy.
Which may prove his point.
I also mentioned recently that my father, upon becoming labor negotiator for a major school board, went down and toured the bus garage, thereby becoming the first administrator to ever cross the threshhold there. This shouldn't be praise for my father, and he didn't take it as praise.
He was appalled to be first, as well he might be.
I tell the story in part because I'm proud of my old man, but also because I'm appalled that such fact-finding isn't automatic. There are three generations, then, of my family, slack-jawed in wonder over what a minimal effort it takes to be extraordinary.
I'm not a Patriots fan, but I think they've boiled down the complex process of becoming a champion to its essentials.
Wednesday with Maori
Sarah Laing posted a link to this graphic historical piece about New Zealand history, something I know a tiny bit about only because I used to collect the works of Victorian boys' novelist G.A. Henty, one of whose historical novels was "Maori and Settler."
I'd be surprised if Henty's take on things were anywhere near as inclusive as this, done by Pencil Sword author/artist Toby Morris, and the whole thing is worth a look, not so much to inform you on the topic of kiwi history but because of the reflections it prompts on history in general.
And those reflections matter: I am curious enough to care about what are, from this side of the Equator, historical oddities, but I do require they not be delivered in the form of what I call "graphic lectures."
"Graphic Lectures" are what happens when someone mistakenly believes that drawing pictures makes up for not knowing how to tell a story, and the dismal result– not just in history but in other potentially interesting non-fiction areas as well — is a comic in which half the word-balloons could just read "Bueller? Bueller?"
By happy contrast, Morris's piece on the war was interesting enough that I poked around on a few of the other links at his author page and found some even more interesting stuff and then I clicked on related links and fell down the rabbit hole entirely.
Specifically for instance, this comic on love and commitment and such not only delighted me, but led to my clicking on the "related stories" on the side, since it had been part of a series on Choices and, if you have any other commitments today, DO NOT click on that link.
In fact, you should avoid the entire website.
However, I've bookmarked Morris's page and I suspect you'll be seeing more of his work regardless.
Registration marks
David Horsey decries the way California voter registration has misled people into registering as members of the American Independent Party when they meant to register as independents.
It's kind of funny to begin with, since the AIP is a rightwing cuckoobird party that, as his comic suggests, wouldn't have many members if people weren't signing up with them by accident.
And it's ironic or relevant or something, since the party was started on behalf of George Wallace, back the last time we made a serious attempt to elect a devisive hatemonger to the presidency.
And it's kind of not-funny because people who wrongly believe that they are registered as independents will find out differently when they show up at the primary.
And I'm sympathetic because it's too bad when people make a simple mistake.
And I'm kind of not-sympathetic based on what, in this article on the subject, the LA Times showed as the terribly confusing portion of the form.
I'm not sure what I would do, were I charged with making this more plain.
Asking people if they want to register with a political party, then offering them a choice of "Yes" and "No" in different colored boxes seems pretty straightforward.
If the form were on-line, if they checked "yes," they could be shown a page of parties from which to choose, and, if they checked "no," they'd be thanked and would exit.
But that would put voter registration at the mercy of Diebolt.
Maybe we should just skip registration entirely and put the voting booths in the center of a maze.
Exercise your francheese
Mike Peterson has posted his "Comic Strip of the Day" column every day since 2010. His opinions are his own, but we welcome comments either agreeing or in opposition.
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