I have no doubt that there is some guy ironing the words “I survived the Great Northeastern Blackout of 2003” on t-shirts as I write this and that they are already available on some street corner in New York City for $32.50. Observing the blackout from afar, I came to wonder if our economy has simply outgrown our ability to deal with it. We suspected just before January 1, 2000 that the power grid was not up to a major challenge and now we know that is true. However, the power grid is not the only problem. There are several other examples. One that easily comes to mind is the proliferation of interactive voice response (IVR) systems answering telephone calls to businesses everywhere. Business gleefully dropped human operators for these systems, but no computer can handle every possible permutation of question that a customer can have. So, almost everyone has a funny or not-so-funny IVR tale to tell where none of the choices offered by the system matched their need, and they were unable to get to a person after trying every possible permutation of button pressing.

Then, there is the example of my mom, homemaking engineer promoted to general contractor. Now that my mom and dad are getting older, they require additional help around the house with cleaning and repairs. So, my mom hires people to help. Her biggest frustration is that the contractors rarely call back or, if they do call back and make an appointment, they rarely show up. She has gone through dozens of recommended cleaning services, painters, and repairmen. It can take her months to get a project under way, and the work is often badly done and has to be redone requiring additional telephone calls and waiting. We guess that these contractors intend to do business, show up for appointments, and do at least an adequate job, but then something happens. They have too many appointments and too much work for their capabilities. Maybe they are afraid to turn down a job, so they accept everything offered, but show up only to the most lucrative or attractive jobs and rush through them so they can move on to the next.

My friend’s company is best known, not for the product it sells, but for DND—the Do Not Disturb feature on each employee's phone that stops all calls and pages. They are not lazy or bad workers at her company. They are just unable to handle the volume of calls and cannot get a thing done if they answer their phones on demand. The problem is that the calls build up to such an extreme that not every caller can get a timely call back. By the time customers are called back, they are screaming. The screaming callers increase employee stress and make calling back less attractive and, hence, slower. This all builds to a fever pitch which every month or two ends in a breakdown, resignation and lost customer.

Then there is our food supply. I am old enough to remember what fruit tasted like before it was picked green to ripen on a store shelf and to remember the days when you could put a raw egg in a recipe without taking out a life insurance policy or touch a raw chicken without having wash your hands with the same intensity as if you were exposed to nuclear waste. Now, you can get produce out of season and all sorts of exotic meats and cheeses and have it delivered to your door, but nothing really tastes good. I have been told that all this is the result of new methods of agriculture and distribution designed to keep up with demand. I suspect these new methods also increase the profits of food and distributors.

When I first started out working as an attorney, an older partner in my law firm told me that the worst thing that ever happened to the lawyer was the fax machine. In the old days, a lawyer would get a call from a client. They would discuss some preliminaries and agree that the client would mail the paperwork. The attorney then had some time to research the issues and fit it into his schedule before the paperwork arrived. The lawyer would be prepared to review the paperwork immediately upon its arrival. Then, he could call the client back and say: “I just got the papers and here is what we have to do….”
Now, the client faxes or emails the paperwork and expects the lawyer to be immediately ready with advice and response paperwork. The clients’ expectations are raised, and, while the lawyer has additional tools to help him respond timely, he is still limited by the fact that he is only one person and can only read, decide, draft, argue and call so much in one day. Responses are less carefully thought out; documents are less carefully drafted and advice more based upon first reaction. I just smirk when I hear the news media comment on how our legal system has become so mean spirited and reactive.

So, have we gotten to the point where we just cannot handle the volume and speed of our businesses and lives? Machines have gotten better; computers and communications systems faster, but people and the good old power grid have stayed the same.

In the darkest days of a depression with world war looming, Roosevelt said "We have nothing to fear but fear itself." In the uncertainty of an unprecidented revolution, Franklin said "Those who would give up freedom for security deserve neither." Amid a cold war with 2 nuclear powers poised to face each other in Germany and Cuba, Kennedy said "Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country." In these difficult and frightening times, our leaders inspired courage, steadfastness and self-sufficiency. That courage and gusto to bravely push forward led to some amazing, positive outcomes. A nation was created, pushed west and became a respected world leader. In contrast, our current leaders want us to wallow in fear and uncertainty. They constantly remind us that terrorists are about and have devised a bizarro cartoon-like color code of fear. They start wars for uncertain reasons with questionable goals and we watch young Americans die every day. It seems that the new leadership is all about scaring us and increasing our uncertainty. It's all a sales pitch. They create the scary situations and then market themselves as the only ones who can increase our security and ensure our well being. It's simply Madison Avenue advertising, no different from an Odor Eaters ad. "You may offend someone, so you need to purchase our deodorant or mouthwash." "You may not be attractive enough, so you need to purchase our makeup and hair dye." Women have been the targets of similar advertising for years. We've been sold the bill of goods that we are never clean, attractive or young enough and now, although we still suffer generally from lower salaries, we spend more on dry cleaning, make-up, hair dye, clothes, shoes, plastic surgery etc. In short, we are further impoverished and tied to unhappy relationships or jobs to pay for everything have bought. In recent years, men have been subject to similar scare and sell techniques with ads for hair growth, diet, body building and sexual enhancement products. But, now the stakes are far higher. We, both men and women, are being sold and, apparently, purchasing a new bill of goods "Uncertainty looms, buy Bush." Even though working people are far worse off economically, states are drowning in red ink through, not a tax cut, but a tax shift, we are buying the pitch. We were better off when we had fewer safety nets, fewer fear charts, fewer adsmen, fewer Republicans and more self-respect, self-reliance, strength, bravery, perseverence, and leaders who believed we were up to the challenge and encouraged us to be our best, not the freshest smelling. Be careful where you put your limited spending dollars and your vote.

Hello to anyone who happens upon this blog.