Path to Enlightened Insanity

I’ve started grabbing a quick dinner here and there at McDonald’s. In general the ones in Seattle are cleaner and nicer than the ones in Ohio, and they’ve got some snazzy new menu items.

So I had a fun experience tonight that resulted in me sending this off to McDonald’s Customer Service:

I went to the store 1530 3rd Ave in Seattle, WA to have a quick dinner while waiting to catch a bus.

Behind me was a couple and the lady placed her left foot below her right knee, so that the side of her shoe was touching the seat, a common sitting position. An employee named Lonnie came over and asked her to take her foot off the chair. The couple reasonably rebutted that only the side of her shoe was touching the chair, not the sole of the shoe. Lonnie impolitely and aggressively insisted that the lady remove her foot from the chair. The lady was visibly annoyed and a yelling match between the couple and Lonnie ensued, and the couple left the McDonald’s.

I recognize the value in an orderly and clean dining room, and I do not dispute the right of this McDonald’s location to ask that no shoes be placed on the chairs, but this was handled in a wholly inappropriate manner by Lonnie. His phrasings and tone made what should have been a polite and simple interaction into a disturbance for anyone nearby.

I am a former McDonald’s manager and upon witnessing this interaction I would have counseled Lonnie that he took an incorrect tone with two paying customers, and I would have documented subsequent incidents.

The correct way to prevent this situation in the future is to clearly post the rules, and instruct lobby employees to politely but firmly enforce the rules, referencing them when necessary, and escalating the issue if necessary.

Annoyed at this situation, I was compelled to leave a mess for Lonnie to clean up; I have seen far more polite McDonald’s employees have to clean far more disgusting messes than the one I left. I recognize that this was not the correct thing to do, but I also recognize that Lonnie was running the dining room as if he were a prison warden, and I made a conscious decision to rebel against Lonnie’s authoritarism.

I would like my money refunded due to the disurbance that Lonnie precipitated, which disturbed my dining experience.

Regards,

Cliff Barnard

Yeah fun wasn’t it? Oh my mess.. I have to share the little mess that I made. I started by dropping a few french fries and grinding them into the floor, (I hated this when I worked for McDonalds.) I dropped a napkin on the floor, I took my nugget sauces turned them upsidedown on the table, and ground whatever remaining sauce was left into the table. I then packed up my things except for a magazine, put my feet up on the chair and waited for Lonnie to do his little king of the lobby dance, while I pretended to ignore him while I was reading my magazine. After he walked over I acknowledged him, took my foot off the chair, and knocked over my soda, crushing the cup to ensure that my root beer would flow all over the table, had a little yelling match of my own with Lonnie and left..

What can I say, its fun to piss off authority, especially those who overdo what little authority they have…

I’m cleaning out a bunch of small things right now. One of those that I kept meaning to do was a note on the blog regarding the time zone on inmff.net.

After some thinking about it and research I’m going to keep it on US Eastern Time. The reasons for this are:

• The ISP that inmff.net is hosted on, panix.com, is located in US Eastern Time in New York City.
• I’ve not adjusted the edit dates and times of entries that I’ve made from other time zones in the past.
• Movable type 2.63, the blogging software that I use, (I know I’m using an old version, but I’m happy with it and don’t feel like mucking with a major upgrade.) only supports one time zone for the whole blog, not per entry, so if I were to change the time zone of the blog, it would redo all the previous entries..
• I was born in Eastern Time.

I saw Wicked on Broadway today. It is an awesome show all around, great music, great design, excellent acting, and above all a great message.

I’m at the end of my day and want to get to sleep, but the two ideas that run through it:

1. Diversity is important, and is something to be cherished. Those who come from different backgrounds can have valuable, deep meaningful relationships. Additionally, diversity makes us stronger by providing a variety of view points
2. Those that appear good can be evil. I saw strong parallels to the third reich in many of the characters that are traditionally perceived as good in the traditional Wizard of Oz Cannon

So I love NYC… But, usually at this point in my trip to NYC I’m wanting to move here.. But today I’ve not felt that.. I think thats a good sign for Seattle.

We were discussing in my Organizational Leadership class what would lead to Al Qaida’s destruction. This was my major contribution to the discussion.

A thought to start us out:
I was reading about the boom and bust cycle of technology. The author asserted that Silicon Valley the early 1990s were fertile ground for the growth of the Web. Why? In the late 1980s many companies invested heavily in interactive television, and by the early 1990s they had dismantled their attempts. This left a fertile ground of graphic artists, user interface designers, and other related technical and artistic people to tap in the valley.

I think the best way to understand the best way to destroy Al Qaida is to develop a metaphor.

Think of each society or movement as a tree in a forest, feeding off the nutrients in the soil, sharing the air with those around it, and returning nutrients to the soil. Envision that each leaf is an individual person, and each branch is a group of people.

Farmers understand that certain plants support the growth of other plants by returning nutrients to the soil that a subsequent plant requires. As I understand it soybeans and corn are complimentary in their nitrogen usage; farmers rotate the crops because soybeans place nitrogen in the soil, and corn requires nitrogen from the soil.

In my mind our current attempts at dismantling Al Qaida focus around snipping the branches (apprehending Al Qaida members), and making the air harder to process, which inhibits all trees (increasing security, which makes it harder for people to live their lives.).

Very little attention is being placed on thinking about what nutrients western societies place in the soil. (ideology and actions in the world at large)

The fastest way to kill a tree is of course to cut off all of its branches, but in this case we cannot see all of the Al Qaida tree, and some of the leaves periodically jump from other trees and attach themselves to the Al Qaida tree. We also have trees that react to the nutrients in the soil the same way the Al Qaida tree did, and begin to exhibit some of the same characteristics.

The way to destroy Al Qaida is to deprive it of the nutrients it thrives on. In this case it requires us westerners to take a hard look at what ideologies and actions we propagate world wide, and how those ideologies and actions support al Qaida. This however is not letting the terrorists win. Quite the contrary, it is adapting to prevent the terrorists from having a base to grow from.

Unfortunately and ultimately Al Qaida is an indirect product of and is supported by western society. It is unrealistic if we attempt to think that Al Qaida exists in a vacuum, it has grown up in the sociological eco-sphere that we have helped create.

What does this mean for organizational leadership in general?

Simply that your organization is a product of, influences, and is influenced by the sociological eco-sphere in which it exists. And the organizations around you can be created by what your organization does. Ultimately the world is an interconnected web of organizations, all exerting some force, however small, upon the organizations around it.

Anyone who has known me for long enough knows that while I’m no fan of Microsoft I love Microsoft Excel. I’ve long believed it is the best written Microsoft product.

My faith in Excel just got smashed.

So I took a list of numbers from a CSV file that should add up to 0. (If you must know I’m mucking with a bill from a service provider thats all fucked up. They missed giving me the proper credit, so I’m detailing for them what the additional credits should be, so we should get to a zero sum.)

For those of you who want to check up on my the initial list is:
99.9
0
3.52
3.24
0.02
1.24
0.26
5.94
-0.23
-0.02
-2.87
-1.1
-3.12
-88.62
-5.27
-0.03
0
-0.37
-0.14
-0.4
-11.28
-0.67

So when I add this list up I get 0.00. Excel gets -0.00000000000001609823385706480. I even tried the other way round this and did two intermediate sums where I got 12.89 and -12.89, which Excel Adds up to -0.00000000000001598721155460230.

I can’t figure out what the hell is going on, although I have checked every number to make sure there isn’t a some rounded number being displayed with two digits.. So I’m stumped, and my faith is shattered.

Okay, so one of my favorite blogs is Discardian: One tip every day to help you let go of all that crap in your way. It has many helpful hints. But the general theme is to reduce the crap flowing around in your life, both physical and mental. I’ve found great inspiration there for cleaning up.

So, here’s a new one (or maybe not really, but I think I just came up with it): Don’t keep things in the physical world that are just around to help you remember things in the past.. Keep them in the virtual world, or not at all..

To that point, my high scores at bowling, so I can pitch the cheesy trophies.

Okay, so I’ll be a YouTube whore, but for a good reason. Joss Whedon speaking very eloquently about Equality.

I read this an article on the “Oddly enough” wire of Reuters, All my moms love me, Utah kid tells polygamist rally. I’m annoyed that the story was on the “Oddly enough” wire, which is usually reserved for more lighthearted and funny fare.

Allies are important, even if they don’t fully support you or you don’t fully support them.

So it is from this perspective I needed to write my position publically.

The core argument, as I see it, for gay marriage is that a government should not interfere with the affairs of adults as long as those affairs do not causing unwanted harm to another adult, or intentional harm to a minor.

Its not that far of a leap to say that I’m a supporter of consensual non-monogamy, also known as polygamy. Honestly I think in fifteen to twenty years we’ll be discussing legalizing marriages between multiple people. It’ll take more legal wrangling and a huge code overhaul, but honestly government should get out of the way of people.

I think the thing that annoys me most about resistance to gay marriage and consensual non-monogamy is that the resistance comes from a core belief that people should follow a collection of mores, or “life scripts” as I prefer to call them. (E.g. For guys: Be Born, Go to school, Graduate from High School, Go to College, Graduate in four years, Find a Job, Find a Girl, Marry Girl, Have 2.5 children with said Girl, Raise children, Work some more, Retire, Enjoy playing Yatzee and Shuffleboard, Die.)

One may claim that I’m over simplifying things, but I’ve captured the essence of the expected mores in America, that make up the root of the argument against gay marriage and consensual non-monogamy. The societal objective at work is to encourage people to follow the system of mores, if you stray from them you’re looked upon a bit unfavorably. I’ve done a dandy job of straying from the “life-script” managing way too many years in too many colleges, a couple of boyfriends, and an impromptu move across the country. So I’m not a fan of enforcing, or even propagating life-scripts.

I think we should encourage diversity, that includes diversity in family structures.

Okay, so more than one person thinks I’m a little crazy for getting in the car, with no notice, and driving to Seattle.

I’m reading All I really Need to Know I learned In Kindergarden by Robert Fulghum. (who lives in Seattle..) In it there is the story of Larry Walters, a guy who lived in Los Angeles who one day decided to tie 45 helium filled weather ballons to a lawn chair and go flying.

No, I’m not making this up. So, forgive me when I’m confused that people think I’m a bit crazy for moving to Seattle. I mean I made the necessary preparations, namely getting a map, getting food, liquids, and kitty liter, ensuring that I had the financial resources to make it, and packing a bit of stuff. Compared to Larry I think I might’ve overkilled my planning a bit. Fulghum details Walter’s preparations:

Larry has a parachute on, a CB radio, a six-pack of beer, some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and a BB gun to pop some of the baloons to come down.

So yeah, I’m a little bit nuts, but I like it that way, and besides if you’re not going to have some imagination and follow through on your dreams then what are you doing?

Walters put it best, when he was asked by the press why he did it, he said “You can’t just sit there.”