Tag Archives: power

A face in the crowd (and better off for it)…

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The best part of just being a face in the crowd is that you get to spend a lot of time watching people in power, whether that be the legitimate power of elected office or the almost completely fictitious power that resides in a fancy sounding title. The most common denominator that I’ve observed so far is simple – the more powerful the individual being observed, the less control they have over their own lives. The ones with real power, the ones who are minor princes of the universe, seem to have their days scripted, their movements controlled, and have barely a spare minute to do so much as scratch their own arse.

It’s hard to believe, but a younger, more ambitious version of me once thought that sounded like an ideal way to spend a career… long flights, clamoring between meetings, and generally being indispensible. With a third of my career in the rear view, I can honestly say that the shine is well off that idea. These days, the last place I want to find myself is at the center of the hive. The older I get, the less inclined I am to let other people dictate my schedule or to cede control over any portion of my life. My one concession is the 40-hours a week that I spend working for wages… and that’s only grudgingly because I like eating and having a roof over my head.

I’m sure it’s a fine way to live and all, but for me, having the maximum amount of personal control over who I interact with, what I do, and when I do it is pretty damned important. On balance, short of being named absolute monarch of a small tropical island, I’m not sure that’s something I’d want to give up – especially not for something as temporal as a spiffy sounding title and not much else.

Pin count…

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Because underwater mortgages, impending fiscal cliffs, and a heat wave baking the East Coast (again) aren’t enough bad news, I’m sitting here reading an article about Apple’s possible redesign of its decade-old 30-pin dock connector. A smaller form factor sounds like good news at first, until I added up the sheer number of 30-pin connectors I currently have sitting around. If you’re really curious, that would be a total of eight. Four at home, two in the car, and two at the office. With tax, that’s probably a $200 replacement cost to convert everything over to the new and improved 19-pin variant of the connector. I’d gulp and roll my eyes a bit, but fine, it’s just another Apple tax.

Assuming that this fall’s iteration of the iPhone includes the 19-pin connector, it means I’ll have to tote around 3 separate ways of charging my gear (19-pin for iPhone, 30-pin for iPad, magsafe for MacBook Pro. Sure there will be some kind of adapter available for $19.95, but adapters aren’t the elegant kind of solution I like with my tech. Then again, needing three different connectors to leave the house isn’t the kind of elegance I expect from Apple either. In fairness, I don’t know that there would ever be a good time to switch over from the connector we’ve all been using for ten years to a new and better model. Since it seems highly implausible that Apple will ever refresh its entire iOS line at the same time, I guess getting the pain over now is as good a time as any.

Hopefully deep in the bowels of Apple Headquarters a bleary eyed engineer is hard at work on some kind solar cell coating or a bio-mechanical mechanism that draws power directly from the user (or self-winds like a wristwatch for all I care). Then we could get rid of the connectors and adapters altogether. And really, wouldn’t that make the world a better place for everyone?

Boorish…

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I’m sure it was some touchy feely sociologist who first said that people only have the control over us that we allow them to have. That’s horseshit, of course. Some people have power over us because we were dumb enough to elect them and others because their block on the organizational chart is further towards the top of the page than ours. On the other hand, some people have power over us because the law says beating them to death with their own shoe is illegal and would result in us spending much of the next 20 years in prison.

Just slightly behind my abject fear of prison is the lesson drummed into my head as a child to be polite. Sadly, some people take a polite smile and nod as encouragement to continue doing whatever they’re doing while staying happily oblivious to the murderous glare you’re giving them at the same time. Eventually the thin veneer of civilization that separates us from the wild beasts is going to wear through just enough that any normal person can’t help but snap in response. Still, in the back of my mind I can’t help but wonder what it’s like going through life oblivious to the normally accepted social signs that your behavior is boorish and disliked. I half suspect it’s a bit like being the eternally happy, but not very bright family dog.

Most Powerful…

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There was a time when I thought being president would have to be the coolest job in the world. You live in a big, fancy house surrounded by armed guards to keep out the riffraff. You have your own jumbo jet and helicopter. You’re followed around by a guy whose only missing in life is to be ready to help you destroy the world at a moment’s notice. You’re President of the United States, dude. Come on, the only way you could be more impressive is to have a nice fancy uniform (I’m told the chicks dig that). As POTUS, it’s got to feel like you’re in the catbird’s seat and riding high with the last job you’re ever going to worry about having.

At some point, though, you’re going to realize being Commander-in-Chief doesn’t bring quite as much power and authority as you were promised as a kid. As president, you’d think it would be easy enough to hop on live TV and give the country a little pep talk. Except that your sworn enemies have already scheduled the night you really want. And your second choice date has been co-opted by the National Football League for the season’s opening game. Let’s face it, no matter how awesome your title, you don’t want to be the guy who makes the networks cut away from football, right?

So there you have it. You’re the most powerful man in the world and you just got played by the television schedule. That’s got to be a special kind of frustrating, I’d think.