Terrorism begins at home

Hamas patrols beaches in Gaza to enforce conservative dress code

From today’s Guardian newspaper (UK) comes an article worth reading about the efforts of Hamas to “Islamize” the Gaza area of Palestine, where they are the elected government, by controlling dress and behavior–––especially of women, of course. Ownership must be maintained!

It began with a rash of unusually assertive police patrols. Armed Hamas officers stopped men from sitting shirtless on the beach, broke up groups of unmarried men and women, and ordered shopkeepers not to display lingerie on mannequins in their windows.

Then came an effort to force female lawyers to abide by a more conservative dress code, and intense pressure on parents to dress their daughters more conservatively for the new school term. Last week police began enforcing a new decree banning women from riding on motorbikes.

For the first time since Hamas won Palestinian parliamentary elections nearly four years ago, the group is trying to Islamise Gazan society. In public, Hamas leaders say they are merely encouraging a social moral code, and insist they are not trying to imitate the religious police who operate in some other rigid Islamic countries. But to many it feels like a new wave of enforcement in what is already a devoutly Muslim society.

Asmaa al-Ghoul, a writer and former journalist, was one of the first to run up against the new campaign. She spent an evening with a mixed group of friends in a beachside cafe in late June. After dark, she and another female friend went swimming wearing long trousers and T-shirts. Moments after leaving the water they found themselves confronted by a group of increasingly aggressive Hamas police officers. “Where is your father? Your husband?” one officer asked her. Ghoul, 27, was told her behaviour had not been respectable. Five of her male friends were beaten and detained for several hours….

Mostly the campaign focuses on what women wear. One startling poster decries the trend for young women to wear their headscarf along with tight jeans as a “satanic industry 100%”. It shows a red devil holding an image of a fashionable young woman and recommends a fuller, less glamorous head covering, counselling: “The right hijab is your way to heaven.”

Asked about his attitude to those few Gazan women who do not cover their hair, Abu Shaar said: “We tell them it is an essential element to being a Muslim. Wearing the headscarf is as essential as prayer.

If you think my comment about maintaining ownership goes too far, note the enquiry of the police officers, “Where is your father? Your husband?” and the beating of the male companions. Women must not be allowed out in public without their owners being present to control them. Men are responsible for the behavior of “their” women, their wives, daughters, sisters; if they do not exercise that control, they may be punished too, a powerful example to other men. The excuse for honor killings, of disobedient women, even women who have been raped, is that these “immoral” women bring upon the family dishonor which can only be washed clean with their blood.

Some women are resisting the increased Islamization in Gaza:

When the Hamas-appointed chief justice, Abdel-Raouf al-Halabi, ordered a new uniform for all lawyers, which for women meant a headscarf and a jilbab – a full-length robe – he had not counted on the temerity of the response. Nearly all of Gaza’s 150 female lawyers already wear headscarves, but they challenged the ruling on the grounds that it had no basis in law. The chief justice was forced to back down.

“It was absolutely illegal,” said Dina Abu Dagga, a lawyer who has covered her hair since she was at university in Cairo.

It was not the chief justice’s right to change the dress code, she said. Under Palestinian law, that power rested with the lawyers’ union.

“We’re not against the hijab. I wear it myself,” she said. “We’re against imposing it and restricting our freedoms. Today you impose the hijab, but tomorrow it will be something else.”

But, unlike the lawyers with their union, most women do not have a “place to stand” in order to resist safely.

We are obsessed with terrorism, since 9/11. But only when it is directed against a national government. When women are threatened, murdered, and repressed, that is terrorism too: the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion (Merriam-Webster). What is more political than the subjugation, by fear and violence, of one portion of a population?

As politicians well know, religion can provide the best justification for terroristic acts, since they are being performed at God’s behest. Once a behavior (like not wearing a headscarf, or wearing one that is too revealing) has been linked with the devil, anyone who fits the description is risking their mortal soul, and endangering the entire society by their example. As Barry Goldwater famously said, “Extremism in defense of virtue is no vice”. Or “If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out”; much easier if it is someone else’s eye, or even your own daughter. [image below from a painting by John Singer Sargent, A Spanish Woman.]

Listening to what people say: no victim “deserves it”

Recently I’ve noticed, in reports of crimes against persons, an abhorrent phrase that seems to be commonly accepted: people being quoted as saying that the victim “didn’t deserve this”. Who does deserve being beaten, raped, or murdered? Ah, but maybe this person did deserve a beating––but was murdered instead. No, too subtle.

Was I imagining it? I googled “didn’t deserve to die”, the strongest usage, and quickly came up with half a dozen different instances.

Then, on the front page of the Oregonian a week or so ago, I saw this one: a driver with a blood alcohol level “approaching .30” ran his car up onto a sidewalk in broad daylight and pinned a pedestrian against a utility pole. As the drunk tried to drive away he hit the pedestrian two more times. Oh yes, and the pedestrian was blind and carrying a white cane. The driver was chased and boxed in by other drivers. Since his arrest, he had been trying to make a good impression: visiting the badly injured man, publicizing his own past volunteer work (performed while he was a bank exec), all that sort of thing. The article reported on his appearance in court for sentencing, definitely an occasion to choose one’s words carefully. What did he say, in his attempt at an apology?

“He didn’t deserve it. It was all my fault.”

Good to know that the blind man didn’t actually deserve being run over three times, we were all wondering about that.

What’s going on here?

According to my unscientific survey the phrase is used at least as often by the relatives of victims, as by those accused of the crime in question. So I conclude that this represents a general societal attitude, which tacitly regards some people as deserving to be harmed or attacked by others.

The connexion that came up in my mind was with a shift in moral education over the past three decades or so, which changed the focus from the person acting, to the person being acted upon, and from general principles of interpersonal behavior, to principles regarding certain groups. In an effort to end harassment of minorities and those perceived as different, we started teaching children and adults to avoid ridiculing this or that sort of person––overweight or gay, for example. Something needed to be done, to end these long-winked-at instances of bullying and cruelty, but how much better to emphasize a universal (and positive, rather than negative) approach of being polite and compassionate. Singling out groups creates assumptions that groups not named may be fair game. “Nobody told me not to call him names, he’s an Italian/left-handed/too skinny/a nerd!”

The general approach is better all around.

Some pragmatic reasons: It’s far easier, no need to remember who you’re supposed to be kind to this week. Like deciding that you are going to stop your car whenever a pedestrian is trying to cross, instead of having to make a judgment call on the fly each time. No type of person is accidentally omitted (though of course people who are dangerous, manipulative, etc., can and often must be treated differently). Those are points of persuasion for people not so much moved by moral considerations alone (to me it’s surprising how often there are practical reasons which could be used to bolster the “should/ought” arguments).

Moral arguments include: putting responsibility where it belongs, on the act-or instead of the act-ee; promoting human community rather than division; generally strengthening the moral rule which is one that makes human interchange run much more smoothly and harmoniously.

Then, from a different angle, there’s Shakespeare’s take what the just deserts of a human being, “poor bare, forked animal”, may be

More about credit cards, debt, pyramids, and eschatology

My recent post “Why I’m canceling my Bank of America credit card” brought a comment pointing out that cancelling credit cards can adversely affect one’s credit score, perhaps making it difficult to borrow for cars and houses. That may well be true, but it seems to spring from a view of credit and debt quite different from mine. Rather than dump this on the hapless commenter as a reply, I’ll say it here.

First, the companies have no incentive to restrict credit, and I expect they’ll soon be back to sending out credit apps to dogs and kindergartners. When the banks lose money through extending credit unwisely, they raise rates on the rest of us to recoup. Worst case, as now, the taxpayers bail them out, they buy each other up, write off debt, get tax breaks for losses. So I think people can safely cancel all but one or two cards, and still be able to use credit to make major purchases.

Second, I’m hoping that ordinary people, who DO have an incentive to learn from the present debacle, may start restricting their debt to large necessary items. Cars and houses usually do require going into debt. But I’m old enough to remember life without credit cards; my mom had a metal “charge-a-plate” for Macy’s, and there was layaway at some stores, but no credit cards. If you wanted something you saved up for it. If you couldn’t afford to go out to dinner, you didn’t go. To those accustomed to incurring chronic credit-card debt for indulgences, such a life may seem a bleak prospect. But actually I recall very few people growing despondent for want of cruises, concert tickets, and designer handbags.

Back in the 1980’s when I saw items at an Oregon department-type store bearing tags that said “Want me? Buy me!” and a credit card logo, I viewed it as a dangerous & selfish attitude to cultivate. Along with it came the re-definition of human beings as “consumers”.

The present economic system is a pyramid scheme because it is predicated on continual growth. We do not live in a world of infinite resources and space, therefore neither population nor consumption/production can continue to increase forever. Business interests, and even the administration, expect increased consumption to get us out of this depression. If it does, it can be only a temporary fix.

I know there are a lot of optimists out there who say not to worry about dismal stuff like the economy, climate change, and all that, because the world is going to end in 2012 (Mayan Calendar theory) or “soon” (some Christian fundamentalist theories). But I just can’t be that optimistic. Call me crazy, but what if we’ve got those Mayan numbers just a little bit wrong? Or some translator introduced an inaccuracy into the Book of Revelations? What if God has changed His mind, and now thinks it might be amusing to see how His little creatures manage with these challenges? We just can’t know. Better to keep our eyes on the ball, as it were (in this case the planet & its inhabitants) and not count on the Umpire calling the game on account of End of Time.

Helping National Guard and Reservists “re-enter” after deployment

Sometimes local news should have a wider audience across the country.

Our US Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) has earned great respect in this state for his humane principles and competence at building coalitions to get things done in DC. Here’s an example from the Oregonian newspaper on an issue that, typically for him, is not at all parochial but affects all of us deeply.

Sen. Wyden proposes extending Guard pay

The Oregon lawmaker wants to give soldiers returning from war 90 extra pay days

Wednesday, April 08, 2009

JULIE SULLIVAN, The Oregonian Staff

When Oregon Army National Guard soldiers returned from Iraq four years ago, fewer than half had a job waiting.

Employers wanted to help. Within a week, the Guard organized a reintegration fair that offered an estimated 500 jobs. But not a single soldier took one.

It was too soon.

“They are not ready to leave a combat zone and seven days later, go back to work,” Brig. Gen. Mike Caldwell said.

State and federal officials say they’ve learned how to do it right. U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., wants to extend federal pay for National Guard and reservists for 90 days to ensure a “softer landing” when they return.

Oregon has posted some of the highest percentages of Guard members serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. Another 2,700 are training to deploy Iraq in July.

Unlike the regular Army, where soldiers return to their stateside military jobs and bases, the Oregon Guard and reservists scatter to hometowns. They lose their military salary, and more than $600 a month in other hazardous duty and separation pay.

When Oregon soldiers returned from Afghanistan two years ago, fewer than half of them younger than 35 had a job waiting. The younger the vet, the worse the outlook, with nearly 65 percent younger than 25 unemployed.

“About 79 percent returned to poverty,” said Sgt. First Class (Ret.) J.D. Baucom, a career assistance liaison for the Oregon Guard. He’s concerned in today’s economy those numbers are bound to get worse.

Wyden said paying the Guard for up to 90 days after they return would give them time to rebuild their lives before hitting a financial wall.

“We not willing to sit around and watch soldiers go from the front lines to unemployment lines,” he said.

Oregon has led in veterans’ advocacy. The Guard’s re-integration program — launched by wounded Alsea and Albany infantrymen in 2004 — is a national model. In 2007, the Legislature created a new veterans hiring preference for public employees. Now it is considering extending that preference from 15 years to a lifetime and granting 15 days unpaid leave to spouses of deploying soldiers.

Wyden’s bill covers returning soldiers so it would help only a fraction of the 350,000 Oregon veterans. He met former service members at the IBEW Local 48 in Northeast Portland on Tuesday morning in part to highlight job opportunities in the building trades. One federal program, Helmets to Hardhats, has put more than 1,757 veterans nationally into union apprentice programs. Across the hall, three young military veterans had found union jobs a good match on their own. They said that learning discipline, attention to detail and the ability to work in a team in the service has helped them apprentice as commercial electricians.

“I tried college, but I was working full time and going to school full time and that didn’t work,” said Craig Enneberg, 28, of Sherwood. “This works.”

Still, veterans advocates — and veterans themselves — told Wyden that a far more targeted approach is needed. Among the suggestions:

Reduce paperwork. “If we can’t get through the process, how we can we ask a 20-year-old from eastern Oregon who doesn’t know where to call?” said Sgt. 1st Class Phillip Maas, who manages career assistance for the reintegration team.

Connect veterans. Ret. Master Sgt. Mike Eschete, who recently graduated from Portland State University, proposed a mentoring program using military retirees. “They speak a different language and understand a dimension that is invisible to others,” he said.

Educate gatekeepers at agencies. “Put someone in that position who gives a damn,” said Erik Burris, a 12-year veteran of the Navy. Burris said one state employment specialist, Rene Garcia, helped him.

But little else has helped Burris in this economy.

The 41-year-old aviation structural mechanic and flight deck troubleshooter in the Navy has been laid off from four jobs in Portland since 2002. Wyden invited him to the Tuesday meeting. He arrived in a stylish blue shirt and tie, his carefully clipped hair and leather organizer in hand. He handed a reporter his resume.

After being laid off from jobs in quality control, sales, tech support and as a contractor at Intel he hasn’t worked since January 2008. He keeps applying, whittling his three-page resume into a one page “cram ad” and checking 12 job boards online a day. He does all the family cooking for his wife, Jeanmarie, and their daughter and keeps the kitchen immaculate in their “inexpensive” 900-square-foot Tigard apartment.

“Home is what you make it,” Jeanmarie says.

“You lose your pride and a little bit of yourself every time you get laid off,” he says. “And we have so much to give.”

juliesullivan@news.oregonian.com

2009 Oregonian

Why not let your senators and representatives know that you support this? The following pages help you get contact information and send emails:

for US representatives; need to know your ZIP code + the four digit addition to it

this one works for both representatives and senators (also yields info for state legislators); use the search box at the left to get names, click on name, click on “Contact” tab above the person’s photo.

Or should it be classified as “fantasy”?

I was searching the Quality Paperback Book site for “science fiction’, and the last of 8 matches was

THE NEW SCIENCE OF GETTING RICH

by Wallace D. Wattles, edited by Ruth Miller

Book- Softcover / October, 2007 / QPB Price: $10.99

I thought this was an amusing computer error, but after I read the club’s description of the book, I see that it is just honesty in advertising…

Are you obeying the Law of Attraction?

If you’re not, you should. You see, there’s more to getting rich than your talent or your environment. There’s a natural law, the Law of Attraction, which stipulates that specific actions always produce the same results—and money, property and success are among them. Learn the simple equation behind acquiring the riches you’ve dreamed of, and your dreams will become reality.

That’s the message of The New Science of Getting Rich. Originally written by Wallace D. Wattles over a century ago, this hugely influential text inspired Rhonda Byrne’s The Secret and has been fully updated for the 21st century by Ruth Miller. Don’t be a Law-breaker—follow this clear-cut guide and strike it rich!

With all the excellent science fiction being written today, why has QPB got only 7 titles? And among those 7 are a Steven King, a DVD of X-Files, and a collection of century-old horror and fantasy by Rudyard Kipling.

But QPB has become rather flaky in recent years, flogging fluff and worse. There are 5 hits on a search for “astrology”, and only 4 for “astronomy”; 35 matches for “healing” (a word that I would like banned for a decade or so) including books on the healing powers of olive oil, and vinegar, and water. And Angel Healing, in which you can “Learn to direct angelic color rays through your hands and thoughts to transmit energy and the healing power of angels.”

Another “healing” title offered by QPB is The Miracles of Archangel Michael, wherein author Doreen Virtue, Ph.D. will show you “how to contact Archangel Michael, the powerful protector, and work with him for physical and emotional healing”. The publisher of this last one is Hay House, whose site shows that they specialize in this variety of self-delusion, with other titles (on its site) including
28 Days to a More Magnetic Life
Fractal Time: The Secret of 2012 and a New World Age
and Psychic Healing: Using the Tools of a Medium to Cure Whatever Ails You.

O tempora, O mores! (And what else is new, eh?)

Listen up, retailers and retail employees!

You know you can’t afford to lose customers these days. We’re having an economic situation/blip/slowdown/downturn/recession/crisis/depression, ah––cut to the end: when the train finishes pulling into the station, it’ll be “Economic Disaster”.

Businesses spend money and effort on advertising, but often are oblivious to how they treat the customers themselves. When I walk into the tiny local florist to send condolence flowers and the person greets me coolly, asks only “How much do you want to spend?”, has no prices posted on anything, and no pictures or samples to show me, does it seem likely I will return? If there’d been another similar business within 15 miles I’d have walked out and gone elsewhere.

This subject has been on my mind for a few years, because my experience at the florist is far from an isolated incident. I fantasized about making my million with a company issuing videos and doing workshops about how to treat customers. But that’s not likely, and American business needs this now, so I’m going to write a little about it. Maybe it’ll be worth more than the traditional value of free advice.

Keep in mind, much of what I will say may seem obvious. It is. But if you work with the public and you aren’t practicing this, you need to hear it. And more than just hear it; consciously work at it and get some sort of feedback on how you are doing. My plan for teaching “customer service” included video illustrations of right and wrong; role-playing; and finally videotaping “students” for them to see themselves, because in all aspects of life we need a mirror, an objective reporter, to show us what we really do and say, as opposed to what we believe we do and say. Think about how true that is of other people you know. And it is just as true of you. And me.

Attitude

If you are going to work with the public, in a gas station, a library, a restaurant, a retail store, behind any sort of service desk, accept these basic realities:

• No customers, no job.
• Every customer advertises you to people they know, with praise, condemnation, or silence.
• Making a repeat customer is like gaining a new customer without the expense of buying ads or running special deals.
• You’re “on” every minute.
• Customers get to act tired, cranky, stupid, and demanding, but you do not. You must be polite, helpful, inoffensively cheerful, and competent.

These are habits of thought and action like any others, and you can learn them and make them mostly unconscious and routine. Even virtue, Aristotle said, is a habit.

If you absolutely can’t accept and act on these realities, then public service/retail is the wrong place for you. You won’t be effective or happy in your job. And eventually it may catch up to you, as your boss decides you don’t add anything to the business, or your own business fails.

Attentiveness and Greeting

If you’re otherwise engaged when a customer arrives, you must show that you know he or she is there. Maybe you’re on the phone or helping someone else when Joe walks up to the counter. Make eye contact with Joe, smile, return to what you are doing.

Don’t keep him waiting more than a couple of minutes unless it is clear to him that your current transaction has a clear end coming up, as for instance ringing up the customer ahead of him. (This doesn’t apply to a grocery checkout line, or other situations where customers know they are waiting and know their place in line. Although even there, send a smile to the customer who’s waiting behind that person sorting through a zillion coupons, and it will be appreciated.)

If your transaction may go on and on, use your judgment; probably you should say to the customer in front of you, “Excuse me just a moment,” turn to Joe, and say “Hi, can I answer a question for you?” He asks whether your store has Acme Widgets in stock, you tell him yes (and where they are) or no (adding, but if he can wait a moment, we have something very similar) then turn back to your current customer. Or if there is another employee available, get that person over to help Joe. Joe doesn’t walk out thinking you don’t care about his business, and you may have a customer.

On the other hand, don’t let attentiveness to the newly arrived customer make you abandon the one you were working with. Same with phone calls; that’s what the Hold button is for. Fairness is important to us humans, and the person who was there first can reasonably expect you to finish his or her transaction before going on to another. If Joe’s “quick question” turns into something longer, you must gently interrupt and promise to help him just as soon as you’ve finished with the other person’s business.

[Supervisors, take note: should your sales desk people really be answering all the incoming calls, too? You think you’re saving money but it means someone who is right there with money to spend has to wait while the clerk answers questions and routes calls.]

Do not do personal business in front of customers. Everybody needs to make a phone call at work sometimes, or talks to other employees during a slow period about non-work stuff, but make it a rule: never when a customer is present. Tell your babysitter you’ll call right back, quit discussing the weekend, the hot new clerk in Shipping, or the prospect of layoffs. Even if the call or conversation is really work-related (informing another staff member that the new shipment of extra-large widgets hasn’t arrived yet so we don’t have any on the shelves right now), the customer needs to come first. Make eye contact (as above) and end the other matter at once.

Each customer should feel that they have been noticed, that they will have your attention soon, and that during that time they will be your primary focus.

Helpfulness

All of us have had the experience, on the customer side of the counter, of being either smothered with attention or wandering lost and alone. We want someone to pick up on our signals and act appropriately.

As a salesperson (or library assistant, waitperson, etc.) you can learn to read minds. Yes, it can be done. Offer initial assistance, then ask if you can help; if the answer is “No, I haven’t quite made up my mind,” or the old standby “I’m just looking around,” then say “Just let me know when you’re ready” or “Let me know if I can help you find something.”

And then, you don’t forget about this customer. If I sit staring at the menu for ten minutes maybe I need to be asked, “Would you like to hear about our specials today?” or “Can I tell you more about any of these lunches?”––and not in a tone of “Would you please get on with it!” Restaurant staff are usually much better at this than retail staff, since turning the tables over in restaurants is so important. In a store, people searching the shelves or aisles in vain for what they need have a certain look, which you don’t have to be a master of human expression to recognize.

Make your interchanges genuine. What you say, how you say it, body language, all can have a positive or negative effect. One of my pet peeves is the “drive-by wait-person” who asks, while rushing past our table, “Everything okay here?” And if it’s not? If my hamburger is raw inside or I need more water, do I have the impression that this person has time to care? Waiting table can be a high-stress job with a lot of things to juggle at once, but if you’re going to talk to me, please stop, face me, make eye contact, and then talk.

At the store’s cash register, as you are asking me whether everything was okay, and did I find what I needed, same thing: make eye contact, take that extra 5 seconds to see me, and then listen and respond to what I say. I like it better, and you may get valuable information: there’s no ground beef left at the meat counter, I couldn’t find what I came in for and am heading elsewhere for my main purchase, the directional signage is wrong and I’m ticked off, somebody spilled coffee all over your bin of blue widgets.

When there’s “nothing to do”

Most jobs have slow times: no customers, no calls, waiting for a part to arrive or for someone else to do something. In work that’s mentally or physically demanding you need little bits of rest. But, especially in retail or public service, there really are things to do even when––especially when––the store or restaurant is quiet and the phone isn’t ringing. This is your chance to make the coming busy times easier for yourself, and improve the service you are able to offer. Some of it’s obvious: fill the condiment containers, put away the unsold merchandise that has made its way to the counter, check your supplies, replace the cash register tape, tidy things up. That’s the kind of thing a boss will be pleased not to have to remind you about.

There’s more that’s not as obvious: you need to know a lot about whatever goods or services you are in charge of, so look over the stock, check out the new stuff, notice that you now have some of those special items someone asked about last week, ask the cook about today’s soup (or even taste it!). Find the answers to questions you haven’t been able to answer, and next time you won’t have to consult someone else or confess ignorance. Have the answer that will help the customer, and result in a sale. “I need something for a baby shower, but she already has 2 kids.” “How do you use this chutney stuff, can I use it for a marinade?” “All these dry dog foods are confusing, what are the differences?” “Can I do my taxes online here at the library?” “What’s a good flowering plant for a shady location?” “I need some left-handed scissors.” This can be an enjoyable part of your job, learning more to help people toward what they are looking for.

And if your store hasn’t got those left-handed scissors, or your restaurant doesn’t have a wide vegetarian menu, you’ll earn the customer’s gratitude by being able to suggest an alternative, or even another place that has what’s needed. I had to return a plastic lap desk (for a laptop) to an office store because it just wasn’t adequate, and nothing else they had was any better. I won’t forget that the staff person recommended a big book store to me as a good place to look; I would never have thought of going there and was getting tired of the search. I followed the tip and found what I wanted. Now, I think of that office store as a more helpful place, and I’m more likely to go there instead of to their competitor. An interchange can be very successful (in terms of your business) even if it doesn’t result in a sale.

Personal Satisfaction

This is the part about what’s in it for you, if you change your attitude and behavior so customers leave feeling good about their experience in your workplace.

Now, it’s obvious that you are very likely to increase your own chances of success at work by doing this, whether you own your own business or are an entry-level employee someplace.

What if your boss is an SOB who only cares about the bottom line, treats customers and staff poorly, and is never going to die or retire in time for you to benefit? Sounds like a good place to move on from, and if you understand and can express good principles of customer service, you have an advantage in the coming job interviews. The surly or spaced-out shirker isn’t at the head of anyone’s hiring list.

Deciding to look for ways to be better at what you do is not equivalent to resigning yourself to being at your present job forever. Just the opposite, in fact; bad attitude and bad performance are not attractive to potential new employers. Nor are they conducive to promotion (except in the financial industry and high-level corporate management).

Beyond that though, is another realm of benefit entirely. It actually is true that if you work at doing your job well you are very likely to feel better about it. That is not a falsehood spread by the capitalist bosses, it’s a psychological fact. If you don’t think your own job is worth doing well, then you are telling yourself that every moment at work is a waste of time, something to be resented and avoided. In other words, “Over half of my waking life is worthless.” If you don’t have any sense of satisfaction except when you manage to work as little as possible, you go home feeling pretty crappy about all those hours and effort, and about yourself.

And now, a word to the “capitalist bosses”

Most of what I have written has been addressed more to employees, but it is employers who set the tone of their businesses, and they have a lot to lose if staff are providing poor customer service. If that is the case at the business you run, don’t blame your the people who work for you––train them, encourage them, and set a good example including in your behavior to the employees themselves.

This may only be possible in small businesses, since larger ones get drawn astray by greed, ego, and isolation of management from the product and customers. Management starts to think that the end product is money, and they start viewing everyone else in the world as either tools or fools. Employees are tools to be used, customers are fools to be scammed. But we always hear that small businesses generate most of the new jobs in the US, so if they can accept a model based on good products, good customer service, good treatment of employees, then that will be a significant change.

Our current economic debacle can be directly traced to poor practices on the part of those in charge, whether they were causing bad loans to be made, or failing to listen to consumers when designing cars. Greed is always a pyramid scheme: it pays off only if you bail out at the right time. A risky business model, that: it’s really just gambling (with other peoples’ money).

If you’re in business, you have customers. Act toward their greater satisfaction, strive to do what you do better than anyone else, take a long-term point of view, keep your debt down, and invest in your employees. You may not end up with the biggest widget company in the world, but you are likely to be still operating when the big guys have vanished in debt and disgrace.

Economic crisis: the farce goes on

We stopped the TV for a few minutes just now on CNBC’s “House of Cards”, a “special” about the mortgage bubble. The program is denouncing and exposing fraud and greed on the part of mortgage companies, brokers, and, yes, some homeowners.

Whew! Sure glad we’ve put all that behind us, now we just have to recover and clear up the mess.

Then there’s a commercial. Guess who one of the sponsors is? DiTech, whose obnoxious ads over the past few years lured in many a homeowner or would-be homeowner, for shady loans. They’re baaaack!

And DiTech is run by GMAC, the General Motors financing arm founded to provide loans to purchasers of their cars. Could the huge losses which DiTech/GMAC must have sustained possibly contribute to the financial pickle General Motors is now in? and for which they are asking a taxpayer bailout?

I’m shocked, do you understand, shocked!

Contagious happiness?

Are we so hungry for meaning in our chaotic world, that mere association is automatically assumed to be proof of a cause and effect relationship? Again and again, the media seizes upon research results (sometimes with the eager cooperation of the researchers) and touts them as proof that A causes B.

Latest in this parade of dubious connexions is the study which found that happy people tend to know a lot of other happy people, and the more happy people in your circles of acquaintance, the happier you are. Ergo, knowing happy people makes you happier!

An article about the study says:

The scientists found that a person’s happiness is most likely to boost the happiness levels in people closest to him — spouses, relatives, neighbors, and friends.

But, if one person is happy, that increases the chances of happiness in a friend living within a mile by 25 percent. The “cascade” effect, as the researchers put it, continues: a friend of the friend has almost a 10 percent higher likelihood of being happy, and a friend of that friend has a 5.6 percent increased chance.

In the other words, one person’s happiness can spread outward through three degrees of separation. Those at the center of such circles may be people that “you have never met. But their mood can have a profound effect on your own mood,” Fowler said.

Fig 1 Happiness clusters in the Framingham social network. Graphs show largest component of friends, spouses, and siblings at exam 6 (centred on year 1996, showing 1181 individuals) and exam 7 (year 2000, showing 1020 individuals). Each node represents one person (circles are female, squares are male). Lines between nodes indicate relationship (black for siblings, red for friends and spouses). Node colour denotes mean happiness of ego [individual being studied] and all directly connected (distance 1) alters [alters are persons connected to the ego, potentially influencing the behaviour of the ego], with blue shades indicating least happy and yellow shades indicating most happy (shades of green are intermediate).

Figure (reduced here) and caption are from the full article, in the British Medical Journal.

The original article’s abstract says in part,

Results Clusters of happy and unhappy people are visible in the network, and the relationship between people’s happiness extends up to three degrees of separation (for example, to the friends of one’s friends’ friends). People who are surrounded by many happy people and those who are central in the network are more likely to become happy in the future. Longitudinal statistical models suggest that clusters of happiness result from the spread of happiness and not just a tendency for people to associate with similar individuals. A friend who lives within a mile (about 1.6 km) and who becomes happy increases the probability that a person is happy by 25% (95% confidence interval 1% to 57%). Similar effects are seen in coresident spouses (8%, 0.2% to 16%), siblings who live within a mile (14%, 1% to 28%), and next door neighbours (34%, 7% to 70%). Effects are not seen between coworkers. The effect decays with time and with geographical separation.

Conclusions People’s happiness depends on the happiness of others with whom they are connected. This provides further justification for seeing happiness, like health, as a collective phenomenon.

So that’s clear: happiness is somehow “contagious”! By this line of reasoning, we could investigate the contagious effects of race, profession, sports fanaticism, and most anything else. I must have become white (and stayed that way) because nearly all my friends are white; a lawyer is a lawyer because he or she knows so many lawyers, and so on.

On a certain level, I have no argument with the direct “contagiousness” of positive emotion: it certainly cheers one up to be around smiling ebullient people. I still remember a dark rainy day, decades ago, when I was walking gloomily across my college campus and passed someone smiling and carrying a bright bouquet of flowers. It actually did change my mood, I smiled back and was bumped out of my self-absorbed thoughts. But then, the same effect might well have resulted from other stimuli that are enjoyable to me: seeing a horse running in a field, reading something that introduced a new idea, even coming in out of the rain into a warm inviting place. And if I do things often enough that elevate my mood, I will probably be in fact be happier than if I do the opposite: but these are choices, not influences beyond my control.

When it comes to a person’s close associates, surely Pollyanna chooses to hang around mostly with other cheerful folks, rather than letting Cassandra or Gloomy Gus bring her down. Perhaps really unhappy people are hard to be around and don’t share the interests and types of conversations that are common to happy people. Some people have truly terrible experiences dealt them by fate, and are unhappy; with others you feel like a good kick in the pants to get them out of being so self-centered would go along way toward changing their mood; either way, it seems entirely reasonable that the positive happy busy people tend to associate more with others of their own “type”. What was that result of an ancient sociological study? Oh yes: “Birds of a feather flock together”. The data has been lost but the conclusion has survived.

Some of the dots on the graph are family, who may be viewed as unchosen associates. Or are they? Do we know if the researchers counted that grumpy cousin I don’t like and never see (though she lives only five miles away)? And other studies have shown that there are genetic factors influencing traits such as agreeableness and extroversion which may be associated with degree of happiness. So, if happy people tend to have happy sibs and cousins, this could be caused more by shared genetically-influenced traits than by their “contagious” influence on one another.

And, in a long-term study of human behavior like this one (twenty years), some less happy people who are around happier people may indeed benefit from the activities, the “vibes”, may even learn better behavior or learn how to fake it…but those who don’t will tend to drop away from the setting where they feel out of place. Or won’t be invited so often because they “just don’t seem to enjoy our dinners or outings”. So over time people settle out into groups they feel comfortable with. This can’t be really big news. Animal-study researchers don’t count many fervid PETA members among their circles of friends and close acquaintances, and vice versa. There’s a cause and effect here all right but it may not be the one being alleged in this study.

I should admit the obvious, that I don’t understand regression analysis and the other statistical tools that are used to verify the significance of associations in studies like this one. However, I don’t think it matters. We’re not talking about whether the associations exist, but about what they mean.

This is, of course, the weakness with observational studies as opposed to experimental ones. All the observer can say is what was observed; cause and effect relationships are speculative in all but the simplest of situations (dropping things off a tower, for example: Yes! they fall because they were dropped!). In this case, an experimental study might try to find a way to cause happy and unhappy people to hang around together for months or years and see what the results are. But how can this be done without denying people freedom of association, which is a factor in happiness? We could pay them to gather together, but what about those for whom no money is enough to make tolerable the company of such damnably cheerful/such oppressively dismal folks? Individuals have even been known to change jobs because they couldn’t stand the people they worked with.

Figuring out complicated things just can’t be as easy as the media, and perhaps some scientists, would wish. And in this discussion, we haven’t even gotten to evaluating the definition of “happiness”!