Musings
The dynamics of large organizations are inherently dysfunctional.
The government is dysfunctional.
PRMS was dysfunctional. CSN was dysfunctional. CMU was unbearably dysfunctional. SmartDisk was entertainingly dysfunctional.
FGUC is also dysfunctional.
Every Tuesday at two I take a class called ‘Styles and Ways of Learning’. Although I find the class itself conceptually obnoxious, I’m amused and pleased to find that one of the texts for the course is concerned with downplaying the importance or rote memorization and mindless regurgitation in education.
Every Monday at 6:30 I take a call called ‘Introduction to Business’. Although I find the class itself conceptually appealing, I’m amused and dismayed to find that the teacher is the sort who basically stands in front of the class and reads from the text for the entire time. Furthermore, when she’s not reading from the text, she’s showing us the PowerPoint slides that came with the text, or the movies that came with the text, or mentioning the CD and web site that accompany the text. And to make matters worse, the text itself is a tech-bubble anachronism, filled with jeering about how the internet will change everything. There are actually sidebars talking about wonderful new dotcom companies that in this modern world of the future no longer exist. In fact there’s only one dotcom that the book seems down on… you guessed it, one of the very few still in existence: Amazon. It would be funny if it weren’t so sad. (I’m also amused to note how goddamned up the book is on GE, the company that’s lost me, what, four grand? over the last several years.)
How can these elements be logically reconciled? Don’t bother answering, it’s a rhetorical question.