Venice has Issues

Venice is an attractive, middle-aged woman who cuts hair in an old-fashioned barber shop in Portland. She cut my hair a few months ago when I was visiting and did such a good job that I made a point of going back the next time I was in town.

When I slipped into her chair I remembered vaguely that she'd mentioned that she had a new relationship going with her postman, so I asked if her letter carrier was still making special deliveries.

She sighed and said the relationship was on hold because he had “trust issues.”

“You mean he's a jealous asshole?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she said and starting snipping at my hair before she stopped herself, stepped back and asked how I wanted my hair cut. She was obviously having concentration issues.

Later that day I stepped inside a bank to report that the walk-up ATM machine wasn't working. The teller closest to the door shrugged her shoulders and said, “It's a new machine last week and it's been having issues ever since it was installed.”

So now I'm having issues with the whole issues issue. It seems like nobody confronts problems or acts badly these day, they just have issues.

Bullies have self-esteem issues. Drug addicts are burdened with dependency issues. I suppose serial killers are just dealing with life-taking issues.

Like many things, once you become sensitive to them, you start to see them everywhere. The other day I stopped into a neighborhood pub and found a nice-looking older woman named Rose holding down the stool next to me.

Rose, I quickly discovered, suffers from both “unemployed senior issues” and "latching onto strangers at bars issues”; but she was a good soul and I told her as much while I gulped my beer, then ran like a guy with "afraid to look back to see if he is being followed issues.”

I'm old enough to remember when people didn't have issues, children had disorders (“Oppositional Defiant Disorder”, “Attention Deficit\Hyperactivity Disorder”, etc.), often caused by genetic or physical problems; but adult problems without physical roots were complexes or syndromes. Post-first marriage baby-boomer men suffered from “Peter Pan Complex” and disillusioned women had a choice of either “Wendy Complex” or “Cinderella Syndrome.”

The diagnoses sounded to me like descriptions of behavior rather than symptoms of a disease, but people I knew talked as if it was because of their syndrome that they acted immature, too bossy, or had unrealistic expectations for relationships.

At the time, a psychologist friend of mine – who'd started seeing a lot of clients suffering from dysfunctions with Disney character names – told me he had identified a new dysfunction that he called: “Rumpelstiltskin Syndrome.” As he defined it, it is any anxiety-related condition which begins to clear up as soon as a therapist gives it a name.

I have no issue with that.

Too Many Different Kinds of Things

My favorite piece of advice for aspiring managers has always been, “Never admit that you know how to clear a jam in a photocopier.” It's something that invites even the lowliest employee to delegate grunt work to you.

It's perfectly logical, but I always enjoyed clearing my own jams, and creating my own spreadsheets, databases, and websites. When a new piece of software or hardware came into the workplace I'd always curl up with the manual until I mastered it. When a new programming language came out, I'd buy some books and take them with me camping on an isolated stretch of the Rogue River or at the fire tower overlooking the Three Sisters in central Oregon. I found it an exciting union of technology and nature.

But as time passed, my non-technical job responsibilities grew and new hardware and software started coming out faster than I could learn it; printed manuals disappeared, and instructions started being given in pay-to-play “webinars” -- a bastard of a word if ever there was one. Still, I hate not knowing how to take something apart and put it back together – at least in theory.

I remember attending a panel discussion where several great minds debated the relative merits of scientists having broad general knowledge versus in-depth command of a narrow area of study. The moment in that discussion which stands out in my memory came when one of the participants quoted a British academic chiding a confused colleague by saying, “The trouble with you sir, is you know too many different kinds of the things.”

The trouble with having too much technical knowledge is that it's tempting to spend your time clearing jams in copy machines instead of creating content, programming spreadsheets instead of running a business, or learning a new computing device instead of writing the great American novel. 

When I had a business that created custom software, I found that the hardest part wasn't writing the program, it was figuring out what the client wanted to do. It wasn't unusual to be in the initial meeting and have someone say, “What we need is a form with two drop-down boxes, a set of check boxes and a button . . .”

After the fourth or fifth time I confronted that kind of thing I started interrupting with, “Before we start talking how we're going to feed this thing, tell me what you want to come out of its ass end.” Often, it would take hours to figure out what the client really wanted, because they had been so focused on the tools rather than tasks.

If I had to divide people into two categories I would say there are: (1) Technicians – people who are fascinated with tools, and (2) Architects – people with a vision that cannot become reality without the use of tools. (There are also politicians, but I'll deal with them another time.)

Technicians always have the coolest toys and the best home entertainment centers, but most people's eyes glaze over as soon as they start talking.

Architects tend to do well at cocktail parties, but you can't sleep in a castle built of dreams.

The real danger of being too much the architect and too little the technician is falling prey to technicians who believe their ability to control the plumbing is a license to control the creative forces in society.

Several years ago I had a client who returned from a professional association conference with the pronouncement, “I'm convinced that within five years our whole business will be Internet-driven.”

I asked, “So what's driving it now? Telephones? Fax Machines?”

The Internet is, of course, just a data delivery system. Like airports and highways, it enables things to move around, but doesn't drive anything.

A pure technician sees a tool and looks for a problem it can solve. The danger in that is, as psychologist Abraham Maslow observed, “If the only thing in your toolbox is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”

A pure architects sees a problem, thinks up a solution, then tries to find tools that will fit the solution. Architects and technicians need each other, but while an architect's hands may be on the steering wheel, technicians control the throttle and the brakes.

To offer a first-hand example: In the county government I work for there's an ongoing struggle for control of the budget between the elected official that controls the accounting software that holds the budget data and the appointed official to whom the county charter delegates responsibility for making budget decisions.

The appointed official can hold his breath until he turns blue, but nothing gets entered into the budget program until the independent department head approves. The result has been the creation of a parallel budgeting system – which, of course – adds another technical gatekeeper into mix.

How does one find a balance between the dreamers and the keepers of the tools?

Please don't look to me for an easy answer. I'm afraid that I know too many different kinds of things.

The Empty Page

It's been so long since I've put words on paper,

that I'm afraid that my words may have

become bored with me and fled to younger

more energetic minds.

I see young men and women

that look like children to me,

producing plays,

creating songs,

writing parody and farce;

with the thoughts and

restless lust for life

that I once owned, as if

I'd let them go for pennies

at a yard sale.

Writing is scribbling on a page
until the scribbles map
a corner of the writer's soul.

An empty page is

an unforgiving mirror.