Andy's Mind

As all men I hate household chores. There are of course variations in the intensity of this emotion, I can withstand dishwashing (although I swear I would buy a dishwasher some day) and washing is supportable (after all, I have a washing machine and the only task remaining is hanging the things to dry) but I positively hate cleaning and ironing. As most men I know (except those who were in the military) I not only don’t like ironing, I also can’t do it properly especially with shirts. It’s somehow too complex for me (I can hear you laughing there, lady, cut that!) so I just don’t do it. Vacuuming of course is not complex but I hate it too since childhood (it was one of my parent’s bright ideas to make me responsible for vacuum cleaning our home on Saturdays) – and so do my cats, who hide under the bed as soon as they see the vacuum cleaner being taken out of the closet.

Is there a point in all this whining, you ask? Yep! While doing one of those things, which are laborious but necessary it occurred to me that with the social change we underwent in 20th century we lost something without gaining anything in return. I’m referring to household staff.

Somewhere between 1901 and 2001 the household staff – maids, butlers, cooks etc. – disappeared from all but the most rich households. Somehow the idea of working as one is now seen as derogatory, below dignity of modern people. Conversely, having household staff is seen as funny, not modern, somehow snobbish etc. However, when I think of all the hours spent cleaning, washing, cooking and shopping for food and other basic items that even a simple, bachelor household requires I come to conclusion that having household staff was a good idea. All those hours each day I could devote to work, meditation or simply thinking if someone would take care of all those mundane tasks….

All great men from history books, especially my favorite chapters on history of science, didn’t waste their lives on cleaning their rooms. Do you think Pasteur did shop for his groceries? Did Liebig iron his shirts? Did Kierkegaard wash? Or maybe Newton cooked his breakfasts? No! All of them had household staff who ensured that they could have more productive hours each day (and, while we are at it – none of them commuted anywhere either).

However, they had the luck of living in times when household staff was a norm amongst what would be now called “middle class”. Granted, most people who also benefited from that by having more time each day wasted it, but that’s not the point.

OK, so by now any leftist who was able to read that much of this heresy would scream on top of his lungs “And what about those poor people who had to be servants or maids”! Well, in human society there is a considerable number of people who are not bright enough to do anything complex and are best at performing simple tasks. I know it’s not politically correct to say that openly, but that’s a fact. And this doesn’t mean those people are less human because of it. That’s just the way they were born, they are quite happy working in jobs that don’t require subtlety or intellect. What has changed is the location – they now work at numerous restaurants, bars and retail shops. Do you think work of a waiter or a cook at McDonalds or an attendant at a supermarket is that better a job than being a butler or a maid? It’s nature didn’t change, what changed is shortness of relation with the ones being served.

And, of course, in this area the promise of the 20th century was: “OK, so we won’t have household staff but it wouldn’t be necessary since we would have machines that would take the burden off our backs”. But it turns not to be true so far, because even the most complex machines we have can’t do what stupidest of housemaids could. We have dishwashers, but none of them is able to collect the dishes from the table. We have vacuum cleaners, but only recently it’s possible to buy one who would act on its own – and still in a very limited way… We have electric irons, but none of them is able to take the things out of the washing machine, iron them and then put them on the shelves. Same applies to all kinds of fancy kitchen tools, ironically called “robots” in some languages. And there is still nothing that would be able to arrange the things in a room, cook breakfast or clean windows.

So, unless the robotics would get to the point of creating androids that would indeed be capable of performing all those tasks I would go on missing household staff.

It was another Spanish class today and I was enjoying it even more than usual. I’m learning Spanish close to two years now, I’m now on C1 which means intermediate level in Cervantes Institute’s terminology. It means that I can now easily enjoy radio or TV understanding 80% of what is being said. Since my local cable operator removed the last Spanish TV channel two weeks ago I’m now left only with radio over the Internet when it comes to spoken Spanish. But there are some of them to choose from and some are quite interesting.

One that I like is Radio Klara from Valencia. Yesterday around this time they talked about the risks of genetically modified crops, today they have some HR (“recursos humanos”) consultants as guest and are discussing the orientation protocol or procedure for newly employed, how important it is for companies etc. Not very exciting in itself, but I’m excited because I can follow the discussion while at the same time typing this blog entry in English.

Yesterday I got myself into a discussion about Pinochet and the military coup in Chile in 1973 on a political site. I was able to quickly find some documents from the time that supported my arguments and even translate key parts easily for use in my posts. Oh, boy, was I happy.

I really feel that this new window on the world is opening for me thanks to getting my Spanish to the level when passive understanding is easy. Now, I’ve only to get my speaking and – most of all – writing up to that level. But now I’m pretty sure this will come with time too.

One of the things that happen in our world is increasing significance of various paperwork. Of course, the term “paperwork” shouldn’t be taken literarily since most documents of various kinds are processed electronically – and this strengthens this trend tremendously. In more and more places one has to present himself through various documents, either to identify himself or to prove his worth through various diplomas, certificates and the like. It has two aspects which I find particularly odious – limiting freedom and dehumanizing relations between people. While many concentrate on the former I’ve seen very few discussions of the later. And in my opinion the field in which dehumanization I’m referring to is most visible is hiring, mainly in large corporations.

We live in the age of, what I call, “database hiring” in which people seeking work are reduced to unidimensional records in recruiters’ databases. What so called “hiring managers” are looking for is not a complex individual but a set of skills easily expressible in numbers and short abbreviations. The numbers represent years of experience given candidate claims with desired list of narrowly defined skills, the abbreviations stand for various diplomas, titles or certificates are recorded next to a name and telephone in their database. Hiring therefore is nothing more than merely formulating and running a database query with the help of a more or less complex user interface.

The language reflects this change and right now “human resources” is used much more than “personnel” or “staff”. A “human resource” is just as any other resource in company’s books, it is bought, used and disposed of when necessary. It is reduced to numbers like salary, employee category, numerical evaluation of performance as well as absence etc. which can be processed to produce statistics, create rankings etc. An employee is as disposable and interchangeable as, say, a file server or a truck. When you need a new one you just specify the desired parameters, search the database and – voila! – you have your candidates.

Consequently, to get hired one has to be able to establish a visible presence in a candidates database, which can be achieved mainly through various diplomas and professional titles – the more the better. Market responds to the need and in addition to traditional, academic titles & diplomas we now have a myriad of certifications in almost any field imaginable along with dozens of titles like MCSE or PMP.

Of course, what I’m whining here about is justified by the conditions – the need to quickly react to the market conditions, fierce competition also amongst job seekers and – last but not least – systems, tools that make it the easiest way. And, indeed, all those diplomas and titles are an indication of something – although in most cases not of what they claim to guarantee. They show more than anything else one’s dedication to a certain career and willingness to play by the rules of the paperwork world.

However, this brave new world of “database recruiting” and “human resources” comes at a cost. First, it produces people who have lots of fancy credentials but are not able to perform in the real world. I’ve met some and I think everyone who had been in the trade long enough had. Second, it filters out people who are either self-learners or who have wide and diverse interests but are not very focused. Again, I think everyone can recall an example of both from his (or hers) own experience. Third, and most important loss, is that dehumanizing aspect of those practices which I mentioned. It’s more elusive, harder to define than other results but that doesn’t make it less real.

Interestingly, truly great companies have a quite different approach to both hiring and treating their people. Google is a shining example now, recruiting its people through complex problems publicly posted on the web – if someone is good enough to solve them he passes the first selection and is in the recruiting processes. Microsoft, in the days of its greatness, and Apple also used recruiters personally approaching suitable candidates rather than database queries.

But there are some good examples outside of IT. The best is of course Toyota whose good treatment of its workers is legendary – and both financial results and quality of their products show that this is a right way. And, most importantly, that there is another way than what the rest does.

Today my new site starts. It is supposed to be the hub that would connect various bits of my net presence. And of course main site for my blog, which is moved from Blogger.

Design is now complete, and I have to say I’m quite satisfied with the way it looks. Some more content will be added over time, especially a “professional” page aimed at potential employers and possibly something about the music I like.