Musing on Superman

I was thinking about Superman on the drive in to work this morning, and it occurred to me that Barack Obama seems to have the same failing as everyone's favourite Kryptonian superhero.*

The problem is the comic book adage: Truth, Justice and the American Way. It's all well and good to be in favour of those things, but the fact of the matter is that Western culture, or "the American Way", if you will, is founded on the concepts of Deception, Abuse of Power and Acquisitiveness.

Similarly, Obama's slogan "Change you can believe in" becomes "as much of the status quo as required to keep the lobbyists from pulling their funding."

It's sad, and something that my lovely wife and I talk about on a regular basis, as we're both disenchanted by the current state of discourse and lack of trustworthy government. Unfortunately, we also lack the wherewithal required to successfully run for office.

So the question becomes: what can I do to make the world a better place? How do I emulate Superman in my everyday life?*

So I'm starting with my own acquisitiveness. I've decided that I no longer need to receive gifts at gift-giving holidays. I have the financial wherewithal to have pretty much anything I want, or at least anything that I could reasonably expect for a birthday or Christmas gift. So I mentioned to my wife that anyone asking her for gift ideas for my upcoming birthday should be told to donate to a worthy cause whatever they were going to spend on my gift.

I'm not intending to be a jerk about it, or try to make people feel guilty that buy me stuff. ("Thanks for the sweater, Mom. I'll send it to a starving child in Africa.") But anyone who asks, I'll tell them that I don't need anything, and a donation in my name is what I want.

Hopefully, this starts a trend in my immediate circle of family and friends that spreads outward.




*(I was going to make a "suck it!" joke to the other Kryptonian superheros, but they're both female, so it doesn't really work without being creepy. Sadly, "in your face!" has the same effect.)

The Pluses and Minuses of Furniture Rearrangement

In this world, there are people who like to change the furniture around from time to time. I am one of those people. My wife is not. Her belief is that the placement of furniture in a room is something that is a matter of discerning the best way to set a room, and doing that. And never changing it again.

I, on the other hand, view the arrangement of furniture as a quest for unobtainable perfection. There are many factors to consider, and different factors carry different priorities over time, so it makes sense to shuffle things around once in a while.

In this case, I'm going to talk about the furniture in my office. When I took my job, the furniture was in place, and that was that. The previous manager had placed everything where it seemed to work best, and left it at that. And it seemed to me that in the space that I had, I would have to live with it. A couple of years later, about a year ago, there was a nasty rain and wind storm that drove the rain through my skylight and filled the paper tray of my printer with water. That became the catalyst for a new office arrangement. I had already been itching to change things: the previous layout had both windows of my office almost entirely covered by file cabinets, and I like my natural light.

So I made the change. The printer moved from below the skylight, and the cabinet it stood on moved away from the window. The other cabinet moved to by the door. However, this ended up with a couple of things I didn't like. First, using the all-in-one printer/photocopier/fax meant squeezing into a 16-inch gap between the printer and the wall, and the alcove beyond it became the wasteland for junk that I had no place for. Also, I didn't like the aesthetic of all the furniture being against the same wall. And I still was stuck looking at the vending machines and avoiding eye contact with people waiting in line for the ticket window just past my door.

After a while, I started to feel the itch; it was getting to be time to change the office. I wanted to open my window, which meant squeezing past the printer. I still didn't like the printer placement. The file cabinet by the door became increasingly oppressive, and I never used any of the files in it anyway. Finally, I was stuck working a weekend for one of my staff, which I took as a sign to change it up again. Now the bulk of the work is done, and I am down one file cabinet, which I moved into storage, and my desk is facing away from the door. The printer is easy to get at for both me and the part-time staff who need to use it. And I'm no longer looking out the office door, but instead face the mostly unobstructed windows.

So far the biggest down side is that I can't see the door from where I am, so people who come into my office have to call for my attention. And I've moved my guest chair to a spot that works for being able to talk to people at my desk, but requires that I move it to get at the window. So my junk alcove continues to exist. On the other hand, I like the layout much better, and the room feels much bigger and more inviting.

And 6-8 months from now, we're going to be renovating, so I'm going to have to change it again then anyway...

... and I'm looking forward to it.