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My voting advice
5 years ago
Don't do it first. Do it better.
If you want to skip over the politics, I feel your pain. I go here to either take a break from politics or mock them before going back to my business. But events both in and out of work lately have worn down my filters and inhibitions.
"Every four years" seems to come earlier and be more exhausting with each passing segment of time. I can't tell people how to vote, which is probably a good thing, but I can offer one bit of advice:
The presidential election is probably the LEAST important decision on the ballot, which is just as well because it's probably the decision over which you have the least control. What's more important is who's leading you on a more local, personal level.
I say this not just because it's true, or at least the first sentence is. I say it also from not just seeing comparable things, but from LIVING them for the last eight-odd years.
At my previous job, every few years, there was some change in company: The section I worked for broke off and formed its own company, then it merged with a couple others. Both times, nothing meaningful changed and I could contentedly keep going about my business because people I knew I could trust and not just work FOR, but work WITH, were guiding us.
Then, a couple years after THAT, the firm that hired us wanted a new company to come in. This happened for reasons that had nothing to do with our performance, in fact, they loved us and wanted as many of us as possible to stay. But my boss and my boss's boss, for separate reasons, didn't remain in those roles. I told my boss's boss in a letter I handwrote for her for her last day that through the changes in company names, I never had any doubt that we would get along just fine because she was still at the helm. I wrote my boss a similar letter for his last day of being my boss. I speak from a lot of experience when I say I wasn't wrong to feel that way.
For a while, things stayed mostly on track. In my case, even though I was now in more of a leadership role than before (unofficially but someone had to do it), I was able to keep things pretty well together because I was lucky enough to have maybe the single best coworker I've ever had still working with me.
And then...things got bad. I needed help, and the people I was now supposed to go to...didn't really help. I did my damnedest to keep it going and not let the customers know, but every day I wondered if a breaking point would be hit. For some half a year, I felt like I had nobody to turn to when I needed it anymore.
The higher-ups in the company? They weren't gonna help. They weren't there. They had bigger concerns, and I don't really blame them for it: I'll give them enough benefit of the doubt to believe they were actually doing the company-running stuff (which I don't wanna do so why would I blame them for it?) while we were doing the frontline work.
Several times, it was suggested by one of the people I asked for help to go to one of those higher-ups. I knew we couldn't go to her for help because she couldn't see things at our level. It wasn't her job to see things at our level. She saw things at a higher level, and that's good because we needed someone who could do that: While we handle what's going on at our level (the day-to-day work and our immediate surroundings), she was watching for stuff coming our way that she was better able to see because it's either bigger or above the metaphorical treeline. People in high positions can know mundane things and vice versa, especially if they started at the bottom, but I wouldn't go to, say, someone on the board of directors at a big lumber company and expect them to know anything beyond the basics of how their company turns trees into lumber. Again, I speak from experience when I say I knew that wasn't the answer, and continued experience suggests I was right to say so.
So, finally, I had enough, and I left. Now I have a much better relationship with my peers and those directly above me. I'm still learning the ropes, but I want to get better because I want them to feel like they can count on me; they've already done a great job of teaching and encouraging me, and that's improved my performance. It's the mutually beneficial relationship I lost and we, and consequently our company, are better off for it.
I've seen these kinds of relationships repeated over and over in my own life and others, reality and fiction alike, in all kinds of settings. We want our leaders to be good ones, however we define that, but it's not like they have any more time in their days than we do, so they can't pay attention to all of us at once. What's more, most of us don't meaningfully influence who's more than a few steps above us on the ladder, and quite often, we don't have to, especially when we have someone looking out for us closer to our own levels and who we want to look out for in turn.
Who are your senators? Your representatives? Your mayors and governors? Your judges? Your...anyone else on a lower level who has a say in what goes on around you on a day-to-day basis? Who COULD they be?
"Think globally, act locally" is more than just a saying. But thinking locally isn't so bad either, especially when acting locally is the best you can do...and it affects more than you might think.
"Every four years" seems to come earlier and be more exhausting with each passing segment of time. I can't tell people how to vote, which is probably a good thing, but I can offer one bit of advice:
The presidential election is probably the LEAST important decision on the ballot, which is just as well because it's probably the decision over which you have the least control. What's more important is who's leading you on a more local, personal level.
I say this not just because it's true, or at least the first sentence is. I say it also from not just seeing comparable things, but from LIVING them for the last eight-odd years.
At my previous job, every few years, there was some change in company: The section I worked for broke off and formed its own company, then it merged with a couple others. Both times, nothing meaningful changed and I could contentedly keep going about my business because people I knew I could trust and not just work FOR, but work WITH, were guiding us.
Then, a couple years after THAT, the firm that hired us wanted a new company to come in. This happened for reasons that had nothing to do with our performance, in fact, they loved us and wanted as many of us as possible to stay. But my boss and my boss's boss, for separate reasons, didn't remain in those roles. I told my boss's boss in a letter I handwrote for her for her last day that through the changes in company names, I never had any doubt that we would get along just fine because she was still at the helm. I wrote my boss a similar letter for his last day of being my boss. I speak from a lot of experience when I say I wasn't wrong to feel that way.
For a while, things stayed mostly on track. In my case, even though I was now in more of a leadership role than before (unofficially but someone had to do it), I was able to keep things pretty well together because I was lucky enough to have maybe the single best coworker I've ever had still working with me.
And then...things got bad. I needed help, and the people I was now supposed to go to...didn't really help. I did my damnedest to keep it going and not let the customers know, but every day I wondered if a breaking point would be hit. For some half a year, I felt like I had nobody to turn to when I needed it anymore.
The higher-ups in the company? They weren't gonna help. They weren't there. They had bigger concerns, and I don't really blame them for it: I'll give them enough benefit of the doubt to believe they were actually doing the company-running stuff (which I don't wanna do so why would I blame them for it?) while we were doing the frontline work.
Several times, it was suggested by one of the people I asked for help to go to one of those higher-ups. I knew we couldn't go to her for help because she couldn't see things at our level. It wasn't her job to see things at our level. She saw things at a higher level, and that's good because we needed someone who could do that: While we handle what's going on at our level (the day-to-day work and our immediate surroundings), she was watching for stuff coming our way that she was better able to see because it's either bigger or above the metaphorical treeline. People in high positions can know mundane things and vice versa, especially if they started at the bottom, but I wouldn't go to, say, someone on the board of directors at a big lumber company and expect them to know anything beyond the basics of how their company turns trees into lumber. Again, I speak from experience when I say I knew that wasn't the answer, and continued experience suggests I was right to say so.
So, finally, I had enough, and I left. Now I have a much better relationship with my peers and those directly above me. I'm still learning the ropes, but I want to get better because I want them to feel like they can count on me; they've already done a great job of teaching and encouraging me, and that's improved my performance. It's the mutually beneficial relationship I lost and we, and consequently our company, are better off for it.
I've seen these kinds of relationships repeated over and over in my own life and others, reality and fiction alike, in all kinds of settings. We want our leaders to be good ones, however we define that, but it's not like they have any more time in their days than we do, so they can't pay attention to all of us at once. What's more, most of us don't meaningfully influence who's more than a few steps above us on the ladder, and quite often, we don't have to, especially when we have someone looking out for us closer to our own levels and who we want to look out for in turn.
Who are your senators? Your representatives? Your mayors and governors? Your judges? Your...anyone else on a lower level who has a say in what goes on around you on a day-to-day basis? Who COULD they be?
"Think globally, act locally" is more than just a saying. But thinking locally isn't so bad either, especially when acting locally is the best you can do...and it affects more than you might think.
