> (I personally don't mind subsidizing my library + local school district... good schools and libraries are good for the community)
Just sharing random coffee break thoughts... it always blows my mind is how many people _don't_ think like this. When base conditions improve for society, the conditions improve for _everyone_ regardless if they directly benefit you.
I'm also in the boat where I don't have kids, but I'd also like to live in a place that has educated people - so schools make perfect sense to me. Heck, even if I didn't benefit from it, providing children education is just the gosh-darn right thing to do.
It's just lack of trust. It's not that people want a worse community, it's that they have a hard time believing that taking extra money from their paycheck will create a better community.
Part of it is real; seeing massive amounts of state/local government waste and corruption makes it feel safer to keep your extra dollars instead of giving them away.
Part of it is difficulty evaluating timelines; more tax dollars for a better elementary school to be built in 3 years and to yield higher educated people 18 years from now it a lot to bet on.
IMO it's because there's both benefit and waste/corruption in these kinds of social benefit structures. some people choose to only see one or the other:
"these benefit everyone including those who don't use them directly! how could you be against it?"
"this money that I'm having to pay is either overpaid to corrupt vendors, or just straight wasted, why would we ever want to increase how much we're paying into this system?"
in reality you can't have one without the other. it's up to each person to decide whether they can take the bad with the good
Yes, universal health will start saving money even during the first transition year. We spend almost 1/3 or more of those total health dollars on billing administration. That amount surpasses the uninsured number. And the reality is if we can get medical care during the daytime, eventually emergency rooms might get less hectic. My hope is that more days than not ER personell have to pass the time like at a Firehouse.
Often, corporate culture is more about maintaining status-quo vs. actually achieving or organizing efforts. People often just want to hear themselves talk, stroke their ego, and position/politic. As an IC/leader/owner this can be _so_ annoying.
Anecdotally - this happens at the majority of places/teams/situations unless it's a very small, and coherent team.
Love these slides, hard agree on _all_ points. But, be absolutely certain on the culture before you start declining meetings, even if for valid reasons like outlined in this presentation. Declining meetings can be seen as a negative, "not a team player", thing... and, I really have to be certain on my leadership, the company, and the context before I push back on someone wanting my time. Even if their request for my time was arbitrary, or useless.
Yep! And, I send that exact message/email all the time in good faith. But, even with that - if someone just wants to talk, trying to nail them down on a topic can be _seen_ as obstructive, even though it's productive. Unfortunately, lots of people who schedule meetings just want to talk with not much outcome.
I'm being pedantic, but my experienced inverse of these slides is that meetings are the "social" part of work. It really really depends on the company, the leadership, the people. But, sometimes - it's more in your professional interest to talk about + market the work vs. actually doing it.
In my experience, sometimes the job is just to talk and socialize — eg, with sister teams or stakeholders.
For my own sanity, I at least try to accurately label those… which is how my calendar usually fills with “1:1”, “coffee”, “sync”, etc. Maybe it’s pedantic, but the accurate labels help my sanity by letting me know which meetings I can show up without prep, a coffee and cookie, and push if things get busy.
'Member when a major crypto exchange, which had original been a market place for Magic the Gathering cards (so it was not a mountain named Gox), was hacked and everyone's crypto stolen because the owner had implemented his own SSH server in PHP?
And, furthermore - being a "noisy Nancy" is often a bad move for your career, socially. As I age, I realize it's more important to get along in most corporate/professional settings than it is to be the person fixing things.
All work represents a social entity (person/persons) and when you're the one calling out issues, pushing for proactive measures, and pushing against bad practices/complexity you're typically taking issue with _someone's_ work along the way. This is often seen as a "squeaky wheel" or "noisy Nancy" - or hell, outright antisocial. Most of the time it is not in your best interest to be this person.
The people who keep their nose down + mouth shut, those who prioritize marketing their work, and the sycophants are the ones who have longevity and upward trajectory - this is corporate America work culture.
> were in people's tiny apartments, small rented houses, and small yards
Anymore this feels impossible due to neighbors, landlords, and police. I have so many anecdotes... I don't think it's "getting ready" as much as it's an intolerant society of chronically entitled people. Also, it's increasingly expensive to go out + I truly believe we're experiencing the destruction of "3rd places"
My 20's had a good amount of that too... but it was increasingly at odds with real consequence and risk. I'm just safer at home with my SO, in my space. It's getting much worse for younger generations :(
Anecdotal of course, but even when I accidentally ran over a squirrel I _immediately_ noticed. Running a _person_ over and _dragging them_... well I think I would realize.
Obviously this is some serious arm-chair speculation so take it with a grain of salt.
> When people perceive one school to be better than another
Often there's more to it than just perception. My parents moved to a smaller suburb so my brother and I could attend schools with higher standardized test scores, lower class sizes, less violent incidents, more extracurricular activities, and ultimately _a lot_ more funding. Both districts were public. They made this decision looking at publicly accessible data in the 80s/90s.
Looking back, it was objectively one of the best decisions they made for our future... if not the best.
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Sure - address fraud is very common in regards to getting your kid to a better education opportunity but when there are stark, vast differences between districts I have a hard time blaming people. Especially given my anecdotal experience.
> Sure - address fraud is very common in regards to getting your kid to a better education opportunity but when there are stark, vast differences between districts I have a hard time blaming people. Especially given my anecdotal experience.
Indeed, a friend of mine in elementary school was one example; his grandparents lived down the street from me, and his parents were in a terrible school district.
Ope.. getting hung up on the statement "perception has a correlation with reality." Reality is the way things are, and perception is quintessentially subjective. It is not guaranteed that perception correlates with reality - just spend 10 minutes with my family for this lesson.
I argue the difference between school districts in the US is not perception, as it is not subjective - it is fact. It is reality. This is something that has been so extensively studied I wish all of us could accept it as fact.
Sorry to get hung up on a word. I find that people making these decisions aren't typically doing it from a subjective place -- they're making data-driven decisions to maximize their child's opportunities.
Just sharing random coffee break thoughts... it always blows my mind is how many people _don't_ think like this. When base conditions improve for society, the conditions improve for _everyone_ regardless if they directly benefit you.
I'm also in the boat where I don't have kids, but I'd also like to live in a place that has educated people - so schools make perfect sense to me. Heck, even if I didn't benefit from it, providing children education is just the gosh-darn right thing to do.