Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Is It Worth Your Concern?


Abandoned Chin Tiki Restaurant-Detroit ( featured in the movie 8 Mile )
Originally uploaded by Derek Farr ( DetroitDerek )

John Moore has an ongoing series where he asks some simple questions about some very familiar brands. It's interesting to me because many times I have not thought about doing without many of them. Many have been such fixtures in our culture (Dairy Queen, UPS, and the NHL to name a select few) that we cannot imagine being without them.

That's the kind of change I was referring to in my previous post. There's not much we would be able to do if Dairy Queen or some other fixture in the fast-food culture were to suddenly disappear. Would it really mean that much to us if it did disappear? Of course you can take it one step further and ask the same thing about historical fixtures in this life. The Leaning Tower of Pisa, the Pyramids of Egypt, and so on. Would it really mean that much to us if they were to fade away? Then of course, we could go one step further. What about a loved one? All of us have lost loved ones and know the pain that comes from that loss. Of all these changes, which is really the most important to us? Which of these do we get upset about? Which of these should we get upset about?

Therein lies my point. Sometimes we grow upset, we protest, or we do everything in our power to fight changes that in the end do not matter. Instead of adapting and accepting them, we get up in arms. I've seen it time and again over some of the most minute of things.

  • A new dress code policy at work.
  • A renewed focus on attitude at work.
  • A new strategy at work.
Should we really have such an emotional bond to any of these things? Are they worth the headaches we incur by fighting them? If you have an improved solution, then by all means go for it, but in the grand scheme of things are the changes worth protesting?

Just some things to think about.

1 comment:

Chris said...

If your employer bombards you with issue after tedious issue, how long before you have to consider: "Is this job worthy of your concern?"

Sounds like a cul-de-sac to me... the trick is recognizing it in time.