Bow Before the Sacred Cow (moo.)

There is a term used in businesses and other organizations to indicate those things that are traditionally regarded as “untouchable” in terms of their being questioned or modified — the so-called, “sacred cows”.    (Borrowed from the Hindu religion.)  These have long been hindrances in business practices because people fail to explore why a particular practice or system is being used the way it is — they just assume that it’s The Way Things Must Be Done™.     However, it occurs to me that this isn’t only applicable to the working world, we have many steers and heifers wandering through our lives that we fail to examine or pay attention to, and we need to be willing to slaughter them in the name of progress, new ideas, and better wisdom if that is what’s required.

Think about your own life — what cows do you hold near and dear to your heart?    Here’s some areas where I see them in both my life and others:

Religion — Big one!   You knew it was going to be in here, didn’t you?    Those of you who read this blog regularly know that I’m a huge fan of questioning one’s religion and figuring out for yourself what really matters and what is simply bogus.    Holy cows roam free in the religious world where some practices and ideas stay the same for centuries or longer without any in-depth exploration.    Even simple things like, “What hymnal should we use?” can spark the, “Don’t kill my cow!” argument with great swaths of people popping up complaining about the possible change, citing history as a precedent.    “It worked for my grandmother, why should we change?”

Traditions — We all have family traditions and most of us enjoy them to one extent or another, but when was the last time that you challenged one of them as being irrelevant or misplaced?    In some families, that’s nothing less than treason, but why should it be irreverant to probe into the meaning and applicability of the things you do year in and year out?

Business — Time and time again it’s been shown that good business is a balance between doing things in ways that work and doing things in new ways that may or may not work better.     As a younger person in business, one of the hardest things I have to face is convincing the older staff that systems can be changed without sacrificing the stability they’ve enjoyed so far and, given the chance, can even be improved upon.  Fear is the glue that holds sacred cows in place and keeps them from being herded in another direction.   (Gives some interesting visions of incredibly sticky cows, now, doesn’t it?)

Your Halo is Slipping

Life Philosophies — Many people, including myself, find it hard to break out of the typical “normal” life that has been prescribed by society and to choose a unique and interesting path.   The cow becomes sacred because it’s a societal pressure and deviating outside of that not only brings you problems in terms of diapproval but issues with the economics of the situation.    As much as I’d love to be in school longer, economically, I had to do my 4 years and get out to a job.   I would love to stay home and write or do something else, but the bills wouldn’t get paid.    Becoming a bum would be fun, but it would be frowned upon.   The cows become sacred as a standard that we are all expected to follow, even if someone could deviate without becoming a liability on the system.

There are many other places where this crops up — how we live, how we work, how we act, how we love.    What are some holy bovines in your life, and what are you doing to try to negate them, or do you simply embrace them wholesale because — that’s what you do?

Sometimes I’m very much a geek — but not always.   I mean, most days I am content to twine my fingers around bundles of wires and peer deep within the souls of servers, let code flicker past my knowing eyes in a complex dance of purpose, and find myself with a half chubby from hearing hard drives spin up.    I cannot and will not deny that spirit of being “one with the Matrix” on a daily basis.   But there are occasions, like today, when I prefer to don another hat and assume a different nature.   Today I communed with my cars.

Out of all the current aspects of my life, my current vehicular situation is one that I’m rather satisfied with at the moment.    Two cars, both new and running well, well within their respective warranties, reliable, and not without their elements of fun, subtle though it be sometimes.    They are not racecars, ricers, boytoys, or eccentric vehicles; as a family man, I don’t have the time nor the resources to be both practical and flamboyant, but they get me elements of both the stolid family man responsibility and the occasional grab-the-Jesus-bar experience.

They were also both horrifically in need of an oil change.

We’ve been waffling between the frozen, rockhard, 10-degree nights with ice and some snow to the “OMG, is spring here?” semi-warmth that only March can tease with and make us with we lived in California year-round.    As a result, this weekend’s bone-soothing warmths –  by no means hot; good god, not yet, dontcha know? — has rendered the ground into a combination of squidgy, sticky, sloppy mud sitting ontop of slabs of still-permafrost underlayment.    This thaws during the day enough to let your car dig ruts the size of the Grand Canyon in your driveway and then promptly freezes back into unflappable cement in the evening, causing your car to “pop” out of its parking spot when backing out in the morning.    It’s lovely, and if I have to put myself on the ground to change the oil?   EVEN BETTER.

And yet it was my best shot, the Galant being 8100 miles since it had last been changed and the Aveo about 5300; thank goodness for the quality of fully synthetic Mobil 1 oil which some folks run up to the mind-boggling count of 10,000 miles or more before giving it a switch.   If I had used dino excretion to lubricate my engines, I’m sure it would have rolled over and waggled its legs in the air long before now.

So, after digging out out the jack, the jackstands, the socket set (17mm for both cars, nicely enough), one oily cloth, one clean cloth, both jugs of new oil, both new oil filters, the oil catch pan, and a 4×8 sheet of glassboard to lay on, I started doing the mechanic thing on the cars.    Suffice it to say that the liquid dumping out of the bottom
of
each was
no longer oil,
it was FECESthe bottom of each was no longer oil, it was FECES.    If it could have laid turds, it would have.    I can only imagine what was going through their electronic brains for the past week or two — “So….sluggy….tastes….like….burning!”    They ought to practically jump for joy now (and hopefully be a bit nicer on the gas mileage, too.)

After doing both and cleaning up, I decided to continue with my daily driver, the Aveo.    Gassed it up, dumped all the metric shitloads of crap from the passenger floor side, put away all the unnecessary items on the back seat, filled up the washer fluid, and took it down to the combination laundramat, car wash, and storage center and paid $1 for 10 minutes of Super-Suk Vacuum Madness.    Some Armor-All applied to the dusty dash, steering wheel, shifter, and brake; some glass cleaner applied to the extremely filthy windshield; and just because I’m a wannabe pimp daddy, tire shine on the pathetic 15″ tires with the shitty-looking plastic hubcaps.    No, Calvin is not pissing on something on my rear window, nor do I have nuts hanging from the rear of my car, but I have super-shiny tires.    You’re impressed, I can tell.

I love getting underneath my cars; checking out all the technology and how it works together has always been my passion, whether on computers or on women  (and I’ve seen a few undercarriages in my day, thankyouverymuch).   There’s something both serene and terrifying at looking at the components that, every day, help me fly down the road at speeds that make the Amish blush and shuffle uncomfortably in their buggies, yet still managing to deliver me in one piece and relatively happy at the other end of the trip.    I think if folks who are ignorant of how vehicles are constructed actually saw how very little holds it all together, they’d be a bit more nervous about doing some of the driving that they do.    It truly is amazing.

As I put everything away tonight and then washed my hands slowly under the warm, bubbly water, I reflected that it felt good to get a bit dirty, dig my fingers into something other than a software project, and I had really accomplished something.    That, in my opinion, is a good day with my cars.

“Move it or lose it!”  My parents used it a lot, and so do coaches.    The saying encourages you to drop the plow and get yourself in gear, to quit lollygagging around.    Now the new President wants to give folks a temporary pass on the DTV conversion, and I think that’s a terrible idea. Thankfully, a lot of other people think so as well; now to get the government to agree, without industry pressure.

President-elect Obama has now urged lawmakers to delay the transition to all-digital transmission of over-the-air (OTA) due to, from what pollsters say, nearly 8 million homes that have not “taken action” to upgrade their television sets or buy a digital converter.    The poll apparently also cites something on the order of nearly a fourth of Americans that believe the transition will require them to buy a new TV.   Proponents cite the lack of any more coupons for converter boxes and the lack of education of the masses.

I’m sorry, but there’s only so much you can do when a country-wide transition like this is coming up, because you’re speaking to a vastly intricate demographic, one that you’re never going to fully reach, even if you were to tattoo it on their forehead in fiery letters.    The fact is, a good portion of the people will never convert until they must because they have no other choice.

If you are too stupid, too lax, or too ignorant to have not noticed and understood the half a billion advertisements and PSAs that have littered the radio waves, papers, and TV commercials for the past year about this transition, said it in a million different ways, with multiple approaches to get attention, explain the transition, and inform, then I have no sympathy if February 17th comes and all you get is static instead of American Idol.

Frankly, I’m tired of seeing the notices.   I understood it the first time around.   The next 4,758 times was just wasting my life.    And how this transition is handled will set a huge precident for other technological changes that will come in the future — the switch to IPv6, changing to digital telephones, etc.

The coupon (or lack thereof) issue is something to address, but if you haven’t taken enough interest to sign up for one, then you probably get to buy one at full price.   They’re not THAT awful in cost, and it’s kinda like taxes — if you’re late, you pay a price.   That’s how it goes.

If I felt that not enough effort had been made, I’d think differently.   However, the government has done a good job on this one, the airwaves and media have been swamped with notices, and assistance has been offered.   For those still unmoving in the face of all this, I say:  Tough.

What do you think?   Are you already prepared for the transition and, if not, why not?   Do you think the schedule should be kept or the delay honored?   Shall we hit slackers over the head with a brick?