I don’t think we can understand zen or explain it but from time to time we can experience zen. Clearing brush can sometimes do it for me.
Clearing brush
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Land Rover Lockdown Diary
Will I still have a title?
More than half of my 40 working years were spent in and around small/medium market radio. It is with some confidence I say titles were important. Program Director, News Director, Music Director, even PSA (Public Service Announcement) Director! As with a lot of businesses, titles were often handed out instead of compensation.
We had other duties, of course. In addition to choosing which songs the station played, the Music Director also pulled an air shift and probably recorded commercials. Might even have written some. But these somewhat arbitrary divisions of responsibilities — and the titles that came with them — were important.
In the early 1980’s, the station I was working at was sold to a man named Jerrell A. Shepherd, a very successful operator of a group of small market stations in Missouri. Shepherd didn’t run his stations the way most small market stations did, in ways too numerous to mention here. But he did have a different approach to titles.
As the story goes, when Shepherd bought a station he would call the employees into his office, one at a time, and say something along the lines of:
“I’m afraid we are eliminating the position of News Director (or whatever your title happened to be).”
What?! How can he eliminate the position of News Director?! Shepherd would give this a minute or two to sink in before explaining, “I do have another position available if you’re interested.” You’re thinking: New baby on the way, car payments, buying a house…
“Uh, yeah, I’m interested. What is the job?”
“On the programming side of our stations there is only one position and that is Programmer. Would you like to hear about it?”
“Yes I would.”
“A Programmer does anything and everything necessary to put programming on the station. He (very few women in those days) pulls an air-shift, writes and records commercials, covers news stories, reports farm markets, does sponsored remote broadcasts from our advertisers locations, records the 8th Grade Spring Concert from one of the small towns in our listening area (assuming it has been sold).”
No more fiefdoms. No more specialists. No more “directors.” From a management standpoint you can see how much flexibility this added. All by the simple device of eliminating titles. Some people chose not to make this transition and moved on. Mr. Shepherd was fine with that.
This story came back to me as I listened to people talking about reorganizing police departments. Fire everyone and only hire back the “good” ones. Stop using cops for traffic law enforcement. And so forth.
I don’t know the answer but if Mr. Shepherd were still alive, I’ll bet he’d have some ideas.
8:46
Kait Kybar
$1 Grilled Cheese
I found these photos on Mastodon and there was no accompanying story. But do you really need more information? I love grilled cheese sandwiches.
“Don’t do anything”
An explanation of meditation by S. N. Goenka:
“Don’t try to control the breath or to breathe in any particular way. Just observe the reality of the present moment, whatever it may be. When the breath comes in, you are just aware — now the breath is coming in. When the breath goes out, you are just aware — now the breath is going out. And when you lose your focus and your mind starts wandering in memories and fantasies, just remain aware — now my mind has wandered away from the breath.”
Guided Meditation with J. B. Smoove
Improved Mobile Check In
I’m starting to see more and more businesses, mostly national chains for now, updating their mobile apps to make it easier to be safe when making purchases. Most local businesses (in Jefferson City, MO) do not have apps so the process is more cumbersome. Ordering from our favorite Chinese restaurant means calling and telling them we’d like to place an order, pay for it over the phone with a credit card, call them when we arrive, and have them bring it out to our car. “Just come inside and pay!” Nooo, we don’t want to come inside. Will you bring it out to our car? After checking with someone in charge, they say okay. Not a big deal but a process that could be improved with an app.
Production-line Education
“The Industrial Revolution has bequeathed us the production-line theory of education. In the middle of town there is a large concrete building divided into many identical rooms, each room equipped with rows of desks and chairs. At the sound of a bell, you go to one of these rooms together with thirty other kids who were all born the same year as you. Every hour a different grown-up walks in and starts talking. The grown-ups are all paid to do so by the government. One of them tells you about the shape of the earth, another tells you about the human past, and a third tells you about the human body. It is easy to laugh at this model, and almost everybody agrees that no matter its past achievements, it is now bankrupt.”