Plus ça change...

Change has overtaken us.  I’ve chosen these words carefully, to reflect the somewhat involuntary, if not exactly passive nature of the swirl of activity that has engulfed our family lately.  Within the course of a one week period, we have supported a loved one through a painfully emotional legal proceeding, visited an aging relative who had been rushed to the hospital amidst initial reports that she was “unresponsive,” and spoken several times with another aging relative who lives a significant distance away and has increasing physical and emotional needs that we find ourselves unable to adequately meet. 

We’ve purchased a seriously expensive machine for landscaping the yard, continued our efforts involving minor house renovations, and attended two lengthy events at our local high school, the latter being our daughter’s graduation ceremony (congratulations, Sarah!)  My truck has been in the shop – twice (the second time to replace a faulty part that had been installed the first time.) 

We are actively discussing how and when to “put down” our beloved but elderly dog, who has become incontinent.  She seems hardly ready to throw in the towel quite yet.  Yes, all this within the span of seven days.  Oh, and we still have our day jobs.  I could write several paragraphs on that topic, describing the breakneck pace of organizational changes and resulting fallout pertinent to my job alone.  But I won’t.

I do not want all this, but it’s unavoidable.  We are the poster children for the Sandwich Generation, juggling the (mostly emotional) demands of aging parents and the (mostly financial) demands of newly-minted adult children.  The treadmill just spins faster, both literally (referring to the one in our basement) and figuratively.  There are days – lots of them – when all I really want to do is jump off, do nothing, relax.  But seldom does that happen.  There just isn’t time.  The hammock beckons, but my butt is elsewhere, hustling, doing, checking off tasks on the to-do list.

Seth Godin semi-famously declared that “Fifty is the New Thirty.”  I don’t buy it.  I’d give my left nut to be thirty again.  Well, maybe not, but I’d think about it. 

In reality, I don’t envy the thirty year-olds of today.  They are victims of their position on the demographic continuum.  The leading edge of the Boomers (read: those much older than me!) who are of traditional retirement age are delaying retirement, essentially hogging jobs that should be freeing up to accommodate today’s up-and-comers.  A gazillion articles have been written, outlining the reasons for this (the real estate bubble, the market crash of ’08, sloppy handling of debt all around; Boomers treating their homes like piggy banks, tapping equity in the false belief that real estate values would only ever go up, and on, and on.) 

I would add only that there’s a certain chicken-and-egg aspect to this as well:  our own prospects for downsizing are hampered by the very real likelihood that our college-age offspring will turn out to be ‘Boomerangs” – themselves victims of the lousy {but improving!} economy, returning to the nest that is our home in the SUVs that we still own and insure.  Dad, my gas tank is empty again.  Ka-Ching.   

And so, we soldier on.  I’m painfully aware that much more change is coming our way, and soon.  The end of days is approaching for our parents who are in their 80s and 90s, and for our dog who can barely walk.  The world awaits the college grads that we hope, one day soon, to turn loose. 

We blinked, and somehow, now we’re here.  I wish I had paid more attention.  I wish I’d been more patient.  I wish I had said the things for which, even now, I can’t seem to find the words.  And I’m grateful for the few pillars in my life that have not changed.  They are my guideposts, without whom I’d be lost.

The Gift

My friend, Jack, “discovered” a local watering hole many years ago.  It became our hangout.  We were young, single, and relatively flush with disposable income.  The place had great Buffalo Wings and cold beer on tap.  It was perfect.

Word spread quickly, and the place became very popular with the “Yuppie” crowd (for those unfamiliar, “Yuppie” was a 1980’s term, an acronym for “Young Urban Professional;” we were Yuppies, and Coffee Achievers, too – Google them for a chuckle.)  Every Friday afternoon, like clockwork, we’d hit “happy hour” with an ever-changing entourage of friends and co-workers. There were no spouses, no kids, no obligations; or so it seemed.  It was, in so many ways, a good time.

Years passed. We grew up, I suppose - acquired families and mortgages and baggage.  We had the occasional “reunion” when we were able to pull it off, but over time the gatherings became less frequent, the attendance more sparse.  It was as though we’d been a part of the cast of “Cheers” for a while, but like the show itself, our ratings had dropped, and so it was over.

But funny things happen at midlife, as we find ourselves stepping onto the turf of the Back Nine.  Extramarital affairs happen.  Convertibles happen.  Gym memberships happen.  Goatees happen.  You name it; internalization of the reality of impending mortality causes people to go a little crazy.  Sometimes, we try to find something within ourselves that we’d long ago abandoned.   

And so it was, very recently, that a few of us found ourselves back in our long-abandoned booth, slugging down beer and Buffalo Wings. Save for the prices, the place hadn’t changed a bit. The food and drink were great, as was the company.  But there was a surreal quality to the experience.  We’d become different.  We no longer looked like most of the other patrons (what are Yuppies called these days, anyway?)  Yes, of course we were older; but we had also grown wiser, and sadder – or perhaps just more somber. Oh, we’ve all had good lives to this point, and on balance we’ve no reason to complain; but we’d each borne unique crosses of one sort or another, and it became clear as the conversation progressed that the weight of our burdens and the years we’d spent carrying them had taken their toll.  I’ve always insisted that Thomas Wolfe was wrong, that you can go home again; but I’m starting to doubt myself.

I wrote most of this post in the living room of my mother’s house, sitting on a sofa that was built in the 1950’s.  She was sleeping in her bedroom, in mid-afternoon.  She is 90 years old.  I had traveled a fair distance to take her out to dinner for Mother’s Day; but she didn’t feel up to leaving the house.  Her mind is still sharp, but her body is slowly failing.  She knows this, and in characteristic fashion speaks to it directly: “I just need what nobody can give me – a new body.”  I look into her eyes and see my future.  It scares the hell out of me.  Longevity is a blessing and a curse.

My mother is a stoic and eminently practical woman.  She’s a classic member of the Greatest Generation – she’d lived through the Great Depression, and that experience had, to a great degree, formed her world view.  She wastes nothing.  Her demeanor is blunt and to the point.  She speaks her mind, and doesn’t particularly care what others think or feel.  Her background and personality, of course, played a large role in shaping my childhood.  I learned at an early age not to expect anything to be sugar-coated, and nothing was.

By the time I reached adulthood, I had come to understand that there are certain topics of conversation that are best avoided with Mom.  My wife quickly learned this as well, with a bit of trial-and-error in the beginning.  The general theme was to avoid creating the impression that were somehow profligate spendthrifts.  This was more easily said than done: buying a new car, for example, danced dangerously close to the cliff; and a car is too big to hide.  But that could be alright, if we played up the terrific price bargain we'd negotiated.  Discarding leftover food, no matter how small the morsel, led directly to a lecture about starving children in the Third World.  When I was a kid, it was always Biafra for some reason.  The starving children there must have been on the TV news a lot.  Saving the food in a tiny bit of aluminum foil in the back of the refrigerator until it grew mold and then tossing it – that has always been OK.

When our children came along, the ‘thrift’ theme was extended to include a “you’re spoiling those kids” corollary; so we stepped up our game, expanding the list of off-limits topics.  Our kids walked on eggshells while visiting Grandma’s house, lest they slip up and leave a wet towel somewhere, or forget to turn off the lights when leaving a room. When stuff like that happened – and, of course, it did – they would get the lecture and we would get that look – the one telling us that we were wholly incompetent parents raising unruly scoundrels.

This Mother’s Day visit was unfortunate, in that Mom wasn’t feeling well, but it was also unusual in a positive way, in that we actually had a real conversation, transcending the superficiality of the weather and the news stories of the day.  It was just the two of us.  Dinner had been a bust, so we’d ordered in Chinese food.  She told me about how poorly she’s been feeling lately, in somewhat graphic detail.  She asked me how old I was – she’d lost track – and she seemed surprised by the answer.  I’m further along than she’d thought.  We talked about regrets – a traditionally verboten topic.  We talked about lives that feel like to-do lists, marked by endless tasks and chores, to the exclusion of most everything else (or so it seems at times.)  I mentioned that my wife and I have had our noses to the proverbial grindstone for decades, that we'd sent one daughter to Europe and the other to college, yet we’d somehow managed to postpone our 20^th anniversary cruise for three years and counting.  What Mom said next surprised me: “you should go.  Book it now, while you’re young enough to enjoy it.  You should focus on doing things that make you happy now.” 

And there it was - the pleasure principle.  Since I was a child, I’d heard about the virtues of hard work, that I needed to save my pennies for a rainy day, how “lucky” I was to have a steady job, and on and on.  Now, spurred on by what I imagine to be her own perception of a darkening stage, my mother appeared circumspect. She went on to say, as though I needed a reminder, that life is short.  From her perspective, even a very long life goes by shockingly quickly. 

Driving back home this morning, I realized that my mother had given me a Mother’s Day gift – a new perspective to ponder.  We are going to book that trip.  We must. But beyond that, I’ve got some reassessing and re-prioritizing to do.  Change is in the wind.  It is time.

The Marathon

Midnight, and the television coverage continues. 

Three dead, as of now.  The count will likely rise by morning, so horrific are the injuries.  An eight year old boy.  A Boston University student.  I've been both of those, at times that feel much more recent than their reality. 

Copley Square.  Home of the onetime “Plywood Palace,” a.k.a. the John Hancock Tower, Boston’s tallest office building.  When I was a student at BU, a part-time job was offered on our school’s job posting board for a “building watcher.”  The then-fairly-new Hancock Tower had a few structural issues.  The giant glass panels that formed its outer skin had a habit of blowing free from their frames, crashing to the ground – a dangerous situation, to say the least.  During the reconstruction effort to fix this problem, giant plywood panels encased sections of the building, essentially to hold the glass in place.  “Building Watchers” were hired and paid minimum wage to sit on benches in Copley Square and gaze upward at the building, watching for any signs of misaligned or wavering glass panels.  I passed on this opportunity, and I have no regrets.

Until today, to my knowledge, glass panels in free-fall were the most dangerous things to happen in Copley Square.  After college, I lived on Boylston Street, just a few blocks to the west. On more than one occasion, I staggered through Copley late at night, drunk as a skunk, making my way home.  I’ve hung out there with friends at 2:00 am.  I've had celebrity sightings.  I've marveled at the ice sculptures.  For many years, I worked in an office building just two blocks to the east. And yes, I’ve watched the marathon from that very spot, a number of times.  I never felt threatened in any way.   

Today was Patriot’s Day, a Massachusetts holiday.  My wife, a teacher, has the week off.  We’re on a vacation of sorts, spending a few days at our house on Cape Cod.  When we heard the news today, we were reminded of Patriot’s Day, 2007.  We were on a real vacation then, having taken our daughters to Washington, DC for school vacation week.  We happened to be staying in a hotel across the river, in Virginia.  The day we arrived was the day of the Virginia Tech shootings.  As might have been expected, this was a major news story in Virginia. The details were inescapable, and horrifying; very much like coverage of today’s Boston Marathon bombings here in Massachusetts.

Tonight, together with our fellow citizens, we’re being asked to remain “highly vigilant.”  Tomorrow, Boylston Street will remain closed for several blocks as the crime scene analysis continues.  Riders on Boston’s mass transit system will be subjected to random backpack inspections.  With a shudder, I’m recalling the times that followed 9/11/2001. At the office building in New Hampshire where I then worked, huge boulders were placed to block vehicular access to the part of the parking lot closest to the building.  At airports, security measures went over-the-top nuts.  In retrospect, even the most cautious among us would likely admit that we got a little silly; but it was all somewhat understandable.  The fear was palpable. 

I wonder what we’ll wake up to find tomorrow. Will the hard news somehow deteriorate?  Will there be additional incidents, or devices found, or connections to terrorist organizations confirmed?  Will all public trash barrels again be removed from city streets, as they were in the wake of 9/11? 

I’m not being cavalier about this stuff.  I freely admit to a twinge of trepidation at the thought of our drive home later this week, which will take us through the long “Big Dig” Tip O’Neill Tunnel, beneath the streets of Boston.  

More than anything, today’s news has brought great sorrow; I feel for the families of the victims, the injured and the dead.  The accident of timing alone separates us.

The real marathon is not a footrace. It’s an ongoing, lifelong slog.  It’s the thing we once rather tritely called the “War on Terror.”  It has a cadence.  I imagine it will continue to ebb and flow, along with our fear and our vigilance; but it will not disappear, ever. 

Yet those who are inclined to wax nostalgic for the “good old days” need only look a bit further back to realize that nothing here is new.  Members of the Greatest Generation will recall the fear that gripped the world during World War Two. “Loose Lips Sink Ships.”  The leading edge of the Boomers may remember the paranoid atmosphere of the Cold War.  “Duck and Cover.”  The Enemy has always been, and will always be Out There.  This marathon requires strength and endurance.  Those who came before us had it.  I’m betting we will, too.

The Good, the Bad, and the Gullible

I was a nervous kid.  I was brainy, not athletic at all, lacking in self-confidence, and wary of new situations.  I believe this was in part due to genetic disposition – anxiety is somewhat of a family trait - and perhaps in larger part due to the circumstances of my youth, which were legitimately stressful in many respects.  None of this matters now, apart from enhancing the insights produced by my navel-gazing experiences in my old age.

 I bought the lie – 1:

I studied very hard in school, and was rewarded with excellent grades.  I was consistently the last to be picked for the gym class basketball team, but consistently the first to be picked for the classroom spelling bee team.  My parents, both wonderful and well-intentioned people, counseled me from a young age: do well in school, and you’ll be able to get a scholarship to a great college.  In reality, neither of my parents had attended college, and they had absolutely no idea of how the admissions process, much less the financial aid process actually worked. They truly believed that hard work would simply lead to financial reward. This was, after all, America, the land of opportunity; and in their own experience running a small business, the maxim had held true.

When college application time approached, I did my own research at the local library (there was no internet in those prehistoric times, and my high school’s guidance department was wholly incompetent – so I’d set out on my own.)  Based largely on its glossy, eye-catching marketing materials, I chose a college.  One college, in faraway Boston.  I applied there (and only there,) and was accepted.  The deal was done.  The “scholarship” I’d worked so hard for, the elusive pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, failed to materialize.  My mother, by then widowed, to her enormous credit found a way to finance my education.  At age 17, I drove, solo, 250 miles to Boston, to check out my chosen school.  I fell in love with the city, and in fact I’m still here – well, in the general area.  The rest, as they say, is history.

 I bought the lie – 2:

As college graduation approached, I began interviewing for jobs.  Four years culminating in a double major, magna cum laude, had failed to instill a burning passion for any particular field that didn’t require years of additional schooling, and I’d had it… I was done; I wanted out.  I wanted a job, in the “real world” (read: not academia,) ideally one that would allow me to stay in Boston along with many of my friends - a selection criterion just about as random and foolish as choosing a college based on the pictures in its brochure.  I found a job fairly quickly, an entry-level professional position with a large company.  I loved it.  I’d met my goal.

There was a formal training program.  I aced it.  Among the many company executives called upon to share their wisdom with us in these training sessions was one old guy whose name I no longer recall.  Someone had asked a question about salary and advancement opportunities.  His answer was to the effect that ‘we may not offer the biggest paycheck on the block, but here at our company, you’ll have job security.  We’ve never had a layoff here, even during the depression.  He pounded his fist on the table in emphasis with that last statement. I was reminded of Nikita Khrushchev banging his fist at the UN. We sat, wide-eyed, silently pledging our allegiance.  It was 1981.

A decade later, when the first laid-off secretary emerged, bawling, from what came to be known as the slaughterhouse (in reality, a cramped conference room unfortunately located in a rather public spot,) I realized then and there – I’d bought the lie (or rather, the one-time truth that had morphed with the corporate culture into fantasy, as the rules of the game had changed beneath our feet.)

 I bought the lie – 3:

I was recently reminded of disillusionments past (the preceding are but two of countless examples.)  Some say that history repeats. 

 

My daughter, a high school senior, is at the tail end of the college application process.  She has worked extremely hard in school, and has an impressive resume of achievements to show for her efforts.  She applied to 9 – nine! – schools.  I’m told that’s fairly normal these days.  She’s been accepted at six and wait-listed at three.  Not bad!  This should be a joyous time, filled with the excitement of choosing among many great opportunities; but it’s not.   Unfortunately we’re discovering, too late, how badly the college application and financing system is flawed.

Since she was an infant, we’ve been dutifully saving for our daughter’s education.  We’ve amassed a tidy sum.  We are frugal people by nature.  We don’t live large.  It turns out, that’s a big mistake in this twisted, redistributionist, regress-to-the-mean society.  If you’ve got it, baby, you’d best spend it now, or they’ll take it from you tomorrow to subsidize someone else. If colleges don’t do it, the government will.

It’s like this:  Most of the so-called ‘prestigious schools’ to which my daughter applied have adopted some version of the same lofty-sounding credo: “no student will be unable to attend xxxx U. because of unaffordability.”  Doesn’t that sound grand?  Altruistic, even?  Here’s the translation:  “We don’t award any merit-based scholarships; and ‘affordability’ will be determined by one of two incredibly intrusive algorithms using labyrinthine rules that would rival those of the IRS in complexity.”

Further translated: you may be at the top of your graduating class, with a trunkful of awards, varsity letters, a Nobel Prize and invitations to lunch with the president; but if your parents have made the mistake of saving and investing in anticipation of this day, you’re going to pay the full freight.  Your choice, in practical terms, will be between paying double or triple the price paid by your likely future roommate to attend a top-tier school, and probably incurring debt that your parents have tried so hard to shield you from; or taking advantage of the merit-based awards you’ve received – which have been generous – from schools that weren’t your top choices.

Meanwhile – and here’s the galling part - your equally (academically) qualified friends are getting "need based" money left and right, and will be able to attend their choice of  top-flight schools because their parents have gone the spend-it all, get-multiple-divorces, take-lavish-vacations, save-hardly-anything approach. They live in huge McMansions (not counted in determining "need" by virtue of being “primary residences” – a loophole you could drive a Rolls through) while we live in a modest house and have chosen instead to invest over the years, apart from the college fund, for our own eventual retirement (putting similar dollars in a different category.) And it's folks like us who are expected to subsidize the masses of less academically qualified but needier, or equally academically qualified but less thrifty families out there by paying the wildly inflated sticker price. We're talking $250K out of pocket over four years, minimum.  Per kid.

To be clear: I don’t oppose the concept of need-based financial aid. My problem is with schools that have adopted exclusively need-based programs.  My wife grew up poor, and would not have been able to attend our alma mater if not for the aid she received.  That said, my wife was also her high school class valedictorian.  Her academic qualifications were rock-solid. And that is my point – she worked hard to earn the privilege of attending college.  For colleges today to turn a blind eye to a broad swath of highly qualified students in favor of subsidizing only those who demonstrate having met the schools’ peculiar and distorted definition of “need” is just wrong.
         
I realize this post is unlikely to generate any sympathy.  White people problems.  Sure.   But if you try and view this through our lens, the system is badly broken, and patently unfair - and not just to the poor.

The hard lesson for my daughter:  don’t buy the lie. 

And yet, we as parents, as a society, still wish to somehow instill within our young people a belief in the inherent value of hard work.  If that belief is to continue to have any relevance, we have got to move away from this steady progression toward “leveling every playing field,” no matter how well-intentioned, and restore some semblance of a meritocracy.
 

A Taxing Situation

"My advice for those who die / Declare the pennies on your eyes / 'Cause I'm the taxman..." ---George Harrison

The days are getting noticeably longer.  This is psychologically a good thing, I think, for most of us. It’s also, rather paradoxically, an anxiety trigger – among countless others – for me.  The winter has almost passed, and with it my chance to hibernate, to get some much needed sleep, and to catch up on long-deferred reading, research, minor home repairs and such.

Yet somehow, time has passed and I’ve gotten very little sleep, nor have I made significant progress on much of anything worthwhile.  You see, taxes have consumed me for the past month and a half.  This year, for various reasons, our tax situation is much more complex than usual, and the calculation process has been brutal.  The “fiscal cliff” deliberations that resulted in delaying IRS approval of half of the forms I need didn’t help matters.  I’ve been pecking away at our tax calculations for several weekends, and I’m still not done. 

Setting aside the endless political debate centered around tax policy - how MUCH one should pay in taxes, how to determine one’s theoretical “fair share,” and whether we’ve become a nation of “47 percenters” or "99 percenters" (I swear, I’m not going there) – there is so much that could be done to improve the nightmare that is tax preparation. 

Here’s something I’ve wondered about for years: other than (illegal) under-the-table, “shadow economy” transactions which aren’t reported anyway, virtually everything that is reportable as regular income has already been reported to the government in the form of W-2s, 1099s, K-1s and the like, before we ever fire up our copies of TurboTax Deluxe. With the recent addition of mandatory cost basis reporting, many types of capital gains are, or will soon be, in this category as well.  

So why is the onus on us, the taxpayers, to apply the government’s convoluted rules to calculate what we owe?  Why, instead, doesn’t the government just send us a bill or a check, as the case may be, based on all the information they’ve already amassed?  They own the rules; they have what I imagine to be a big, honking pile of mainframe computers capable of calculating such arcane annoyances as the Alternative Minimum Tax and capital loss carry-forwards for the whole freakin’ population, in about a day and a half!  

We could then make appropriate adjustments for our charitable deductions, write-offs, and whatnot, assuming that any of these survive the axe of “tax reform” in the coming months, and, depending on the situation, just cash the check, pay the adjusted bill, and move on.  The states can and should follow the same process (or better yet, abolish their state income taxes... but that's another blog rant.)

Think about it… when you make a purchase, whether small, like a meal, or large, like a car… does the merchant require you to use your own, purchased software to calculate the netted-out bill?   Hell no… the McCashier presses the little button with the photo of a Big Mac on it, then the fries-photo button, then the dollar-sign button, and your total, including tax, is tabulated.  You pay, and your change comes swirling down into the little chrome SARS pit of a germ bucket for retrieval. Or, in the case of the car, the “Finance manager” sits you down in his tiny, shared office that, curiously, reeks of cigarette smoke despite being in a “non-smoking” building; offers you some bad coffee, and flogs you with an imaginary rubber hose in an attempt to get you to buy a ten year warranty and rust preventative.  Depending on your own fortitude, the extra charges either are or are not added to the invoice, but in any case you are, in the end, presented with a bill, and in exchange for your check, you’re handed the keys. 

OK, so the retail purchase experience isn’t always pleasurable; but on the scale of “discomfort as compared with a colonoscopy procedure” it’s much less of an imposition than calculating income taxes.  

 

Midweek Update

I don’t know what it is about this week.  For some reason, every time I glance at a news source, I see absurdity and irony.  And sadness too, yes, plenty of that; but in the spirit of reporting the Happy News, I’ll skip over those parts.

So, here in Boston we have – rather, had, until this week, a low-buck bus company called Fung Wah.  This company has been in the news with increasing frequency for at least the past year.  None of the news has been good.  It seems they were able to offer standard Boston-to-New York runs for a mere $15 because they kept their costs low.  Very low.  The buses have crashed, broken down, failed inspections, you name it, repeatedly for as long as I can recall. 

Everybody loves a bargain.  Earlier this week, the company’s extreme thrift caught up with it when it was discovered that three quarters of the buses in the fleet had cracked frames.  They had repeatedly failed safety inspections, yet were still on the road. Now the Department of Transportation has stepped in and grounded the entire fleet. 

But wait, there’s more: 

It seems a Fung Wah bus broke down near Hartford, CT.  The company called in a tow service, which hooked the bus to a giant tow truck and drove away.  Only problem was, they hadn’t properly attached the hook.  They managed to tow the bus into the middle of the highway, whereupon its bumper broke off, leaving the bus sitting there, blocking traffic, without lights, while the tow truck drove away, towing a bumper.

The geniuses in the cab were unaware that the bus wasn’t still behind their truck until they were stopped by police, three exits further down the road.  Upon pulling them over, the police observed that they were somewhat incoherent.  It turned out that both crew members were suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning. 

You just can’t make this stuff up.

In other news this week, a $5 million class action suit was filed against Anheuser-Busch, alleging that they have been watering down Budweiser beer.  Is that even possible?  Perhaps the tested containers had been confused with bottled water that had somehow been tainted with trace amounts of beer?  I just can’t wrap my brain around this.

A few days ago, I endured a seemingly endless radio news story about the proper nomenclature for addressing a retired pope.  The official verdict seems to have settled on “"pope emeritus Benedict XVI" or "Roman Pontiff emeritus Benedict XVI."  Or, to his close friends, “His Holiness.”   I find all of these rather ponderous and difficult to remember.  How about something more intuitive, like The Holy Diddler?

Marissa Mayer, CEO of Yahoo, has come out full force against Yahoo employees “working at home.”  Yes, the head of a technology company has banned a practice that virtually all other technology companies tout as the ultimate workplace perk – and from which several have profited handsomely.  I can’t quite figure this one out.  The primary reason cited was the notion that employees will benefit from being “physically together.” 

That would be the approx. 14,000 people that Yahoo employs worldwide.  Yahoo had better plan for one hell of a big addition to their building in Sunnyvale. 

I’m not suggesting that “working at home” is a universally good thing.  Clearly it would not work well in some industries, or with some employees (read: those likely to run up billable hours in the hot tub) but c’mon, a freakin’ technology company?  This is akin to Starbucks subjecting its employees to random bloodstream-caffeine tests, and firing those who have consumed the evil bean.  It runs just a bit counter to the corporate mission.

Having celebrated New Years’ Day with a partial sigh of relief for having survived, sort of, the “Fiscal Cliff,” we now face The Sequester.  I’ve given up on trying to follow the particulars.  The perpetual brinksmanship in Washington has led me to lose interest.  I have Brinksmanship Fatigue. 

The paradox here is that there are (presumably) real financial ramifications that may directly affect me, indeed, affect all of us; but I have become detached.  It’s like watching the Poker Channel on an old, black-and-white TV with bad reception and rabbit ears, while stoned and wearing someone else’s eyeglasses.  They’re playing for real stakes, using my money, but it’s so far away, so surreal that I just can’t bring myself to care.  So go ahead and duke it out, Elected Drama Queens, just let me know how badly I’ve been screwed when you’re done.  This time.

All for now.  I'll be in touch, so you stay in touch.  Or however that goes.  Good luck, and good night.

 

Bring Your Own What?

The “BYOD” (Bring Your Own Device) phenomenon has caught on like wildfire in the business world.  Wikipedia defines BYOD as “the policy of permitting employees to bring personally owned mobile devices (laptops, tablets, and smart phones) to their place of work and use those devices to access privileged company information and applications.”  Everything I’ve read about BYOD seems to indicate that it’s wildly popular among employees, especially the “Millennials.”  It’s considered a privilege, a convenience, a morale booster, a perk that’s essential to a company’s ability to successfully compete for top talent.
 

I don’t get it.

Earlier this week, I had an opportunity to attend a forum that was hosted by the CIO of a major American company.  This company has, for years, handed out BlackBerry smartphones to the subset of its employees who were viewed as having a need for frequent off-hours contact, whether in the form of voice calls, e-mail, or access to corporate applications.  Thousands of these devices are deployed.  Some, of course, see more frequent use than others.  All, supposedly, represent some legitimate business need that is being fulfilled by the employee who is tethered 24/7 (or some subset thereof) to the office.

The CIO went on to describe this company’s relatively new BYOD program.  As is the case elsewhere (everywhere, it would seem,) the program is gaining new participants every day.  A large percentage of Blackberry-holders has elected to turn in company-owned phones in exchange for being set up with BYOD access via their personally-owned iPhones or Android devices.  The CIO concluded his discussion of the BYOD topic by musing aloud about what he might be able to do to entice the remaining BlackBerry-holders to jump ship.  I could easily have told him: PAY FOR THE DAMNED VOICE/DATA PLANS! 

This company, and according to recent surveys I have seen, a majority of others with a BYOD policy, contributes nothing toward the cost of owning and maintaining the device that the employee is willingly “bringing.”

Let’s break this down:

Behind Door #1 is a company-owned, company-paid-for Blackberry.  It costs the individual user nothing – nada – zilch.  All he/she has to do in order to realize the “benefit” of working while on personal time is to carry the thing around.  Not a bad deal, save perhaps for the obligation to safeguard it and to actually be productive by using it once in awhile.  If it gets damaged, the company replaces it.  Simple.  Free.

Behind Door #2 is the employee’s own iPhone (or whatever.)  He or she is already paying for voice and data access (which, for those living in a cave, is not cheap, and often comes with a volume cap – think “family share plan” voice minutes - beyond which the cost becomes prohibitive.) In exchange, the device owner enjoys the privilege of having exclusive personal use of the thing (and for playing ‘Words with Friends’ on airplanes, viewing porn on the beach, whatever.)  If the employee drops the phone, leaves it on a bus, or otherwise damages or loses it, he/she alone is responsible for the cost of replacing it.

Layer on BYOD, and a few things happen:  to the extent that the phone owner uses the device for work, those minutes and gigabytes get chewed up - the employer gets a freebie.  Additionally, there’s a contract involved (naturally) which, among other restrictions, prohibits the phone owner from lending the phone to anyone – even a family member – lest proprietary corporate data be exposed.

I ask you – which is the better deal?

Would your answer be the same if the comparison were between having a company car, all expenses paid, versus being allowed the “privilege” of using your own car for traveling on company business, without even so much as a mileage allowance? 

I didn’t think so.  So I’m back to not getting it.

There’s unquestionably a perceived cachet associated with being a BYOD participant. This reminds me of the early 1990s, when pagers were all the rage.  Pagers functioned, in essence, like a very long leash.  Paging was one-way – you couldn’t respond with any effective communication.  Instead, the thing went off while you were (in a restaurant, at a ballgame, driving, wherever) and you had to, as quickly as possible, find the nearest pay phone and make contact with the Very Important Person who was summoning you.  Cell phones were nearly non-existent; when they arrived on the scene, demand for pagers died, for obvious reasons.

I never wanted one of those things.  Cachet?  Seriously?  They struck me more like long-range house arrest ankle bracelets.  But they were seen by many as status symbols, nonetheless.  I believe they somehow engendered feelings of self-importance on the part of their users  - “Oops, excuse me, gotta run, I’m being paged {read: I am so very important that I must now drop you, dinner companion, like a hot potato, and go find a phone so as to take care of a very, very important matter.}”  

I “get” that many – perhaps most – people these days are in love with their phones.  I don’t get why, but I get that they are. Phones are status symbols now.  Etiquette has, predictably, taken a blow in deference to the elevated social standing that they impart (Excuse me, dinner partner, redux.)  No doubt this is a big factor in understanding the siren call of BYOD.

In pure economic terms, setting aside the question of “who pays,” it is more costly to operate two devices as opposed to one.  So in the aggregate, there’s an economic argument to be made in favor of BYOD.  It’s also less convenient to tote around two devices rather than one.  As implemented by most companies that have done so, however, the programs are tilted heavily in favor of the company and against the employee. 

There are a few enlightened firms out there that do offer a stipend or some other consideration that helps to defray some portion of the phone owner’s costs, but they are in the minority.  It seems only fair that, to the extent that it can be calculated, a proportionate share of the costs associated with using privately-owned equipment for business purposes should be borne by the business.  In my view, this should be the norm.  However, as long as employees continue flocking to buy-and-bring-your-own programs, the status quo is unlikely to change.