Friday Reflections

Thanksgiving Reflection: All for one and one for all.

POINT TO PONDER

We hire workers, but those who arrive are human beings. (source: "And other strange ideas" in a page from "400 seconds presentation from John Simmons)

STORYLINE by Rajiv Shah

I have been absent from writing Friday Reflections and am welcoming this opportunity to return by writing about a play I was recently in, DAY OF ABSENCE. The play was a unique, fictional account of what would happen if a group of workers (primarily nannies, farmers, and laborers) disappeared from a fictional town in the United States. 

I believed this was a fictional account, and indeed when the play was performed (in 1965) it was, until I came across an article in USA Today detailing the mass exodus of immigrants from Alabama towns after courts passed harsh anti-immigrations laws allowing law enforcement to detain any immigrants suspected of being illegal in this country. Further, it requires schools to verify immigration status of their students. What has transpired is that a large portion of Alabama's labor force has simply vanished from the town all together. Farms have been left unharvested, grocery stores have found their business drop 60%, and schools found 2,300 students mising from their classrooms. Whole neighboorhoods have become ghost towns virtually overnight with furniture and belongings left in the now abandoned houses.  

The effects have been substantial and Alabama is trying to find solutions to their now suddenly vacant labor force. 

REFLECTION

We all affect one another, regardless of paycheck or role, and we depend on one another to function as a whole. Sometimes within our own companies it is difficult to fully grasp the impact an employee makes to the whole, positively or adversely. Alabama respresents a extraordinary circumstance but exemplifies that we often need each other more than we care to acknowledge. We see the position one fills more than we see the person and the actions we take always affect one another, even if they are not immediately visible, especially when we only see that person's position and not their humanity. 

Without Boundaries. Without Limits.

Point to Ponder:

“Some see things as they are and ask why I dream things that never were and ask why not.” 

                            - From Robert F. Kennedy speech (original source “Back to Methuselah” (1921) by George Bernard Shaw)

 

Story Line: 

 

Recently, whenever the news and talk about the current recession, and “the great depression,” picks up speed in media and coffee table conversations, an incident I witnessed from my childhood resurfaces before my eyes.

My father and I had gone to visit his friend (Senior). There was an argument going on between a young boy and my dad’s friend. The boy was talking about all kinds of “crazy and weird” ideas about what he would do when he grew up and the adult worried about “impractical ideas” emanating from the uncontrolled imagination of a young boy. Senior was trying his best to teach this kid lessons about “real life” and cautioning him about bad times and recessions that he had experienced. The kid seemed annoyed but boldly told Senior, “Why most of the time your conversations are dominated by talks of recessions, scarcity and cuts? How did this world grow so much even with all the bad times you talk about?”

Annoyed at the response, the senior turned to my father and said “ Pravin, tell this kid how is it to be in recession?”

My father replied “ I don’t need to tell him that. The boy is already witnessing ‘what it is to be like in a recession' with your talks and actions.”

 

Reflection: 

A few years ago when I was visiting my home town. I was not surprised when friends told me that the young man was a very successful entrepreneur and owned diversified businesses that have expanded internationally. I have often shared that childhood experience with my family and friends whenever the environment starts getting infected with negative news.

 

Today the limits of my curiosity stretched farther; I did Google search to find out more. What I found was the young boy's company name translated into English means, “without boundaries” and “without limits.”A quote on his web page says, "Excellence has neither any beginning nor any end. It is not a destination; rather it is a continuous passage....a perpetual voyage......towards infinity.”