Wednesdays!

One of my favorite benefits with my current employer is my manager allowing people in our group to telecommute one day each week. My day is Wednesday, which I think is one of my most productive days. I started around 8:30am and finished my last task at around 8pm, closed several help desk requests and change requests, attended a couple of phone conferences, and performed analysis on several database systems. Only after completing the tasks did I feel the least bit fatigued, but nothing like the days when I go into work.

While working at home I love to have movies playing in the background. Today was quite rich and varied: Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan, Underworld (the sequal is out and I missed the first one), and Enron: the Smartest Guys in the Room. The first two were fun, the last one was unnerving. Having lived in California during the Enron era I thought I was well acquainted with what happened, but the documentary showed me how much deeper the dirt went. What I cannot understand is how things could have gotten that bad. I guess that is why I will never be rich (as many peole consider the term), I am just not greedy enough. My parents ran a small business and never once did they do anything that would knowingly hurt anyone and often put themselves in financial straights trying to help those could not help themselves. They are my model on how a good person will be in business (returning to my constantly recurring theme of virtue ethics, they are the people who model virtue for me). The question of legality wasn't broad enough, but the questions "Is it wrong?" and "Are we helping people?" were what guided them. Are such concepts really that foreign to corporate management? I listened to a discussion this morning about Ford and their announced "restructuring" (layoffs). One of the panelists said to the effect thaf you ask the head of a Japanese auto maker what their goal was they would say something like 'creating a better experience for our customer', but if you asked the same question to the head of an American manufacturer they would say 'increasing the value of our stock'. Totally different perspective, yet it appears that soom Toyota will be the largest manufacturer of cars and trucks in the U. S. Listen Here . Is making money and collecting things what makes a life worth living in 21st century America? Is the only goal of business to raise the price of stock doing whatever is legal (I'll give most company "leaders" the benefit of the doubt of being at least consequentialists and that fear of impoverishment and prison will keep the more egregious of violations at bay)? Aren't our businesses smart and innovative enough to deal with market valuation in ways beyond simply laying off thousands of workers? Is George Carlin right is saying that business ethics is an oxymoron? When I started my MBA I found it a little funny that business ethics was a required class at my school and an internet search showed that most graduate business schools either require it or claim to weave ethical issues into all of their classes, most of the leaders of the Enrons, WorldComs, etc, have graduate degrees in business and thus must have had this same training. Not encouraging. If you are at all interested, a good site to examine is the Ethics Toolbox (and if you take the test and want to see how you compare with me, I am a C4 /J5).