"It's only in our self-confident time of knowledge popularization, through the most powerful weapon of ignorance – mass publication, that the subject of free will could be reduced to … naturalism."
Leo Tolstoy
"War and Peace," 1869
Translated by MZ
I cannot really call myself a CSI fan. I think in eleven years they've released over 250 episodes (!) and I watched maybe 25 or so. It was enough to familiarize myself with the protagonists and even the first level of secondary characters. Their dynamics piqued my interest.
After all, the Crime Lab is a workplace and many actors on the show portray co-workers. Even though they are government employees, the operational localization makes CSI and the human conflicts within similar to a small business.
One antagonistic relationship between two characters I consider archetypal. It is applicable to any workplace. I am talking about professional devotion vs. careerism as represented by graveyard shift supervisor Gil Grissom on one side and Conrad Ecklie on the other side.
It is not that Ecklie is a complete professional failure or a wicked person. Not the sharpest pencil in the box or the most advanced scientist around, he is good enough. He is spiteful, but not diabolically evil. He puts all animosity aside when Nick Stokes is in trouble (in the episode conceived and directed by Quentin Tarantino). Still, his priorities are clear and they have nothing to do with being the best at what he does. His ambitions are all about getting ahead in the organizational structure, and he will do whatever it takes to achieve that.
On the other hand, Grissom is a brilliant scholar whose life's purpose is to never stop learning. The puzzle of crime investigation is his passion. His rise to the shift supervisor position had occurred without his doing anything but the best job he could.
In one of the episodes I've seen, this exchange between the two took place:
Ecklie: "You kept the sheriff out of the loop, that's a career killer."
Grissom: "That's your problem, Eckley, you view it as a career."
And that says it all. So, what happens?
Ecklie consistently rises from dayshift supervisor, to Assistant Director to the Undersheriff of LVPD. Grissom, even though a PhD and a star in his field, holds the same title leading his team until he retires and goes to Paris to teach in Sorbonne.
Obviously, I feel very strongly about this issue – I despise self-promoting careerists who climb up the ranks not because they are the best at what they do, but because they don't step on anyone's toes and know which ass to kiss at the right moment. You, with all your knowledge, intellect and diligence have no chance against them. If promotions and bigger salaries are rewards and it's the mediocre Ecklies who succeed, it means that the merit based system fails.
Whatever was the real reason for William Petersen's departure from the show, the viewers are to believe that Grissom is happier now. But he did leave the job, to which he devoted a big chunk of his life. And so did I – at one point in my career I left a job I liked because someone else undeservedly got ahead of me. It wasn't easy.
"Reason is not automatic. Those who deny it cannot be conquered by it."
Ayn Rand
A couple of months ago I was working with a client, primarily concentrating on the improvement of accounting policies and the transition from QuickBooks to ERP. In the process, I interacted a lot with the company's staff accountant.
She is a sharp and ambitious young woman from Pacific Asia. I liked her very much and was particularly impressed by her outstanding work ethics (a rarity nowadays). She's been with the company for nearly two years and this was her first job after she got her BBA in Accounting.
Her knowledge of bookkeeping basics was pretty solid, which gave her much confidence. She was determined to leave the company and look for a job that would give her a faster career track. Never mind the fact that I've discovered a lot of errors and holes in those areas of company's records that pertained to somewhat more sophisticated concepts, such as Inventory/COGS conversion and revenue recognition.
It wasn't entirely her fault. She didn't have a benefit of working with a seasoned supervisor and wasn't savvy enough yet to understand that accountants were expected to look for standards pertaining to a specific industry. She is a capable individual, though, and most likely will get better with years. Hey, under contemporary standards, she is probably in a top 10% of quality workers. Those experience and knowledge gaps are not the reasons why I think it's unlikely for her to have a high-level career in an average American company.
Here is what happened during that consulting engagement. Facebook filed S1, thus making public its hopes for a $5 billion IPO. The 02/02/12 issue of The Economist arrived at the client's office with a cover spoofing Mark Zuckerberg's profile on his own website, completed with Caesar's boast as a "status" and comments from various "friends," including Bill Gates, Matt Romney, etc.
Unfortunately, the "author" of the most amusing comment was obscured by the embedded subscriber's label – one could only see two letters "ge." I read, "The Death Star is fully armed and operational" and laughed, "This must be Google." The girl was standing next to me. She said, "It's 'ge,' not le' we can see." I explained, it's Larry Page of Google. She looked doubtful and also didn't understand, why I found it so funny. Something hit me and I asked, "Do you know what the Death Star is?" She shook her head, "No."
I didn't show it, but I was very surprised. I understand that she was isolated from the rest of the world back home, but she graduated from high school and college here, in the States. I took her out for lunch and spent 40 minutes explaining: Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Google – Facebook competition, "Stars Wars," the Dark Side, Jedi, the irony of the reference – all fresh news to her.
This incident put me into an inquisitive mode and from time to time I threw well-camouflaged, unobtrusive questions at her.
"What kind of music to you like?" "Pop." "Like who?" "You wouldn't know them." "Try me. I am extremely eclectic when it comes to all arts. Who is your favorite band?" "They are all Asian."
Some time later she ventures, "What are your favorite bands?" "It's a long list, but there is a Top 10 that I can never rank – like Led Zeppelin, Radiohead, Nirvana, Pink Floyd, Queen…" She said she'd never heard those names. I am ready to give up, but still, "The Beatles is one of my Top 5." She has heard the name, but never listened to their music. My heart aches in utter pity.
Every night she watches funny videos from her home country on YouTube. How about TV? (C'mon, people all over the world watch American TV shows . In 2004, I flew from Amsterdam to Istanbul and saw a Dutch girl watching an episode of "Six Feet Under" on her laptop). Alas, not this girl, "I don't watch American television."
The question is, does this hard-working, diligent, and fairly bright person have a chance of ever becoming a partner in an accounting firm, or a corporate CFO, if the said companies are not under Asian management? Unlikely.
The higher you advance in your career, the more you have to communicate with people around you. Nobody sticks to just business, there is always the small-talk. People will be discussing the latest "Homeland" episode and she won't even know what it is? When everyone starts noticing, what will they think? In this country, pop culture is like English – a common language of the melting pot, and you must be able to speak it, or you will devalue yourself in the eyes of others.
To tell you the truth, in spite of my religious belief in the merit-based system, I don't think that this is wrong. You don't have to like pop culture and, like me, you can criticize its prevailing weaknesses all the time. Yet, not to be aware of it entirely – that's just strange. Someone who does her job well, but is so disinterested in her immediate surroundings, will be considered a reliable functionary, but unlikely to climb too high up the corporate ladder.
"For now we see through a glass, darkly"
1 Corinthians 13:12
The Frustrated CFO 