Friday, October 19, 2007

Woe is me

My boss is requesting I attend a lecture this afternoon (Friday at 3:30?!) entitled "Canoes, Bracelets and the Firm":
The firm, or in any case the modern firm, is a socially impoverished institution. The dearth of social features and dynamics within the firm, if remarked upon at all, will be normally viewed as an ineluctable concession to the realization of efficiency. I will present for discussion a set of observations and somewhat speculative arguments to challenge this view. This may have some urgency: more and more public policy making relies on conceptualizing society modeled after the firm with potentially debilitating consequences for both.
I do not know what this means, or how it is applicable to me or my job in any way. And given the time, I expect 6 people to be there.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Huh? My guess is that the speaker is arguing against running the government like a business. Which is actually an interesting topic to me. A business is so much more efficient than government. I'm sure you couldn't run the gov't completely like a business, but there has got to be some business practices that would benefit government programs.

What that has to do with canoes and bracelets, I have no idea. I guess you'll have to tell us. :-)

Katherine Nabity said...

Not having to attend such a lecture makes being an income-less writer worth it. Well, that and wearing slippers whenever I want.

jt said...

*what*!?

I wish I had something with more pith to add here. I'm on my way to San Carlos, Mexico to dive for two days, and I just can't bring anything forward.

I hope you survived.

Jot said...

You know, I have a pretty large vocabulary. When I have to look up a non-technical word like "ineluctable" I realize that someone is using a word just to try to make themselves feel smarter. I would hazard a guess that this speaker is a serial recidivist when it comes being a pompous ass.

(Hm...gets me wondering about its source. I was tempted to go with elocution, but clearly it isn't and now, I've decided I don't really care.

-Jot "proving my point by using recidivist and elocution in the same post"

Jot said...

p.s.: point I was proving is that only a pompous ass uses big words like that, ergo, I am a pompous ass. News to no one I understand. :)