Generally, when one is looking to hire a new person for the place of business, whatever it is, one looks for the most qualified, the most flexible, oftentimes the one most capable of thinking out of the box. Obviously, the person must be alert, aware of the field for which one is interviewing and/or the ability to learn quickly and to internalize new requirements and education for the position and be able to function on a high level almost immediately. Sounds a bit demanding, but this is the case and one must work within its parameters.
Generally, that is the case. However, it seems that much of the world's population goes in for a different prototype for the many jobs that appear to be vacant or needful of replacement. That is a majorly unfortunate phenomenon and yet we show no indication of changing our ways, certainly not in any time span soon upon us.
Assume you are in the privileged position to choose someone who will take upon him/her self the responsibilities inherent in the position, checking the box on all qualifications, with proper experience and work ethic, possessing a high moral code and knowing that the job entails not personal gain but rather service, deep and demanding service, to the people, to those to and for whom he is responsible.
These qualifications tweaked a bit here and there for various positions, used to be the expected qualifications which would enable the candidate for the job to be hired with a sound expectation of positive days ahead. It provided for a functioning productive workplace where people's skills meshed together, and the synergy produced was predictive of workplace positivity. Good workers, apt fillers of positions, respected each other and helped each other. Any worm within this world would quickly be isolated and if resistant to change would be removed from the workplace in prompt manner.
That was then and the now is far changed. The hiring process has become so convoluted that the goal, to fulfill hopes and expectations of a functioning unit, working together, bouncing ideas off each other, respectful of each other, has become nigh unto impossible. For too many it has become a pipe dream which wafts off into the air leaving behind only more problems, more cases of unsuitability and certainly more instability within the workplace. This bodes no good for individuals, groups and for the economy at large.
We have accustomed people to think highly of themselves, and why not? Everyone gets a trophy. Everyone is the best at something. Is that not the ethos of the day? A trophy for showing up. A few for breathing quietly. A trophy for anything other than competence and an internal drive to do what is demanded, to do what is necessary, and to do it in the best way possible. Almost nothing is demanded of the person at play these days. No incentive is present, for after all, there is another trophy coming to join the useless ones already on that shelf.
What seems to play more into the hiring, the selection of competent people who match the qualifications necessary, is in fact the necessity to look past true qualifications and instead factor in other "qualifications”. Does the person know VIPs; what influence can this person, this candidate, bring to the workplace? Is this to be a pity hire or a hire owed to someone. The interviewer must take into consideration what will be necessary to absorb this rather useless candidate without harming the productivity of the workplace. But the thought of not hiring this person is verboten. Too much in play, too much at stake.
And therein is to be found the reason why the economies of the world, the political bodies of the world, and even very critical workplaces, have suffered. Too many have hired on, taken on, incompetents unable and/or unwilling to do the job right, burdened as they are with huge baskets of entitlement trailing behind, always at the ready, seemingly inexhaustible.
If you think it not so, or only within the smaller units of the field with which you are concerned, and the larger needs and demands of a unit such as a nation are better addressed, think again. Choose a nation with which you are familiar enough to know the personnel involved, in politics, in the economy, or as experts in one field or another. Study the people involved. What have they contributed or not to the nation via their particular role and position, be it individual or group contribution. Shocked, are you? Cannot believe it? Do it all over again and perhaps the outcome will change - most likely for the worse.
Choose a different country and most likely the results will be similar. It is the sickness of our times. It is the weaknesses which have befallen upon us. Apparently, we are hapless before it and finding the proper experts to help us in that task is just about as difficult as a search for an honest man by Diogenes. Before we can even attempt to right the wrongs, to correct the incorrect, we must take a look back and forward, at the same time and understand what we have so sorely wrought. All of our doing, all of it.
We chose to look backwards. Too many of us developed an envy of those who lived in the past and were able to exploit the weaknesses of others and even their own weaknesses. To build themselves personal empires which rewarded sycophants rather than meeting the challenge for growth. It rewarded deceit rather than honesty. It rewarded family connections and favors owed rather than intelligence and competence. The clever slackers laid thick webs of yarn over the eyes of evaluators and took credit for what the few hard workers actually produced.
Now go national. Leave behind the incompetent techies who know not the latest of their field. Or the doctor who knows only his particular tiny field, practically useless in the world of health. Or the disaster of a lawyer who never learned how to properly write and read a legal document. They are bad enough, but they are as mites when we look at the picture from a national overview of the political body. Worse, is when these walking know-nothings work their way into the larger groups which govern a nation.
We are missing those figures of the past who moved nations forward. Not perfect, but they were large enough to do the job. Whence F. D. R. or JFK or Golda Meir, or Simone Bolivar or Florence Nightingale, larger than life characters to kick start the nation, to move it forward, to improve it. Where have they all gone? We need to send a question up to the skies and ask G-d what He was thinking? Why He has withheld the best from us and sent us second and third rate pathetic so-called leaders who seek only to grasp power, amass wealth, spread Hate and who inflict much wrong, much tragedy upon their nations.
Take a look around. Examine nations large and small, seek out their leaders, their presidents, prime ministers, even much of the royalty. They have set aside dignity and ranted and raved and thrown tantrums worthy of a properly talented, two-year-old. They have led their nations into danger, into endless wars. They have taken the reins of power with no ability to control it, to control the horses upon which the nation rides. Putin, Mamdani, MTG, Bibi, Gvir, Macron, Donald Trump, the leaders of Canada and the Netherlands and Belgium and Iran and on and on and on.
How have we entrusted them with the reins of power, for they are clearly incapable of guiding a nation back into roads of sanity. Or to ameliorate the harm engendered by their incompetence, by those simply incapable of doing the job. Can we find those who might, maybe, perhaps, once upon a time, had been able to do it and remove them from office? Their days are over. Now they dream of insane power, claiming an intelligence that is absolutely not there. Now, many are deep in the throes of dementia though they and we might deny it.
We think in keeping quiet we avoid trouble. But that is wrong, mistaken and dangerous thinking. What we deny our eyes and ears and brains will inevitably come back to haunt us. Forcing us to acknowledge all that we denied. We were and are wrong, so very, very wrong. Now we are reaping the consequences and when all is said and done, I am not even sure that it will be possible to either turn back the clock or push it forward. Whatever is best to remedy the situation and the consequences ripe to poison our world even more. Will we be able to pave over the worst of it? I don't know, nor do I believe that anyone knows, so great is the mess.
Yesterday, todays, and tomorrows.
If we do not learn the importance of separating and refining, finding truths, eternal truths, and bring them forward into our futures, well, there is nothing more to be said or done, is there? Or perhaps the insufficient stopgap measures we are so vainly opting for. Much too useless, too little, too late.
Why have we allowed this to become reality?
Anyone with an answer?
Thought so.
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