Open Writing

Plato once said "Wealth and poverty: the one is the parent of luxury and indolence, and the other of meanness and viciousness, and both of discontent," but now a new study questions his assumption. A team led by Harvard researcher Sreedhari Desai found that the increasing salary disparity between executives and workers results in meaner bosses. Titled "When Executives Rake in Millions: Meanness in Organizations," the study states "higher income inequality between executives and ordinary workers results in executives perceiving themselves as being all-powerful and this perception of power leads them to maltreat rank and file workers ... increasing executive compensation results in executives behaving meanly toward those lower down the hierarchy."

We've all experienced meanness, and the article reminded me of the first library director's job I interviewed for long ago. The interviewers asked me to tell them the weakest performance aspect I'd be bringing with me if hired. Later it was revealed that there was no right or wrong answer; they wanted to see how I thought on my feet. I've since used the "get them talking" technique in interviews ever since, for it's often revalatory, but I try to avoid meanness.

Not so among many other potential employers, according to a Huffington Reports article titled "15 Ridiculously Hard Interview Questions From Top Employers." Capitol One, for example, told interviewees to rate themselves from one to ten for weirdness, and Goldman Sachs asked "If you were shrunk to the size of a pencil and put in a blender, how would you get out?' Those in the computer world pose mean questions. Google asked "How many basketballs can you fit into this room?" Epic Systems asked, "An apple costs 20 cents, and orange costs 40 cents, and a grapefruit costs 60 cents, how much is a pear?" And Apple asked prospective employees to figure out the contents of three incorrectly-labeled boxes, one containing only apples, one holding only oranges, and one containing both, by looking at one piece of fruit removed from one box without looking inside.

Another way to judge computer-related companies' meanness is to try to find their well-hidden 800 numbers that actually reach humans in this country with helpful information. Often getting through to the right person seems impossible. But calling your library for reference assistance is usually a good method for getting the information you need. There are also some decent online resources for toll-free numbers, like GetHuman.com and HardToFind800Numbers.com
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The NY Times ran an article along these lines recently titled "10 Ways to Get the Most Out of Technology." Among the suggestions are to "Stop using Internet Explorer," since IE "is large, bloated with features and an example of Microsoft excess," and instead "Switch to either Mozilla Foxfire or Google Chrome. Both are first-rate, speedy browsers, and both are free." Other suggestions include getting free antivirus software from Avast Free Antivirus for PC users or iAntivirus Free Edition for Macs, taking the time to calibrate your HDTV, and to "buy lots of charging cables" for smartphones, iPods, and other rechargeable devices.

There's also a new way to get more out of our library's computers: a new fiber optic line was installed recently at Noel Wien Library that's amazingly fast. Steve Smith, the UA system's Chief Information and Technology Officer, gave a report last month on broadband connectivity that put computer speeds into digestible terms. Downloading a regular feature-length movie takes 41 hours with 56 kilobyte dial-up connections, like many folks have here in the Interior, but downloading the movie only takes 33 minutes on a really fast DSL line that runs at 4 megabytes. However, the downloading requires a mere 52 seconds using a fiber connection.

Only a few places in town have fiber optic lines, yet more and more people need fast connections to use computers for distance education, completing government forms, and even job interviews, and our library's working hard to make it possible. Your librarians really care about connecting you to information, and they're kind, the opposite of mean. For as the Victorian poet P.J. Bailey put it: "Kindness is wisdom. There is none in life but needs it and may learn."