Google chief: Only miscreants worry about net privacy

I realize the irony of this post -- I'm putting it on Blogger, which is owned by Google, and this is a post questioning the position of Google on privacy.

With any luck, someone will take notice and think seriously about the privacy issues I'm about to raise.

One of my favorite sites is The Register, which is full of geeky, nerdy news. Their tone is... well... honest. And it doesn't take itself overly seriously, which is nice in this IT world where everyone, it seems, takes themself very, very seriously.

Anyway, I happened upon this post about Google's chief saying basically that only miscreants worry about net privacy. Huh.

I'm not sure what worries me more -- the fact that he equates the need for privacy with wrong-doing, or his seemingly trusting attitude towards authorities who "need" to know people's details, or his off-handedness about what is truly a problematic and potentially disastrous aspect of people's lives.

Here's an example of why privacy concerns can genuinely be about protecting innocent people from authorities who mis-use what they know:

Many years ago, before I got into web development, I was a staff supervisor at a mid-size professional services firm in downtown Boston. I was third in command in the firm administration, reporting directly to the Executive Director and the Director of Human Resources. The firm was in a bad way, financially, and the Director of HR had a penchant for finding out who she could cut from the staff, so she could 'save the firm money' -- and also boost her annual bonus by reducing 'overhead'.

Well, one of my staff (I'll call her Tammi) was a woman who had battled breast cancer several years before. She was the best one I had on my team, and I would have been sunk without her. She had ostensibly won her battle with cancer, and she was in good shape, as far as anyone could tell. That was fortunate, because her husband had been out of work for a while, and she was the sole breadwinner for their family of 4. They had two small kids, and her paycheck was the one thing that kept them afloat.

Well, one day the Director of HR says to me, "How's Tammi doing?" I said she was doing fine, and she was doing a great job. The Dir of HR tells me, "Well, is there anything she's not doing well?" Long story short, she was fishing for a reason to fire Tammi. I asked her why, and she told me -- flat out -- that the firm was concerned that Tammi might get sick again, and if that happened, they'd have to pay short-term disability for her, and they didn't want to pay it. Basically, the firm couldn't afford to have her get sick. So they needed to fire her.

For no reason other than that she had health issues they didn't want to "gamble" on. They knew she had been sick. They knew there was a chance she might get sick again. They didn't have the heart/ability/resources/integrity to willingly employ a perfectly capable and productive employee, because she might get sick.

I spent the next year fighting for Tammi's job -- there was no way in hell I was going to let her go because of some off chance that she might become sick again. She was the best staffer I had, and she knew her stuff. There was no way I was going to put her and her two kids and husband out on the street, because of what might happen.

Unfortunately, Tammi did get sick again. And she did pass away in the time that I was there. But when she passed, she was not unemployed because of what some HR director decided was most beneficial for a firm that had spent so much on booze for the Tall Ships reception they threw for their clients, that they had cases and cases of wine and vodka sitting in storage for years after that.

I left the firm a short time after that. I was through fighting the good fight that should never have to be fought.

So, when I think about what the Google chief has to say about privacy, I think of Tammi, and I wonder if he has any clue that this sort of "staff management" behavior is unfortunately not uncommon. It's patently illegal. It's indefensible. And there are protections under the law. But if someone finds out that you've got a chronic health condition... or you suffered a TBI or developed PTSD in Iraq or Afghanistan... or you suffer intermittently from some inherited illness... people can -- and often will -- find other reasons not to hire you. I have heard many stories from people who made the unfortunate mistake of revealing too much about themselves online -- including health problems -- only to find themselves dumped by people they were interviewing with. (I heard recently that a website for returning vets got started, to educate employers about the challenges that some vets face when they return. The site, I read, was full of good information, but employer responses were less than enthusiastic.)

Now, if someone posts some snarky, bitchy blog post that contradicts their shining example at a job interview, they have only themselves to thank for having a job offer rescinded. But if someone trusts a source like Google to store their health information -- and I mean ALL of their health information -- and some unscrupulous individual with connections or a 'reason" to access the data, gets hold of it, the havoc wreaked can be considerable.

Having your health information stored by a company which equates privacy with a need to conceal wrongdoing... well... let's stop for a moment and ponder the ramifications. Where's their impetus to protect what they've got? And do they even understand the true needs for privacy, versus just wanting to hide out? Do they get the privacy thing at all? And if they don't, what the heck are they doing, storing personal details which can be damning -- in no small part because people don't know enough about how successfully people can deal with certain conditions, and a scary-sounding condition can look pretty alarming and discouraging to a prospective employer... especially if they Google it and find all the worst-case scenarios clearly described.

Don't get me wrong -- I love Google for many, many reasons. But when they get into the business of storing some vitally sensitive information, and their CEO says, "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place," then personally I'll seek other solutions for my health records storage and management.

Like my own hard drive.

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P.S. My thoughts on using social networking and online communities to troubleshoot serious health issues will come in a later post.

Bringing your best

Don't do it for your company. Don't do it for your loved-ones. Don't do it because it's what you are supposed to do and your annual bonus hinges on it.

Do it for yourself. Because the more you bring your best, the better you get. The better you feel. The better you are.

Bring your best for yourself.

Why the best people are sometimes sent away

Layoffs, layoffs, and more layoffs. 'Tis not an easy time to be employed, these days. Who can say, how long any of us will be? I heard recently of a layoff that took folks by surprise. Most layoffs do, for some reason. We like to think that we are valued, that our work counts for something, that someone notices what we've been up to. Sadly, that seems to happen less and less. But still we hang onto the belief that, well, we will be spared in the next round of downsizing.

I recently finished reading The Art of Possibility by Ben and Roz Zander. Much of the book I found a bit grating - but that had more to do with the tone, than the content. I actually found some tasty little nuggets between the covers, one of which really hit home, with regard to an orchestra member whom Mr. Zander (conductor of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra) considered unmotivated and disaffected. Turns out, she was anything but -- she was actually deeply invested in the music they were playing; it was the score/arrangement that was the problem for her. When he switched up the pacing, she was able to pour her whole self into it.

From the book on page 39:

"The lesson I learned is that the player who looks least engaged may be the most committed member of the group. A cynic, after all, is a passionate person who does not want to be disappointed again."

Interesting... when I thought about that in terms of all the IT folks I've worked with in the past, as well as all the really good IT folks who have been inexplicably laid off, over the past few years, by organizations that desperately needed them, suddenly something clicked. Could the unfathomable shedding of some of the most talented and committed team members have anything to do with this phenomenon -- the cynicism of the disillusioned passions?

Let's break it down:

Top performers with a passion for what they do are asked to perform feats of unbelievable efficiency and productivity on a shoestring budget and about half the time they need to get it done right.

They do the job, and they do it well, but they keep being asked to do more and more with less and less.

They have to make trade-offs in their choices, and they have to sacrifice excellence for efficiency. You can have only one of the following three: high quality, quick turnaround, or decent price, not all three, and time and again they've had to sacrifice high quality for speed and price. That soul-sucking exercise ultimately cuts into their morale and passion -- the more deeply they care about their work and the quality thereof, the more quickly they grow cynical and disaffected.

Management notices that, over time, they've become increasingly marginal. They don't contribute the way they used to. They don't perform with the same vigor they once did. Their work is solid, but other than turning in work, they've long since stopped adding their hearts and souls to the life of the organization.

So, they end up on the shortlist for cuts.

And when they are cut, the organization loses some of its most passionately committed performers, who -- given proper support and actual leadership -- could bring home one slam-dunk after another, app-wise. That's bad news for the organization, because the folks who were once the most dedicated, loyal, passionate, committed individuals in the shop are no longer around to help do the job. The fire that burned brightly enough in them to carry them and their teams through the tough times, has been ushered out of the building, leaving the survivors to try to kindle the same drive, the same... vision... that once got the job done.

Problem is, there aren't nearly enough of the best people left. And there's twice the workload from before... and more threats of layoffs.

A new cycle of encroaching cynicism ensues, as the survivors -- who cannot for the life of them understand why some of the best and the brightest were disposed of -- struggle to meet their goals... making the same sorts of sacrifices that drove their colleagues away... slowly sinking into the quagmire of their own broken-hearted cynicism, until they too end up on layoff shortlists.

I'm sure this phenomenon been amply detailed in management literature, perhaps ad nauseum. I'm sure someone somewhere has highlighted this to the H.R. folks and managers of the world. But for me, that instant when I read the Ben Zander quote, a little bit more about my world became a little bit clearer.

Which made me happy... immediately prior to making me very, very sad.

Catching up after catching up

Well, I overdid it at Thanksgiving. But not in a bad way. We had a really nice time and we reconnected with friends and family we haven't seen in months... or a year. The drive back home took an hour longer than usual, due to the heavy traffic, but it was because we took a more remote route that steered us away from the backups and endless red ribbon of tail lights, and led us through the northern Mass countryside. It was dark, of course, but traffic was flowing. And it was a good thing.

But I can definitely tell I'm not the spring chicken I once was. We "landed" on Sunday night, and I've been going full-tilt boogie ever since... till last night, when I started to come down with something (and me with that 10:00 p.m. conference call I had to be on... global commerce waits for no one). I had been feeling steadily worse, over the past few days, and I had a sneaking suspicion my constitution was going to rebel today. Sure enough, first thing in the morning, it said, "A 9:15 meeting in Boston?!"

I'm not joking. And don't call me Shirley.

Anyway, the upside of being down, is that today I can catch up on my notes -- transfer the wild scrawlings in my notebooks into meaningful collections of cogent thought. It's very artistic and all, to have all sorts of partial words and phrases scattered about, but dude, I've gotta get some WORK done. So, I'll use my time today to catch up with housekeeping stuff that must be done, but often gets pushed aside, once I land in my cubicle and the action starts to pick up.

I generally do pretty well about planning my days. I'm quite fanatical about it, actually... and I probably save myself a good 1-1/2 to 2 hours of churn each day, just by thinking everything through up front, before I launch into my day, preparing-preparing-preparing, and getting clear on my priorities and the steps I need to take. Without my planning, well, all bets are off. The price of velocity is mindful care.

So, there we have it.

Anyway, enough of this break. I've got an 11:00 call I've got to get on, in a few minutes. In some ways, this is turning out to be a very productive day.

Maybe this is what the Taoists mean when they talk about "doing without doing"

A new poem, as Fort Hood mourns its dead

I did not follow much of the coverage of the Fort Hood tragedy. Too much misinformation, too much speculation, too many conclusions jumped to, and too little insight into the full spectrum of very human conditions which contributed to it.

As Thanksgiving approaches, my thoughts turn to the survivors and loved-ones of those involved… and to everyone who was affected by it. Thanksgiving for me is as much about loss as it is about gratitude. It is a season when I am keenly reminded of those who are no longer around, those who have passed out of my life… places and things and aspects of my life which are now beyond my reach.

Perhaps it’s the proximity of Halloween and All Souls. Or perhaps it’s just the normal course of life. Who can say? But summer is over, autumn is giving way to winter, and the days grow shorter with each passing week. The loss of light, in itself, is a significant loss — even if there is promise of its return.

I have had my share of losses in this life, and there will always be empty seats at the tables where I sit during the holidays. We cannot love without losing, I believe. And we cannot gain without sacrificing first. Of course, some sacrifices are a hell of a lot more painful than others…

But enough of my prattle. For all those who have lost, and (like me) are reminded of it this time of year, this is for you.


Requiem for Healed Griefs

A week later, it is still HERE. No relief in sight.

A month later… WTF?! Three letters are about all one can muster.

A year later, one would imagine
it will all disperse like so many fall leaves after
several rainfalls
and a handful of hard frosts.
The shock, the guilt, the accusations un-
spoken, yet deeply felt, the fault, the fault… and more
faulty wires crossed between family members far-
flung to disparate lives, sparking
in the dessicated tinder of old hurts
unhealed, bursting
minor incidents into major-
league blow-outs… like a bobbled infield hit can so quickly
turn into a triple…

A year later — yes, all twelve months’ worth — one would
think, the hurt could lessen, the anguish
could fade, the jagged edges
of loss-loss-loss would soften. But

no

Two years after The Loss
That Dares Not Speak Its Name, one would think
it would be just a little bit easier to sit
in the same room as others
grieving. Some still taking it harder
than others. But

no

it is not enough time. Two years is twenty-four months, is
730 days (or 731 if a leap year happens), and that adds
up to over a million individual minutes of individual
pain.
That’s way
too many minutes to think about grieving.
Too much time to spend being it, as well.
We know that. We know — we think — better
than to let it get us down.
But loss is loss.
And I don’t care what folks say — time does not
heal all wounds.
Two years is not nearly enough to make
sense of much of anything.

Three years later, aren’t we all
feeling foolish and a little self-indulgent, still
smarting from time’s lash…
Those who grieve hard — still — cannot help but
wish their pain will last
as long as they breathe, the measure
of their anguish
being the measure of their devotion
to their long-lost loved one’s memory. To pry
their grieving grasp from around their treasured memories, to try
to talk them into trading tear-soaked-soggy sack-
cloth and ashes for a comfortable house dress… Well,
that would be
just plain cruel.

Four years after that terrible, terrible
weekend/week/evening/event, some
still ache as though it happened yesterday, and they
cannot help but
suspect
those who claim to have moved
on…

and in the middle
stand
the ones who can see
both sides…

they’re the ones who hurt either half
or twice
as much, depending
on the movements of the moon
and the configuration of the seasonal sunlight
on scenes once shared with the one
who’s passed.

Grief is not like an autumn leaf suc-
cumbing to persistent elements.
It is a season, in itself.