Strange Emotions
Sometimes I have the strangest emotions. Tonight I brought home some fast food, but I was unusually quiet during supper. Why did I feel "down"? The reason is that I think that the fast food place that I got the food from will go out of business. Now it's not because the place is so spectacular that I can't imagine living without their takeout. Call me an emotional capitalist but I get sad when I meet people who don't seem to know how to run a business. I've felt this way a couple of times. People have invested in a business, they're probably working long hours, and they are going to go under and lose their shirts. And it is not as if it is rocket science.
Last year I didn't renew my contract with the lawn care guy. For 3 years I hired this company to look after my lawn. And the guy who owned it worked really hard on my lawn and to build the business. For personal reasons, he sold the business to another guy. Maybe the new guy knew the basics of lawn care, but he didn't do nearly as much work as the other guy. And call me the emotional capitalist but I felt bad for him that he spent money to buy a business only to have myself and a ton of other people cancel their service after one year. Now the pure capitalist would say, "that's business and someone else who works harder will take over". And the pure capitalist is correct. But the emotional capitalist gets down about these things.
Tonight we got takeout food and the emotional capitalist strikes again. The fast food place wasn't all that clean. The cook was working hard, but the delivery guy, who didn't have much delivering to do, could have kept that place spotless. But that would require something that is in short supply; initiative. Other capitalistic concerns were a large cooler that was empty. Now maybe it was empty because it was broken and they couldn't afford to have it fixed. That is possible. But it could have held a variety of dry goods for sale. Lots of floor space that could have been generating revenue, but wasn't. The signs on the walls were old and half of them were missing prices. I know that the pure capitalist will say, "let him fail and a better takeout place will replace him". And the pure capitalist is correct. But I felt bad for the guys who owned the place, even if they seemed to lack the drive to make a success of the business.
Am I turning into an NDP'er?
Last year I didn't renew my contract with the lawn care guy. For 3 years I hired this company to look after my lawn. And the guy who owned it worked really hard on my lawn and to build the business. For personal reasons, he sold the business to another guy. Maybe the new guy knew the basics of lawn care, but he didn't do nearly as much work as the other guy. And call me the emotional capitalist but I felt bad for him that he spent money to buy a business only to have myself and a ton of other people cancel their service after one year. Now the pure capitalist would say, "that's business and someone else who works harder will take over". And the pure capitalist is correct. But the emotional capitalist gets down about these things.
Tonight we got takeout food and the emotional capitalist strikes again. The fast food place wasn't all that clean. The cook was working hard, but the delivery guy, who didn't have much delivering to do, could have kept that place spotless. But that would require something that is in short supply; initiative. Other capitalistic concerns were a large cooler that was empty. Now maybe it was empty because it was broken and they couldn't afford to have it fixed. That is possible. But it could have held a variety of dry goods for sale. Lots of floor space that could have been generating revenue, but wasn't. The signs on the walls were old and half of them were missing prices. I know that the pure capitalist will say, "let him fail and a better takeout place will replace him". And the pure capitalist is correct. But I felt bad for the guys who owned the place, even if they seemed to lack the drive to make a success of the business.
Am I turning into an NDP'er?
posted by Shawn Abigail at 10:03 p.m.
2 Comments:
No worries Shawn, you've always been an emotional sap. You feel sorry for the little guy and want him to succeed. I think you pointed your finger at the wrong problem though, initiative isn't the problem, work ethic is. These people have already shown initiative by investing in a business. What they lack is the understanding that you need to keep working to keep you business afloat. Unfortunately this kind of "protestant" work ethic is learned by doing it, not reading about it. Doing all things as unto the Lord is what brought people in this country, and others I could mention, into a position of wealth. Abandoning this principle, along with several others, is what will eventually reduce us to drawers of water and hewers of wood for others who have not forgotten how to work.
I'm comfortable with the fact that I'm an emotional sap. I was just worried I was turning into an NDP'er. I guess the dividing line is when you start calling for government assistance for people whose business plan stinks as much as their work ethic.
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