Life and Physics

So, when seeking “life balance”, personal focus is often directed on establishing some basis of equilibrium – a stable, fixed, still, in control environment…  Makes perfect sense to me.  And then, of course, life happens…

In time and with an ample amount bruises indicating a life lived, one must discover (rediscover?), acknowledge, and reckon with a basic principle of physics  – that “balance requires movement”.

Geez, this conflicts with a premise or objective to seek and maintain a quality life that is nestled in some ongoing state of equilibrium.  Um, no…  Well, kind of, or maybe sometimes.  I don’t know.   When I look outside, things move around.  On the inside, not so much. An ongoing conundrum perhaps…

Customer Service and Spin the Bottle

So, yeah, customers are winners and losers in the game of “customer service”.  You expect, as a consumer, to have fate deal you some bad service now and then.  And, this is generally not a problem, so as long as the “bad” is equally parsed out among the many – the masses if you will.  In the economics of service delivery, there is equity in a virtual abstract pattern of poor customer service or random consumer abuse.  The “other guy” gets his…

And then, there is AT&T.  OMG…  We are talking 3rd Standard Deviation of “can’t get it right” service.  How bad?  I mean, right past the “this sucks” to the “I can’t believe this is happening to me crisis.”  Not slowing down, AT&T has now gone turbo and moved right through the “wow, this is so surreal it is kind of funny” and on into the twilight zone.  A game of chance?

The math to control for a discrete random variable in the statistics of all this simply escapes me.  But what has not eluded my attention is that AT&T is not finished – there is more to come.  Dare we talk 4σ?

Ya, it ain’t over…

Planning – Understanding Tradeoffs

The efficacy of planning is revealed in contrasts.  Consider this:

– The need: “A goal without a plan is just a wish.” ~ Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

– All in: Paralysis by analysis – “You can’t plow a field simply by turning it over in your mind.” ~ Gordon B. Hinckley

– All out: I’m a great believer in spontaneity because I think planning is the most destructive thing in the world. ~John Cassavetes

– Optimum: “A violent plan executed today is better than a perfect plan next week.” ~ Patton