Tag: rant

  • Useless Consultants

    Nothing is more frustrating than having to watch obscenely paid consultants talk absolute bullshit, watch the ignorant groupies gather around them trying to figure out the problem that was just created by said consultants in their efforts to articulate a solution, and then having to step in to restore sanity to the context of the discussion and to salvage what little value remains in the workshop while being paid a market related salary for a job description that is only a tenth of your scope of accountability.

    But, as is clearly evident on Tumblr and in real life, the laziness of those with authority and cheque books will always result in titles being respected, if not revered, more than real world wisdom because appreciating real world wisdom requires the establishment of an informed opinion on a subject. And then to add insult to injury, having to sit quietly trying to justify why logic is logical, and having to over exert yourself to get the illogical to be convinced that 1+1=2 not just because you say so, but simply because it does.

    The demise of this world will result from the intellectual laziness that is excessively camouflaged by the brain numbing acquisition of useless information through academic pursuits disguised as models against which free thinkers are supposedly developed.

  • A rant…

    And so it happened…again. My naivety led me down the garden path thinking that at some point principles and integrity will shed a glimmer of hope that not all corporates operate on the same basis. But like I said, my naivety once again got the better of me.

    At moments like this I’m reminded of that proverb that says that there is no limit to what a man can do if he doesn’t care who gets the credit for it. I generally don’t care about the credit, but I do care about the paycheck, because a pat on the back or a flowery compliment doesn’t pay the bills.

    I’ve been on both sides of this fence, and neither side has greener grass. Both sides have an equal amount of manure, and both sides have underhanded swines that will rather play political games to protect their fragile egos and to cloak their incompetence before they’ll do the right thing for the right reasons.

    Being sincere and having integrity requires conviction. Look around you, whether in the corporate setting, or in a non-profit organisation, the ethical void is disgustingly obvious. Conviction only exists in self-preservation. Everything else takes a back seat for the 99% that are prone to declare themselves victims of someone else playing their marked card before they got a chance to play theirs first.

    The human race disgusts me. That guy from Matrix got it right. We’re a virus. A disgusting virus that respects nothing but greed and self-indulgence, even in our arrogant piety we’re competing to prove that we’re more pious and more sincere than others, woefully inadequate in sincerity, and forever professing humility out of arrogance.

    This rant was triggered by yet another blow to my rib cage that knocked the wind out of me. A blow that came from behind even though I knew it was coming for a long time now. But I’m a naive fool, that’s why I give the benefit of the doubt to others even if they bear all the hallmarks of the putrid souls I’ve had the misfortune of dealing with before. If I judge them prematurely, I’ll step firmly on that slippery slope that will lead me to the place of putrefaction that most of them dwell in. So for now, I’ll continue to allow others to screw me over before I take any action to protect myself or my interests. My idealism will be the end of me.

  • I sit here and witness the endless cycle that has played out so many times before. First the engagement, then the enlightenment, the burst of enthusiasm coupled with commitment to common goals, followed by empowerment, only to be destroyed by shameless politics. This is the cycle that my career has gone through on more occasions than I care to remember.

    And so it is again. Having spent the last year unravelling the chaos in this place, we established much needed controls and protocols to achieve a level of stability and predictability of IT systems never before achieved in this organisation, but as always, the lack of a comprehensive people change management programme threatens to undermine all the work that was done simply because the naysayers and whiners that refuse to break out of their comfort zones will hang on for dear life to every last strand of their political connections to try to undermine the changes that are sweeping through their backyards.

    This is a rant about corporate governance, corporate politics, and spineless incompetence that plagues most organisations these days. In such a climate, it’s never about hard work, nor innovation, creativity or taking one for the team. It’s only ever about towing the line according to the political will and appetite of the ill-informed.

    The kind of stuff that complacency is made of.

  • About Reverse Racism

    Thank you a thousand times over for that post. These race debates are doing my head in. I’m goffal/coloured from Zimbabwe, with family from SA, my dad was a freedom fighter. As stated in a previous post; the most discrimination I’ve faced has been from other ‘people of colour’. In the West white people might have privilege but in our countries? I don’t think so. (White farmers in Zim being killed, and ripped off their farms; where’s the privilege in that?)

    My sentiments exactly! People that pull the race card are too bloody cowardly or lazy to get out of their self-imposed limitations and brave a new approach to life other than the hatred and discrimination of the past. Even those that do still experience this absolutely must realise that it is actions of individuals and not race groups. Even if the group is of a predominant race, it is still the acts of individuals that speak on behalf of their demented group, and not an entire race.

    The entire debate about racial supremacy and privilege is a moot point. Oppression has long ceased on that basis and has, for a long time now, shifted to simply oppression of class and wealth, and nothing else. The colour of your skin only matters to people that are still influenced by the bigoted realities of the past. White supremacy may have established the slums and the informal settlements, but it certainly is not what is maintaining it.

    And those that still believe that it is an active force to be reckoned with are exactly the same ones that are abusing their authority to establish reverse racism in so many parts of the world. So at this rate, in a few years’ time, we’ll be talking about black privilege, and nothing would have changed except the reversal of the skin pigmentation of those enjoying the privileges.

  • White privilege and other bull

    I would normally ignore topics like this, but it’s been cluttering my dash, so here’s my penny’s worth, if anything.

    I think people that pull the race card are running low on logic. I come from South Africa so think carefully before you accuse me of being ignorant or naive about racial issues or racial tensions. I lived through apartheid in my early adult years, and I continue to live through the challenges of a post-apartheid era where reverse discrimination is the order of the day. 

    So for those that believe it’s about white privilege, consider this. If you come to South Africa, I’ll show you black privilege till it nauseates you. Go to India and I’ll show you brown privilege till it turns your stomach. Go to the trailer parks of America and I’ll challenge you to show me white privilege. It’s simple. People are as privileged as you allow them to be. This is especially true in the context of society rather than legislated privileges by government. 

    The apartheid government of South Africa was one of the last bastions of such racial stupidity that I am aware of, so anyone still feeling like they’re the victims of white privilege are in fact victims of their own victim-conscious mentality. If people of colour treat white people as if they’re special, then vent at the POC that do so, and don’t blame the whites for enjoying such elevated ‘hospitality’. That’s like saying that the current generation of white South Africans that were born after 1994 are still to be held accountable for the trespasses of the idiocy of the former generations. The logic is simply astoundingly stupid.

    It’s this same deranged mentality of ‘white privilege’ that feeds the slum-mentality of so many individuals of colour. A white person is not responsible for the moral decay of a black person, nor is a black person responsible for the opportunists that hide behind white privilege. When we stop playing the race card to feed our weakness that prevents us from acting outside of our stereotypical roles that society has endowed on us, that’s the day we’ll rise above the stupidity of attacking people just because they are recipients of unwarranted respect or admiration, rather than recognising that it is the pathetically submissive masses that have yet to rise above the effects of white dominance through the colonial years that are actually responsible for the effects of white privilege that we see today. 

    It requires an independent mind to treat an individual as an individual. When you lack such independent-minded thinking, you’ll hide behind whatever card will suit your fancy and camouflage your insecurities. Unfortunately that card is most convenient when it’s titled with the word ‘race’. 

    Edit: I am a person of colour. So I’m sorry to take away that convenience for any intended slanderous comments about my position on this as well. But I refuse to act according to the stereotypes that people have in their minds just so that I avoid the risk of being labelled an apologist or worse. It’s about individual merit, and nothing else. If you believe it’s about more than this, you’re paying attention to the wrong agenda.

  • Cultural Appropriation

    cynicallyjaded:

    To me, it sounds like a desperate effort on the part of those with barely any roots to lay claim to a culture that they don’t understand, will probably never fully appreciate, will subscribe to selectively, and are using it purely as a tool to establish some sort of elitism because they lack any credibility elsewhere in their lives.

    Imitation is supposed to be the best compliment, so next time you see someone appropriating your culture, thank them. Their efforts will probably contribute more to the preservation of your cultural roots than your efforts to claim guardianship over something you probably had nothing to do with regarding its establishment.

    Of course, if someone is actively trying to alter the truth about the roots of a specific cultural practice, by all means correct them. But more often than not, the debates around this on Tumblr is about others practising some elements of a different culture that they don’t naturally belong to, and that is then misconstrued as appropriation. It’s not. It’s imitation or adoption, but not appropriation.

    In my mind, the Europeans going into Eastern lands, colonising it, destroying its historical records and recreating a new adulterated view about the sources of the knowledge and culture that they now claim to own, is cultural appropriation. Seems like most don’t understand the difference between imitation and appropriation.

    ap·pro·pri·a·tion/əˌprōprēˈāSHən/

    Noun:

    1. The action of taking something for one’s own use, typically without the owner’s permission.
    2. The artistic practice or technique of reworking images from well-known paintings, photographs, etc., in one’s own work.

    This entire debate about cultural appropriation, especially within the context of this wonderful global village that everyone is always happy to celebrate and be a part of, is superfluous.

  • I just deleted about 30 posts from my blog. Many of them left me feeling self-indulgent and some were associated with a plagiarist that I was once again naive enough to trust. I loved some of the content, but I couldn’t in good conscience keep it published on my blog knowing that it was part of an elaborate scheme of deception, regardless of the motivation.

    Betrayal is my weakness. More accurately, being betrayed is what deflates me more than any other experience in the world. I sometimes despise my old school values. It places a burden on me akin to juggling hot coals in my hands. It forces me to accept the wickedness in others, and constantly challenges me to suppress my ego in my efforts to accept and forgive, so that I can gather my strength to move on again.

    I sometimes feel a strong desire to lash out and discard decorum in my efforts to expose the bullshit of the callous players that toy with the emotions and compassion of others. I never do, because I’m painfully aware of the reality that this world celebrates aggressors and tyrants and humiliates victims.

    I needed to recalibrate my blog so that it is a reflection of me, and not of what I would like others to see in me. This is my ventlet to criticise the world for its bullshit and double standards. I smile sadly at the thought of those that find reason to lie about losing a loved one in order to gain attention, juxtaposed with the news that six family members died in a car crash under excessively tragic circumstances.

    Society has a low self-esteem, and it’s reflected in the actions of the weakest amongst us. The attention-seekers, of which there is no scarcity, often succumb to self-pity and self-loathing, then express such emotions to a public audience, who inevitably pour out their affections in the hope of raising the spirits of one they identify with so easily, all the while dismissing the nagging realisation that they feel a sense of purpose only when they’re extending a hand to one they see as lesser than themselves. It’s easier to earn significance in that manner rather than to establish your worth through selfless fulfilment of your duty to society.

    We have more consumers than we have contributors to the collective wholesomeness of society. The contributors are fighting the debilitating symptoms of compassion fatigue, while the consumers do nothing but cry foul and wait impatiently for their lot to be improved by someone else.

  • THAT awkward moment

    cynicallyjaded:

    That truly awkward moment when you look at your dashboard and realise that all the reblogs of profound messages regarding the ephemeral nature of life is all just nice ideas and hardly a soul that reblogs them even realises the true meaning behind them because they’re so busy hating and debating and arguing and fighting that even the news of death only shakes them for long enough to reblog it without actually changing their attitude or perspective because we’re still so deluded about our awesomeness that we fail to realise that that very same life that we mourn the loss of is the very same life that we’re wasting away concerning ourselves about those things that do not concern us in our effort to establish our significance in the lives of those that matter only as long as we choose to follow them after which they’re a distant memory if anything at all while we find a new audience to appease with our clever use of phrases and sharp rebuttals in our on-going efforts to ignore the huge elephant standing in the room with a tiny label attached to its tail with just one simple word. Ego.