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 Sharing 2009-11-17 Every single person that works in my company is supposed to have a degree of some sort from some institution of higher learning as a prerequisite to getting a position of employment here. That should indicate that the people I work with are the results of the respective culmination of their countries highest achievements in academic ability. That is why on a regular basis at my office I am shocked and disturbed at the ineptitude of my co-workers when it comes to the most basic human interactions and common sense. The concept that seems to be especially difficult is one that should be learned early in human development. Most of my co-workers do not seem to understand the concept of “sharing”. There are two very separate instances where this has made itself apparent. The first is in a simple book sharing experiment that I began. Living in Japan, English books for pleasure are either expensive or hard to come by, often both. It makes sense, then to offer the books I have read to my immediate friends in the hopes that they would return the favor for me. With my trusted friends this system has performed admirably, so with the intent of expanding my marxist influence I began leaving books in a conspicuous place for any member of the staff to take. This has resulted in every book I have placed there (well more than 50 at this point) being removed with nothing being left in its place. The most memorable instance of this was with a new group of teachers who were in the process of training. I had, before my presentation, left 3 books in the box that was now delegated as the “share box” for books. At the end of our day I was sitting down to eat and watched as one member of the group walked over, picked up all three books and put them in his bag. “You're taking all three books?” “Yeah, I'll read them all.” “But not all at the same time?” With a tone of voice to suggest I was stupid. “No.” “So why don't you take one book and leave the others for someone else?” “Someone else will take the books and then I won't be able to get them.” “But you're not leaving anything to replace the books you're taking?” “No, I don't have any.” “But its still okay to take them all.” “Well...they're free.” “Of course you'll bring them back later for other people.” With a tone of voice to suggest I was stupid. “Of course.” That was over a year ago, the employee has since quit and the books were never seen again. The part that bothers me the most is the “Of course.” at the end. We all know this is the proper answer, the answer you are supposed to give, so it comes out so quickly as if it were so obvious but I know the books are never coming back because the kind of person who would return books wouldn't take everything available in the first place. There is no way to prove this until after it happens, then these people so many excuses that its painful to listen to and there is the invariable “I was just about to...” return the books, pay for the good, perform CPR, whatever needed to be done that wasn't. The part that bothers me is this is a full grown adult with a supposedly higher than average education. Yet I can see they don't get the problem, they don't understand why I am hassling them. So that system pretty much broke down. For me the end came when I placed my collection of Giant Robot magazines in the box, at least 30 issues, each imported at great cost, all of which were gone a few hours later with nothing left in their place. Obviously I didn't really expect to get the magazines back, but I know that 30 individuals didn't take the magazines, one person picked up the whole pile and walked off. What was most amusing was the fact that I actually got annoyed, despite basically knowing that this is exactly what was going to happen. I no longer share books in this way, I put things I consider garbage there and if I have anything good I ask my friends if they want it and if not it goes to the international center library. My second example is a little more conceptual, but perhaps more telling. Everyone wants their movies and media for free. I understand that since I live in Japan as well and sometimes things just don't come here. Several times I have had people ask me if there was a way they could download a torrent and block the only other function of a torrent client, seeding to other people. The conversation I had went something like this: “Is there any way I can download from a torrent site and block the uploading?” “Why would you want to do that?” “Won't it make my connection faster so I can download faster?” “Not really, but do you understand how filesharing works?” “Yeah...” (This means 'no' but they aren't willing to admit it) “If you don't share out it means other people can't get what you are downloading either, so it makes the whole system slower. Basically, if everyone did what you are talking about no one would get anything.” “Yeah, I get that, but is there a way I can download a torrent but block the upload?” “No, no you can't.” So sharing is a concept that seems to have been somewhat lost over time and with each generation of people who joins my company I rarely see improvements in the attitude. Certainly I haven't been seen actual generations, but I have seen new university graduates pretty much every year and over the last decade my view is that this particular trait is on the way out for the moment. Or, I might be getting older and just see everyone with youth and vigor as being selfish. add comment to post #261 Michael V:Hey Peter, Of course, I would share my books. Yeah, of course. 
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