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03/13/02
Striving For Mediocrity
by Jake Davenport
When I was a child my parents encouraged me to do my best in every endeavor. From cleaning the shower to doing my homework, I was taught to measure myself against a yardstick of "excellence". The quality of the work performed, I was told, is a reflection of the person doing it – in fact, to work toward anything less than excellence (even if not achieved in the end) was unacceptable.
Ironically, so thoroughly was this ethic ingrained in me that I have spent a considerable portion of my adult life trying to unlearn my perfectionism in order to maintain my sanity! But even in light of this purposive "re-programming", I continue to make excellence – both its meaning in the abstract and its tangible effects where it has been applied – the goal in both my personal and professional incarnations.
That’s not to say I’m perfect. There have been plenty of times when "excellence" has slipped beneath "comfort" or "convenience" on my priority list. But as I have grown to accept the limitations imposed on my time and energy by daily life, I have also grown to understand that the quality of my work can be allowed to vary somewhat depending upon the task.
When I clean the shower these days, I spend as little time as possible to achieve the most livable of results. The shower is clean, but I don’t scrub the grout with a toothbrush. In this case I have lowered the bar somewhat to make sure I have time for other pursuits. When I work on a client website, though, I use all of my knowledge and experience to insure that the product is something I can be proud of, often in ways that are not easily explained to those outside the industry. But my peers and I know that these things have been done and I know that the work reflects my commitment to excellence.
It’s hard for me to imagine, then, that any person or organization could be committed to mediocrity. Unfortunately, over the years I have learned that for every hard-working, motivated co-worker or employee, there are 9 clock-watchers who will do anything to avoid actually performing their job responsibilities. I’ve had bosses and co-workers who spent all day on the phone with their spouses, and I’ve known plenty of others who happily lowered the standards of service to suit their moods, no matter the detriment to staff and clients. Even now, one of my closest friends suffers daily in an environment where his peers and supervisors exploit his commitment to excellence, allowing him to bear the largest burden of responsibility without thanks or proper compensation. To me, it is the equivalent of a workforce populated by individuals who are more willing to ignore a large garbage heap on the floor than make the effort to clean it up.
Perhaps it is by example that this attitude has emerged. Nowadays, corporate America is disgustingly rife with examples of institutionalized mediocrity and it’s only getting worse. SBC Ameritech’s local phone monopoly here in Des Plaines, for example, has been airing television ads recently that attempt to dissuade consumers from switching local service to their competitors. These ads show a variety of situations that are (presumably) intended to be both funny and horrifying: people switching plumbers and having all their pipes explode, or a company switching cleaning services and ending up with polished floors so slick that employees go flying, cartoon-like, into the air upon stepping foot inside the building. What humor might be found in these dark vignettes is immediately nullified by the company’s incredibly smug "punch line", which effectively tells the consumer that the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t know. In the ads, of course, the decision is invariably made to stay with the current provider.
This ad campaign is an appalling (albeit tacit) admission of SBC’s commitment to mediocrity. At its core the message is designed to remind the consumer that this company is so large, so entrenched, so immobile and untouchable that any attempt to encourage better service through competition will be met with disaster – disaster, mind you, that will be meted out upon those who use the service, not those who provide it. The laugh, it seems they are saying, will be quite literally at our expense. "Go ahead," they tell us, "You think we’re bad? Just you wait."
Not surprisingly, this ad campaign does nothing to inspire confidence in me regarding the phone company’s intent to improve upon their services. In fact, it only confirms what I’ve been worried about for some time: they don’t care if they’re mediocre. They don’t care if we threaten to change providers or write our congressman – they know that nothing we can do will impact them as strongly or as adversely as the sub-par alternatives available to us. They’re proud to be mediocre, and they’re likely even willing to be downright crappy if we let them.
Which brings us to Microsoft.
After much hype and hoopla throughout the industry and a massive ad campaign targeted at the public sector, Microsoft recently released Windows XP. Microsoft’s lobbyists and legal representatives worked very hard to make sure that Windows XP came to market in October of 2001 despite a series of lawsuits filed against the company, lawsuits ranging from the product’s anti-competitive behaviors to the product’s potentially devastating "lapses" in security. When the Bush administration abruptly retracted the Federal government’s antitrust claws, Microsoft did what any company bent on mediocrity would do: they released the product.
Since the product’s appearance on store shelves, Windows XP – touted by Microsoft as the most secure operating system they’ve ever released – has shown itself to contain a variety of well-publicized vulnerabilities. In at least one significant case, the FBI issued a series of warnings to the marketplace at large encouraging users of the operating system to take extreme measures to address problems that Microsoft was, at the time, unwilling or unable to address itself.
But this is hardly news.
Over the past few years, especially during the Internet boom, users of Microsoft products have emerged as the primary source and carriers of some of the most devastating Internet worms and viruses ever seen. Just recently, a "proof-of-concept" virus (one that we likely won’t see in the "wild" but shows that the underlying idea can and will be implemented) was developed and distributed using Microsoft’s much-hyped .Net protocols (built into XP), demonstrating yet again that just turning on your PC can put you at enormous risk. Microsoft, it seems, is either incapable or unwilling to strive for excellence in anything other than legal maneuvering and marketing propaganda. By remaining legally unaccountable for the problems that they (through deliberate negligence) have helped create, Microsoft remains immune to any real consequences that might alter their philosophies in favor of the consumer.
To put this in perspective, think about the early days of personal computing. In 1985, for example, a PC virus was a nuisance but not likely to impact more than a small percentage of the world’s population. The Internet was limited to the nerdiest of the nerds, and most people used DOS-based machines in their offices for word processing and spreadsheets. In 2002, however, a PC virus can – and many have – spread from continent to continent over the Internet (using Microsoft programs and operating systems as their chief conductors), consuming resources and damaging data at an alarming rate. Having been a victim of the Nimda virus (a severe and debilitating worm that got into my unpatched Windows 2000 system the moment I connected to the Internet to download the patch to fix the vulnerability), I know firsthand what a major catastrophe and confounding frustration such an infection can be.
Lest we downplay these concerns, don’t forget that e-business – business done on or over the Internet – accounts for several billion dollars a year, and that number is rising. Don’t forget that your bank is online and allows you to manage your money and pay your bills through a web-based interface. Don’t forget that millions of email messages are sent each day, some critical and time-sensitive, some contractual and filled with private information. Don’t forget that surgeons have begun to assist their counterparts in other countries using video conferencing over the ‘net, or that millions of people use a computer each day to handle all sorts of personal and business tasks. These infections can be costly, even deadly, for individuals and businesses alike. The next generation of self-propagating and exponentially multiplying viruses might bring the very Internet to its proverbial knees with only a few focused attacks – and yet the inception and spread of these digital diseases are often entirely preventable.
Despite our reliance on these critical applications, despite the highly integrated nature of the Internet and PC’s in our daily lives, and even despite its world-wide marketplace dominance, Microsoft continues to sneer at the technology community’s demands for excellence. In fact, Microsoft, like my local phone company, has come to believe that it is irreplaceable and therefore unaccountable for its actions.
Instead of thoroughly testing its products, Microsoft rushes them to market (competing with whom?), then watches and waits while the cracker (slang for "criminal hacker") community deconstructs the products in search of exploitable flaws. Instead of actually making the products better, Microsoft incorporates obsolescence and phases out compatibility. Instead of treating its customer base with respect, Microsoft collects – often surreptitiously – usage statistics and personal information, sometimes with every intent of selling it to the highest bidders. When called upon to be accountable, Microsoft shrugs, labeling critics as ungrateful and paranoid while the Federal government wrings its hands sheepishly in the corner (for even our government is committed to mediocrity, growing ever fatter on the gravy train of special interest dollars from the likes of Microsoft).
Ultimately it boils down to a fundamental difference in values:
Where those committed to mediocrity indulge their self-imposed limitations, those of us committed to excellence push ourselves even when we feel there isn’t anything left to draw upon.
Where those committed to mediocrity protect themselves within shells of bureaucratic complexity, those of us committed to excellence distill out the singular components of complex systems and address each in their turn.
Where those committed to mediocrity create barriers, those of us committed to excellence break them down.
Where those committed to mediocrity seek financial gain above all other things, those of us committed to excellence pay the price.
In the end, it is simply a choice.
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