The Wonder Years

 While rambling on about my work history earlier this week, I neglected to give any quality time or words to the five years I spent helping to run a book warehouse in Oakland. This enterprise had begun in Berkeley, and as an employee-owned company birthed in the height of hippiedom, there were plenty of ways in which the business never quite managed to escape its granola roots. I say this with love and affection as this was the first job I had in California, having missed my opportunity to continue my career standing behind the counter of a video store blocks from the apartment where I landed. 

As mentioned in prior posts, my ascension in the ranks from the packing line to assistant warehouse manager was achieved in less than a year. I had arrived at a time when change was on the rise, and I caught that wave, eventually landing in the weekly managers' meeting and then a spot on the Board of Directors. This put me in the position of being part of the team that was going to select the company's first general manager since they had thrown off the yoke of oppression way back in the seventies. Five of us were entrusted with the task of bringing in someone who would steer the ship but always be able to hear the folks back in steerage who were complaining about the direction. 

Thus began a months-long creation of a job description for this duckbill platypus of a position. Eventually we ended up talking into the night about the expectations for our creation. It all came down, for me, about the difference between "power" versus "authority." In my very Jimmy Stewart view of the world back then, I felt that authority was something that was given, while power was often something that was taken. 

I think about those late nights often these days. I wonder how we ended up giving away so much authority to one person, never imagining that this might give that person the chance to grab more power. 

Eventually, we hired a guy we thought could do the job. His salary was, by the metrics set by the hippies who founded the place, enormous. To his credit, he hit the ground running, coming up with all manner of ways to make the book warehouse work. It was not long after that when I left the book business to become a teacher. It was not long after that the book warehouse died of "natural causes." Not enough money. Sometimes I wonder if I didn't hasten that end with my part in the devolution of the employee-owned model. 

And I wonder now about how we ended up picking this new General Manager for our country, even as it tips at the brink of collapse itself. Somewhere in all those high-minded ideals, do we all really secretly want to be oppressed? To have something or someone to blame for our misfortune? 

I do wonder.