Monday, October 22, 2007
decline of an empire
I remember reading Isaac Asimov's foundation series. It talked about how when a civilization begins its decline it no longer produces great things, followed by slowly being unable to maintain the great things it has already made. Leading in a long downward spiral towards chaos and the end of the civilization until another rises to take its place. Sounds overly dramatic in the context of what I'm about to say, but keep the idea and just scale it down.
My company had built a small miniature golf course between some office buildings back during the .com boom. They stopped building things like that after the boom ended, but we got a basketball court and a few other niceties. You could go out during lunch or just when you had a little free time and putt a few holes, get your daily dose of vitamin D, and clear your mind for your 3:00 meeting. Lately it had been becoming run down, missing clubs and balls and pieces of green carpet. Then very recently they came along with a buldozer and I thought, "finally they are going to fix the mini-golf course". But my company is the great empire that is past its peak. The mini-golf is gone.
Lack of mini-golf is probably the least relevant sign of our decline, there are business related things that actually indicate it more. I could make a laundry list of them. But the mini-golf is a tangible physical change that I see with my eyes right before going through the front door and right after leaving the building to go home. It frames my work day as a monument of how things used to be.
My company had built a small miniature golf course between some office buildings back during the .com boom. They stopped building things like that after the boom ended, but we got a basketball court and a few other niceties. You could go out during lunch or just when you had a little free time and putt a few holes, get your daily dose of vitamin D, and clear your mind for your 3:00 meeting. Lately it had been becoming run down, missing clubs and balls and pieces of green carpet. Then very recently they came along with a buldozer and I thought, "finally they are going to fix the mini-golf course". But my company is the great empire that is past its peak. The mini-golf is gone.
Lack of mini-golf is probably the least relevant sign of our decline, there are business related things that actually indicate it more. I could make a laundry list of them. But the mini-golf is a tangible physical change that I see with my eyes right before going through the front door and right after leaving the building to go home. It frames my work day as a monument of how things used to be.
Comments:
I work at Sun, and you can tell that the company is past its prime. The onsite cafeteria is closed, etc. They do seem to be managing the decline well, though. Everything is well maintained.
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