Selling Out. Souls at discount prices.

There is a classic story of Faust which was updated as the tale of Doctor Faustus. This tale has been retold in many ways but basically, the Devil comes and offers a person whatever they want in life in return for their soul when they die. I saw the basic flaw in this if the Devil has to do his job on a budget. Why offer fame and fortune when all he has to do is walk down the street and let a twenty dollar bill fall out of his pocket. He can collect the souls of the people that take the money instead of calling out to him and giving him back his money. We sell our morality at discount prices every day in the small cheats we allow ourselves (because everyone does it). This speaks to breaking the rules, so I am not that far off topic.

So here is how I am being tested … and I am sure to get a failing grade and a stomach ache over this one. I have been temping at a company for 2.5 years on an hour by hour basis and have 19 years experience consulting for this company and designing for them. I have been told in private (even though it is illegal) that I will not be considered for employment because, at age 51, I am too old. I have worked most of my career in back room while someone out front took credit for what I’ve accomplished. Few people know what I am capable of doing, so my ability to get employment is very limited. I settle for making less than 2/3s of what other consultants doing the same work (very badly, I must say) because, frankly, I am in no position to bargain. I get paid only for my time — no vacation, sick leave or unemployment benefits. I am also supporting a disabled wife, an unable step-son, 3 dogs, 3 cats, a ferret and various tenants in properties I own and can’t sell for what I owe on them. That is the set-up. Now the dilemma. I have been asked to add a feature to a design that can be changed over time in a way that customers will, over time, begin paying more and more each month for our product. Without them being aware, they will be using more and more of our product do to a subtle change in the product packaging. What they are paying for will literally go down the drain. I know it’s not like I am designing a better shower for Hitler’s concentration camps, but I still consider it to be ethically and morally wrong. Yes, I do believe that there are things that it is wrong to do and this is one of them. And, from my understanding, this idea is blessed from all the way at the top of the food chain — the owner and CEO. So, do I refuse to do it … or do what I do at the best of my ability knowing it will be used to take extra money out of the customers’ pockets unaware?

By the way, just posting this could put an end to my ‘employment.’

Hi, this is the first time I enter on your page, follow your work in Smallville, and I am a big fan.
Congratulations, your site is beautiful and your incredible work

XoXo

I know exactly how you feel david. When I was 19 I worked in a pharmacy as a sales person. Soon I became very proud of my sales abilities to the point once I bet a co-worker if he picks an item I can sell it to the next person who walks in and I won the bet (The item of course was not a medicine ) One day I noticed that all the prescriptions from one dermotologist has a certain cream, very expensive and only prescribed by that doctor. I asked my manager and he told me the secret that the doctor imports this cream himself from Germany and asks us to sell it to his customer’s. The cream was nothing but a simple moisturizer. So I started feeling bad about selling it but I tried to justify that by saying it is not my decision, and responsibility they ask for it and I just give them what they ask. One night a lady came to buy the cream and she was shocked by the price, she looked at the cream and said; “If it was not for my daughter’s health I would never pay so much, I probably have to sell the rug in my room we sit on but what can I do. I looked at the poor woman in the eye and said there is another brand much cheaper that does basicly the same thing why don’t you try this one first.
That incident shook me and made me re-think the whole sales success part of my life. I eventually quit that job and left that country but I still see the same senario in a more civilized way around me. If not a doctor but thousands of software designers working for a phone company developing a design that can rip you off. But it is very easy to think you are not responsible for what you are doing.

People have covered the question of “good” and “bad” from just about every angle, but I’ll go ahead and add my two cents as to how I see the words defined.

I think the reason “good” and “bad” are difficult to define in any one way is because they are such basic words. They are among the first words you learn, and, if you study another language, they are, also, among the first words you usually learn in your target language. So, I think we are almost invariably forced to go back to perception. I’m glad you used that word because that is where I think it’s at. What we have to be constantly trying to do is to expand our perceptions. A very young child’s perception? –Dirt good to eat! Parent’s perception? –Dirt bad! Bad to eat! Bad on feet! Bad on hands!

Food: Steak good! Good for me! But if you’re a vegetarian, actually and morally, and haven’t eaten meat in years, not only is it morally bad, but it is bad for you and physically dangerous.

I live in the heights: Rain good! You live in the valley: Rain bad! Cause floods!

So, our perception of good and bad shifts back and forth in many practical applications, and that leads us to what is, by now, practically a cliché, the “greater good.” Our perceptions of that change frequently according to our experience, whether we personally stand to benefit from the greater good or whether we are willing, to some extent, to sacrifice ourselves for that good.

Similar matters of perception for the word “bad.” To hurt someone is bad. To avoid being hurt by someone is good. To hurt someone to keep them from hurting us is good/bad.

And without even getting into questions of morality, religion, politics, and movements of all kinds, I have to say that, in order to truly define what I mean by those two words, I have to fall back on what my perception is of the circumstances in which I’m wanting to use them. That said, there are fundamentals where I’m comfortable in applying them broadly: famine/starvation bad, hatred/meanness bad, loving/helping good, giving/thanking good. I hope that my perceptions of myself and the world will grow and not diminish because that’s all I have to determine good and bad with. –Tony

I believe that when anything violates the law of love, its wrong….and there are laws of the land which have to be obeyed….but when it comes to living…we have to find a balance between taking things seriously and not taking things seriously….maybe when it comes to ourselves, we shouldnt take ourselves so seriously?

WHEW! I thought President Lincoln had been shot!

weird i had a dream with her and a few other people in it too…
i think david hayes and darwin were too :-/
not too long ago….
and ofcourse the cookie dream, where allison deprived me of the cookies… she said i wasn’t allowed to eat them because they were for my mack event…

i really need to watch what I eat before bed… nothing too sugary
haha

I was dreaming of waiting in an office to see someone and people like Carol Burnett were one by one leaving a meeting, walking out through the lobby and leaving the building. I thought I wish I had known she was in the building because we have mutual friends (which is true … not that it does me any good) but I really didn’t think I would have approached her even if I had been fore warned.

So, back to my moral dilemma. When I was on my own (no one dependant on me), I would walk out of a job on moral grounds even when jobs were scarce. I never went into debt because then I would feel obligated to work to pay back the debt … and that wouldn’t leave me free to take a moral stand when my job could be lost due to it. But marriage changed everything. It is unbelievable what employers pull on you when they no you can’t just walk away … like they are ready to pounce. When I bought my house (before marriage) my employers said, “Now we have you where we want you!” I said I would sell my house if I had to rather than have them use it against me … and they backed down. Then marriage … and the first day back at work after our honeymoon, my wife got pulled in front of her board of directors and was told that, since she now had a man to support her, that her salary was being cut in half. She only got paid when the agency had money anyway, but it wasn’t right (me being judgmental again) and my wife volunteered an annulment because she said I hadn’t signed on to the marriage to support her. Of course, I refused.

But what really bothers me is being in these positions and having to let a part of my soul die because I can’t afford the consequences of standing up for my beliefs (because so many people depend on me working no matter what). It’s like dying by degree. Thus the Harvey Dent quote from “Dark Knight” — “You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” Four years ago, I went from being the hero (in some people’s minds) to being the villain (in many people’s minds). Just before that happened, I was standing a couple hundred feet from a tornado as it demolished a building. Had the winds blown a little differently that night, I would have gone out with my reputation intact.

I just want to say something…. OFF SUBJECT:

David Hayes is awesome,I admire him, I’ve read all the conversation and It’s like WOW! David, You’re awesome! Good thinker.

-Lizeth

heheh and random
and sarcastic….
this place might be boring without him….
hmmm
that would be sad…

I tried to find the text online — a thorough effort … at least as much effort as I could make in 152 seconds. There is a comic that goes by the name Father Guido Sarducci. He isn’t a real priest, but what he says sometimes makes more sense than he may intend. Now this is from memory so it is probably highly inaccurate. He explained that getting into Heaven has some very simple rules. You have to pay admission … and the cost is one dollar. Before you get excited, it’s in Heaven’s currency — not US Dollars, Loonies or Euros. I think it went something like this, that everyone starts out with something like a $10,000.00 credit … or you get paid 10 cents an hour for every hour you live 9which doesn’t sound like much, but it adds up). Everytime you sin, you get an amount deducted from what you have earned … and you have to hang onto at least a dollar to get into Heaven. He had a price chart for sin. Robbery was $5,000.00. Lying $10.00. Adultry ?? Murder was way up there. “Self-pleasuring” was a nickel. I wish I had a transcript of it. Look him u[ on YouTube if you’ve never seen him before.

It seems to make sense to me. But my wife would tell me, “All sin is abhorant to God and he doesn’t differentiate between one sin and another.” In human terms, that doesn’t make much sense. Murder and lying about your weight … equal?

Since I am home now, I can look up the song I wrote about the tornado that saw me and turned around … smething I more used to with animate beings. It reflects my mood at the time. Hmmm. I was going to say something but I realized, maybe I am sarcastic as well as sardonic. Anyway, here is my song … which basically ruins one of my favorite songs:

“I HAD A Name”

[Based on “I Got a Name” by the late, great and wonderful Jim Croce]

Like a dead dog lying along the road
I had a name, I had a name
Like dead pet bird and a croaked pet toad
I had a name, I had a name
And I carried it with me like my Daddy did
But I live in a world that from him was hid.
Movin’ me down the highway
Rollin’ me down the highway
Movin’ ahead so life won’t run me down.

Like a tornado coming across the sky
Sounds like a train, sounds like a train.
Didn’t blow me away but it sure did try.
So I’ve got time. I’ve still got pain.
It took the next building and it sure was loud
It came from nowhere, now our field is plowed.
Movin’ me down the highway
Rollin’ me down the highway
Movin’ ahead so life won’t run me down.

And I know there is no “free.”
Like a fool I am and I’ll always be
I had a dream, I had a dream.
They don’t have a mind but their crap changed me
I lost my dream, I lost my dream.
Oh, I could pretend I have one you want me to
But my days of pretense are almost through.
Movin’ me down the highway
Rollin’ me down the highway
Movin’ ahead so life won’t run me down.

Movin’ me down the highway
Rollin’ me down the highway
Movin’ ahead so life won’t run me down.

Found the Calla Lillies!

Go to You Tube and add this to the address:

/watch?v=4YzNMc_aQ_A

I thought it was from “On Golden Pond.” Here is one of the best scenes from “On Golden Pond” — Knight in shining amor:

/watch?v=fT4KovVUc78

One more. The theme song to the spin-off of “Smallville” in which Pete marries Lana (true to the comic book!) then moves back to Smallville to run his parents creamed corn business:

“Creamed Acres”

Pete:
Creamed Acres is the Place to be.
Farm living that’s the life for me.
Corn crushed until it’s liquefied.
Man this work fills my heart with pride!

Lana:
Metropolis is where I’d rather stay.
Ever since my horsie ran away.
I prefer a pent house view.
Creamed corn reminds me of Mom and Dad – EE-eww.

Pete: You are my wife.
Lana: Goodbye city life.
Both: Creamed Acres we are here!

I’m thinking, David, of how we met in this medium.

I can’t explain it, how two people with such similarities happened to meet on this blog. I might consider it a blessing in a way, because it reminds me of that very thing that I recently mentioned I was trying to reacquire: noticing trends in everyday life, recurrent themes and elements.

I’m lately turning my worries upside-down by willpower, though I’m in a comfortable spot for that so it’s easier than it will be in the future. I’ve been through a lot. I’ve nearly died once, and been threatened with the spectre of it numerous times now in various modes. I’ve survived some of the bad side of humanity, the raw force of nature, physical weakness and others. Each of those, I managed to rise from the ashes for another day. I shouldn’t let myself be done in by this latest turn, it might be very much like Superman letting a low level crook do him in when he could try to persevere in spite of it.

I don’t know how much my life will be worth living in the future, but I know there’s some amount of worth to it because when the tornado hit, all my recent worries flew out the window in favor of wanting to be here on this planet for at least one more day.

Okay, I think I might be crossing a line by divulging that much here. When I start writing, things pour out. I can’t always stop them.

@ David Hayes

LOL with the nowhere man adaptation.

my kind of humor sarchastic. Even though it mocks a great song of the beatles!

Still funny!

First of all I know that there is a God. I have witness a miracle that only God himself could have done. I believe that living life and obeying the rules that apply doesn’t have to be a bad way to live……

You see God gave us the brain to know right from wrong. He gave us the heart to know what we are doing and to know if it’s right or wrong. I don’t think that just because you follow the rules that life is not worth living. That’s its boring. It to me is more exciting. I guess because it tests your strengths, your passion, anyone can do wrong, because it’s easy to do. But a real person with strength and courage can do whats right. I know that is kinda vain but it’s the truth.
xoxoxo
Kathy-Lynn Brown

that quote by Katherine Hepburn reminds me of the one, “all rules are made to be broken.” She has truth in what she say to a degree. Petty rules that come with an eating establishment or public beaches and parks, etc. Even maybe a stop sign in the middle of nowhere-i mean who would stop (be honest). then u have rules such as no trespassing (some of those people have guns and are serious when they post that sign-being a criminal justice student have read cases of kids getting killed b/c they wanted to cut through or mess around on the land). Rules like talking/mouthing off in court-do that u find ur self seating in a cell for a few days. There’s others which most is common sense, but to live life u have to break some rules, because by not doing so ur life would not be at all exciting or adventureous. allison-not sure there is a clear definition of good or bad. it’s not about programming, it’s about how one is brought up. some parents raise their kids with morals which may see things as bad, but parents who raise their kids or have the system raise their kids don’t care really what their kids do. they might see getting arrested or joining a gang is bad whereas the parents who raised the kids with morals may see smoking, drinking as bad and getting arrested, etc as something they did wrong in raising the kid. it goes back to free will too. what is it that U C as bad or good. the author David Pelzer, who i admire and push everone to read his three books, could have ended up a monster b/c of the conditions he lived in during the ages of 6-11 when thens are very impressionable. He was able to get out of that environment and fought through a lot of hate and anger, but was able to push passed it, forgive his mother and live a healthy, better life b/c he saw it better than what could have easily been a bad path and the easiest for him. he chose to make a future for himself than simply live a life he knew for so long. it’s what U c as good or bad, not programming, not text book definition-it’s FREE WILL. everyone has it, why bother looking for answers in thought up excuses for things. you can never go wrong when U LISTEN TO YOURSELF.

I just found this blog and it’s so interesting to read all this different opinions. My own opinion is defenetly shorter and doesn’t include any quotation: Right and wrong, good and bad are very defined and unambiguous. The only problem is that our subjective perception doesn’t reach them in their true meaning. Although, the law and the rules are trying to be the mesure of right and wrong, we mustn’t forget that the law is made by human nature. Being homo sapiens is the reason why we won’t find the answer of “what is good and what is bad?”, but it’s also the reason why we’ll allways ask ourselfs the same question!

I was reading your thoughts on the beginning of commmunication between two people. I would have to disagree with you and your friends thoughts on this. The reason why I say this is because the written word was not the beginning of communication between us human beings. We had aready established a method of communicating with each other. The spoken word what camed right before this and then gestures and grunts came beofre that. And let’s not forget that wshen wee were babies we cried in different tones to get our points across. This is a spoken language that we have forgotten with all of our education that we took on as the years passed by. I was watching The Oprah Winfrey Show and they said that babies actually cry in difeent ways to let you know if they need burping, feeding, changing, and the such. So therefore i can’t agree with you on this point. talk to later baby.