I’m an old cynic, having lived through some stuff. It’s said that people like me assume that behind every seemingly good or charitable act, there is a selfish motive. I don’t think that of everything, but I never drop my cynical radar until I’m sure about people or the organization they represent.
A few recent events in our area have reinforced my cynicism. Following the heels of financial mismanagement at the Cook County Health and Human Services agency, reports have emerged of financial and employee mismanagement at Community Action Duluth, a nonprofit organization dedicated to addressing the root causes of poverty and promoting economic stability for its residents. Additionally, elected public officials and hired bureaucrats in Hermantown and St. Louis County signed non-disclosure agreements with a private business hoping to build a massive “data center” in rural Hermantown, making it clear that they aren’t necessarily working in the best interest of the people.
Cynicism validated again, but I wasn’t always this way.
American writer and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote: “If a man can write a better book, preach a better sermon, or make a better mousetrap than his neighbor, though he build his house in the woods, the world will make a beaten path to his door.”
Creating a better book, much less a better sermon, is beyond my capabilities. The idea of building a better mousetrap, though, inspired me to work harder and smarter in my early career. It assured me that my success would be determined by my talent, effort, and achievement. My American Dream wasn’t to be held back by a lack of inherited wealth, social class, race, or family connections.
My first white collar day job (with a necktie) was at a decent-sized manufacturing company in Anoka, MN. I worked with many people twice my age who knew, to the day, when they could retire. When a co-worker tells you they only have 12 years, 11 months, and 20 days until retirement, you gotta wonder how they have the stamina to show up every day.
An executive on the marketing side once took me aside to explain that if I wanted to sneak away from my cubicle for a long walk through the plant, I should carry a legal pad with me. “No one will question what you’re doing if it looks like you’re going to a meeting,” he said with a wink. Hard to not catch cynicism when people you’re supposed to aspire to spend hours each week walking around with a legal pad to fake working.
After serving honorably in the US Navy in the early 1950s, my late father-in-law returned
to Minneapolis with his young wife, who soon gave birth to the Bohunk who eventually married me. Ken postponed his higher education and went to work for Honeywell, a prominent employer in Minneapolis, utilizing the skills the Navy had taught him. No time for college; there was a young family to support. He was a brilliant engineer, designing components that went to the moon with Neil Armstrong. However, without a college degree, when he turned 40, Honeywell wouldn’t promote him to a higher pay grade. For the last decade of his work life, despite receiving glowing reviews, his salary increases were capped by the corporate pay scale, barely keeping pace with inflation. As a man of integrity, he continued to go in every day and do his best work, despite having started counting the days until retirement. His retirement dream to own and run a local hardware store, like the one he worked at when he was a teenager, died with him in hospice at age 50.
I was shocked that a quality employer like Honeywell held down the salary of intelligent, hard-working employees just because they didn’t have a college diploma. It confirmed my belief that large organizations are bloated, poorly managed, and inefficient.
Yet the myth that finding success by “building a better mousetrap” kept me going. For many years, even after my father-in-law was taken by cancer, I believed in the unalloyed good of capitalism. It was, as I saw it, the best way to have a prosperous family and nation. However, the reality of bloat, inefficiency, poor management, and corruption in every organization, whether large or small, public or private, has shattered this myth. The cumulative effect of the less-than-honorable behavior of corporations, government, and greedy individuals should make cynics of all of us.
It has certainly made me question the validity of believing in American Exceptionalism.
