Anyway, this week I wanted to talk about leaving people in the lurch. Skilling, a top employee, was planning to start working half-time at Enron because his family was falling apart. He and his wife were barely seeing each other anymore, and he never really talked to his kids, so he tried to do the right thing and fix the situation. Skilling talked with his boss and organized to have this other guy, Ron Burns, take up the work slack that Skilling won't be handling anymore. It seemed ok for a while, but then Skilling recieved a call, "[Hey] Jeff...[l]isten, I have something I have to tell you...I'm leaving the company. I'm taking a job as president of Union Pacific...I hope this doesn't leave you in the lurch, but I really think this is the right thing for me."
That's how I would have felt if I was Skilling. When I read this, I just thought, "Here's someone who's desperately trying to keep his family together, and then the one person his plan is dependent on, Burns, goes up and quits, saying 'Sorry I hope this won't cause you any trouble!'" Really rude. No, not just rude. Tactless and inconsiderate. I know it's impossible to please everyone, and a lot of people say to get ahead in the world you have to put yourself first, but Burns could have at least tried to help. He could have found a replacement worker. Or called earlier and let Skilling know he was quitting, so Skilling could change his arrangements and plan ahead.
I think, especially in cases like this, it's really important to keep promises. To not just drop everything to suit yourself and get yourself comfy while other people are affected by it. It's important to be a good person. Someone respectful, someone people trust, someone worthwhile to be, because when it all comes down to it, the material stuff like money only gets you so far. Cole's blog this week is about truth and trust, and he talks about how sometimes lies aren't bad, and how they can build a better relationship with others because you're respectful towards them. Judy's blog last week was about what in life really matters, and she explains how some things that seem important now won't even be remembered when you turn eighty. Countless people are reading A Child Called It, and every week they describe how Pelzer's mother was such a bad person. All of these blogs hold in common important details about being a good person. Will you really wish that you abandoned others for your own selfish needs and bought yourself a mansion when you're older? I won't. I can't say I'm the best person in the world, because I'm really not, but I'd like to be a good person. I remember once when I was really little, I was trying to win a Care-Bear stuffed animal from a claw machine. I spent all the money I had with me on it and I never got the Care-Bear. Then, this old woman who was waiting in line behind me stepped up, and put her money in. She won a stuffed cow with a ribbon around it, and then she turned around and handed it to me with a kind smile. She walked away. Being the little kid I was, my first thought was "Eww this is such an ugly cow." But... I kept it. Over the years, I stopped caring that the cow wasn't pretty like a Care-Bear, and I liked it just because a stranger was nice enough to think of me. I still have the cow now :p, just to remind me of her kindness. I never knew the old woman, and I never met her again, but I keep remembering how nice she was, and how she was what I'd call a good person. My definition of a good person is someone that others can trust, and someone who at least tries to put others before him/her-self.
PPS: This has nothing to do with the rest of my post but I thought this was funny so I wanted to stick it in here somewhere. At the start of Enron, it was a weird mix of the company HNG merged with the company InterNorth. The merged company figured out, rightly, that they needed a new name instead of HNG/InterNorth, so an expensive New York consulting firm was hired to come up with a good name. The hired company came up with "Enteron". All right, sounds cool. The company said they took "en" from the word energy, and "ter" from InterNorth, and attached "on" to add some flair. This was a professional company doing the naming, so you'd think they'd do some research before finalizing the name. The New York company did the basic checks for the word "Enteron" in other languages and elementary stuff like that, but they forgot to check the English dictionary. Quoted word for word, "'[e]nteron is also a word for the digestive tube running from the mouth to the anus - particularly unfortunate, given that Lay's company produced natural gas. Within days of the announcement, the soon-to-be Enteron was a laughingstock." After that incident, the name was immediately changed, and that's how the name "Enron" came about. Hahaha well, we all make mistakes now and then.