Solomon didn't have as much wisdom as these folks.

Ordinary people are the back bone of this country.

Prager uses this, but I think someone else said it first: the famous are seldom great and the great are seldom famous. Sometimes I think the purpose of life is to strive to exit it with your human dignity intact and to have allowed others their dignity in the process. If you can accomplish that - you're a hero.

When I read this comment the other day I was struck by th thought that the person who wrote it is a thoughtful and compassionate leader. How many managers know the details of their workers lives like this and instead of puffing themselves up with contempt, see them as heroic. I'll bet they'd do just about anything for this person. That's the essence of true leadership, to inspire that yearning in people.
My America is full of individuals like that.

I also found myself chastened by the last line of this post. Live and learn and learn some more. I'm just an old chunk of coal...

Sympathetic shoe-leather mileage is all most people need to feel encouraged. . . or at least not quite so alone.

Abusive leaders get to where they are by having suffered the very same sort of abuse for the privilege of returning it in kind on down the line.

The commenter's estimation of his employees says more about how rare an individual he is.

This is such maudlin crap. We have been melted down by the treacle coated sensitive crowd that award gold stars, trophies and sugar free candy to everyone that puts their underwear on frontside out in the morning.

This is life! My parents and grand-parents lived struggled AND died in situations like these from the '00's thru the '50's in rural Vermont and across America.

It's only the snotty spawn of those given every chance by their parents' hard work and life that fail to see what life really is. What an error on their part!

What will you do when this great gimme debt comes due here and the GOP, the Jackasses and Obama/Bush/Clinton Triad tell you "I got mine sucka!"

Maudlin will be a fart in the wind.

We have changed from a people who expect that effort from others to one that slap hands after every foul shot.

The heroism of ordinary people is exactly the premise of our constitutional republic in which, you will recall, the people are to be the ultimate masters of their fate, and the fate of society as a whole. In good hands, then. Except for those few who would take that freedom from them and replace it with the wisdom of the state.

Life used to be nasty, brutish, and short but that's no reason to glamorize it.

I'm watching as my boss makes every advantage for his daughter's success in his business. He is coddling her to certain success, not holding her quite as accountable as I might, and is smoothing over the very rough realities of a brutal business. Will it make her a weak or lesser person?

All I know is that she is adorably wonderful, kind to everyone, naively unaware of her faults and infectiously fun to be with as well as a fun and fierce competitor in sports. I'd like to think the incredible kindness she exhibits, and the forbearance she proffers to others is a direct result of the kindness she has received.

May this sort of parental "abuse" increase.

I've worked for way too many "self-made" bosses who are bitter and angry at what life made them do to get where they are. . . and they pass that along down their line of progeny and employees.

I've said many times that one of the most accurate ways to judge someone's character is by observing how they treat the person who cleans the bathrooms.

So a conservative reads this and thinks "these are wonderful, hard working people and I wish them only the best."

A liberal reads this and thinks the boss is running a sweat shop, wants to organize an SEIU demonstration to shut him down and will rant and scream that we pass laws that no men shall own and manage businesses that only women have any authority or power.

Scory is obviously a very kind and caring person - you know, a Good Guy. Good guys believe in people. They trust them. A sort of spiritual inspiration/transformation comes about when someone discovers that someone else believes in them and is willing to trust them. I've taught in public schools where it was evident that a principal's capacity for trust could create a Heaven or a Hell.

Sheesh!!! Woodchuck? Having a bad day? It is a GOOD kind of maudlin! Scat!

I read this and thought where are the men? Why are all the crap-outs male?

The continued existence of the world depends upon there being at least 36 righteous men in it at all times. For their sake, God stays his hand from destroying the world, even though the rest of mankind has declined into the lowest stages of degeneracy and barbarism.*

These holy people are hidden; nobody knows who they are, and they themselves may not know who they are. They practice humble vocations because their are humble men. One of them may be the Messiah, who is waiting for universal repentance before he reveals himself.*

Someone -- I am looking at you Hussein -- who thinks he is one of the righteous, most certainly is not. One of Scory's employees may be. It is among such people that they would be found.

*At Sodom, God promised Abraham that he would spare the city, if 10 righteous men could be found. Our odds are better, we only need 36 for the whole world.

*'Today, if you will hear his voice'" (Ps 95:7)
http://americandigest.org/mt-archives/grace_notes/now_heres_someone_who_kno.php

Jonah 3 [1] Then the word of the LORD came to Jonah the second time, saying, [2] "Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you." ...

[6] When Johna's words reached the king of Nineveh, he arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. [7] And he made a proclamation published throughout Nineveh, "By the decree of the king and his nobles: Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything; let them not feed, or drink water, [8] but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and let them cry mightily to God; yea, let every one turn from his evil way and from the violence which is in his hands. ...

[10] When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God repented of the evil which he had said he would do to them; and he did not do it.

Re: why all females?

For historic reasons, a lot of phone-related industries are mostly women. Women were judged to be reliable, nimble-fingered, good at paying attention to the accuracy of name and number listings, and more willing to pretend to be nice to idiots. Also, they worked cheap.

So yeah, telcos and pubcos and CMRs tend to be heavily female, at least on the office side. (Not so much on the maintenance and engineering side.) Bosses try to hire more guys, and I know a company that actually went to parity on male restrooms despite the fact it's still only five or ten percent male employees. But it's still a woman's world in telco-land.

"If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we would find in each person’s life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility." ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Welcome to real life. With all of our foibles and heavy baggage, we're still mostly well meaning people just trying to find a good way at the end of the day.

Y'know, they've been predicting for years that "this" generation is going to be the one with the lower standard of living than their parents. They did it for mine. And as for timing, I graduated just a little too late to hit the dot-com boom (therefore few jobs), moved just in time to not get the job which was supposed to be there, had to work jobs that didn't even pay the rent, let alone feed me... and yet, I'm doing pretty well now. So for those poor benighted graduates, hang in there... and maybe you'll work a job that isn't great but which has a manger like Scory and coworkers that are plugging along too.

Best of luck to you and your employees, Scory.