Good Morning,

It seems like we are in the middle of a period where knowledge, performance and hard work are taking a back seat to superficial traits having no bearing on the job to be done. We hire, retain, and promote based on these characteristics rather than focusing on the best individual to do the job.

We hear of near misses and airline pilots being picked, not nearly as much as how well they can fly an airplane but whether they meet certain non job based requirements. We need engineers designing our buildings, vehicles our water systems that understand what it takes to make them safe. We need doctors who are experts at doctoring, healing people and keeping people alive. Whatever happened to the best and brightest get the job?

This is not to pick on any group of people. It is, making sure we don’t relax standards just to even the playing field. We shouldn’t care about age, race, sex, sexual preference, religion, or any one of the other categories we are being divided into as long as the individual is well qualified to do the job.

We are all humans put here on this planet. We didn’t choose those traits which we received at birth or are the result of where and how we grew up. We need to work toward making sure everyone has the opportunity to develop good work habits, get a good education, and pursue meaningful and well paying careers. This starts young and takes a lifetime to develop.

Let’s quit pandering to interest groups. Let’s all work together as humans occupying this planet, to be the best we can be, pulling each other up by our proverbial bootstraps rather than reducing requirements.

Be the best you can be and help someone else to do the same along the way.

Jim