Corporate Labels

Remember the map of “The Biggest Government Employers in Each State” that I reproduced here on the blog a few weeks ago?

After looking at it, CF wrote in with some thought-provoking observations…

Very interesting to see Walmart as such a prominent employer in the country, a company much maligned and labeled as a perfect example of Greedy Corporate Capitalism.

I don’t have a precise definition of what an accusation like that means, but one of the things a company does that is noble, if just a result of the mechanisms of Capitalism, is they hire people.

We can see from this map that Walmart hires a lot of PEOPLE.

Although by contrast to the bad rep Walmart gets, Apple and Facebook are often credited with being GOOD/WOKE corporations.

Here is an interesting fact: The average profit per employee at Apple is $403,328 and the average profit per employee at Facebook is $411,308. In comparison, the average profit per employee at Walmart is $6,910.

Something to think about.

My introduction to Stoicism began many years ago and without knowledge of what I was doing.

It happened after I got married… I noticed that I was getting upset when, after we’d agreed to do something together, K would change her mind at the last minute. Since these agreements were about trivial things (like going to a movie or the zoo), she didn’t feel obliged to stick to them. I, on the other hand, would become furious.

I have never won an argument with K. And I have always regretted any complaint I voiced against her. Thus, these silent rages I would get myself into each time she changed her mind were doing nothing but eating me up.

One day – and I don’t know what provoked it – I woke up with a solution. From then on, every time we agreed to do something, I would take a few moments to vividly imagine K cancelling at the last minute and then vividly imagine me feeling okay about it. Sometimes I even went so far as to imagine something else, something fun, that I’d do instead.

It worked like a charm. And it’s been working perfectly ever since.

At the time, I thought of it merely as a personal strategy to manage my marriage. Since then, I see it in larger terms: about accepting the universe for what it is and not trying to force my will upon it.

All of which brings me to thoughts I had while recently re-reading Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations…

So, What Were You Expecting?

Meditations on Reality, Personal Relationships, and Social Ills

“The vast majority of our mental, emotional, and spiritual suffering,” says Maria Popova, the brain behind BrainPickings, “comes from the violent collision between our expectations and reality.” And since it’s only rarely possible to bend reality to our will, the intelligent course of action is “to calibrate our expectations to reality.”

In simpler terms: Don’t make yourself miserable being angry about events and outcomes that are beyond your control.

This is a basic tenet of Stoicism, and it is not a difficult concept to understand. Most people understand it when it comes to events and outcomes such as flat tires and cancelled birthday parties. But few apply it to more important aspects of life – including, most notably, relationships with friends, family, and colleagues.

Meditations is a collection of writings by Marcus Aurelius, emperor of Rome from AD 161 to 180. It’s kind of a self-help journal written from a Stoic’s perspective – a series of notes that Aurelius almost certainly never meant to be published.

And it’s jam-packed with solid advice and Stoic wisdom.

For example, on the issue of people that act in ways you find hurtful or offensive, Aurelius has this to say:

Whenever a person’s lack of shame offends you, you should immediately ask yourself, “Is it possible for there to be no shameless people in the world?”

[Since it isn’t], you should stop demanding the impossible….

Keep the same thought available for when you’re faced with [other sorts of] devious and untrustworthy people, and people who are flawed in any way.

The moment you remind yourself that it’s impossible for such people not to exist, you’ll be kinder to each and every one of them.

Thus too… we human beings can deal with any given offense – gentleness, for instance, to counter discourteous people…

A three-step method for dealing with disappointing behavior:

1. 1. Don’t be upset. Nothing happens that isn’t in accord with universal nature. Before long you won’t exist at all.

1. 2. Always define or describe to yourself every impression that occurs to your mind, so that you can clearly see what the thing is like in its entirety, stripped to its essence. Nothing is more conducive to objectivity than the ability methodically and honestly to test everything that you come across in life.

1. 3. Focus on the matter at hand. See it for what it is. And then take the action that seems to you to be the most just. But do it with kindness and modesty, and without dissembling.

Further Thoughts on Accepting Reality vs. Unrealistic Expectations

There is more to Stoicism than the idea that we should see the world for what it is and not impose unrealistic expectations on it. But I find it interesting that it has not only made an important contribution to the modern philosophy of living well, it can be found in Zen Buddhism and Cognitive Therapy. They all recognize the common-sense truth that wisdom begins by accepting the world as it is, not how you’d like it to be.

That goes double for personal relationships. I not only believe, I know that the only way to maintain relationships and be happy in them is to expect that the person you married or befriended or to whom you are related will always be exactly the person he/she was when you first met.

Once a person is formed, and that usually happens in their late teens or early 20s, he/she is formed for good. People rarely change. And when they do, it’s almost always for the better. So, if you are happy with the imperfect mix of a person when you first meet him/her, expect he/she won’t ever change and you will never be disappointed.

And that leads me to this thought (which is inchoate): All social, business, and government programs whose aim is to improve adult behavior is doomed to failure. Think about the failure rate of addiction programs. Or the shockingly bad results of public education. Or the near impossibility of trying to improve business performance by “motivating” employees to work harder and smarter.

Despite decades of retrogressive results, we continue to believe that the problems with these failed programs is not that they are fundamentally wrong-headed, but that we haven’t spent more money on them.

You can’t fix a problem by spending more on a solution that doesn’t work. What if, instead, we accepted the reality of the problem – that it cannot be fixed by changing the behavior of the people involved?

What if, instead of continuing to unrealistically believe we can “help” addicts get clean, we accept the fact that more than 90% of them never will? And that those that do will do so on their own? What if we went a little deeper and asked, “What is the social problem with addiction anyway? What social problems do addicts cause?”

It’s not difficult to identify those problems. There are three of them: crime, homelessness, and infectious diseases. All three could easily be solved by providing large, clean facilities where addicts can get their drugs in a sanitary way when they want them, along with a bed and food.

That would actually work, and probably for 20% of what we spend now. But it’s not going to happen, because drug rehab – including hospitalization and incarceration – is a multibillion-dollar business with strong support among the politicians that win their posts by promising to spend more money on the same failed programs.

Life at Rancho Santana

More than 20 years ago, my partners and I bought a cattle ranch on the Pacific coast of Nicaragua. After making every imaginable development mistake in the book, we gradually built it into a world-class resort.

Here’s a brief glimpse into life at the ranch today…

And to get an idea of what’s currently available for sale at the ranch, click here.

 Stranger Arrives; Cigar Club Jeopardized

 “All change is not growth, as all movement is not forward.” – Ellen Glasgow

I heard about Mr. R first from my real estate brokers. “He’s bought up the entire block behind your little Cigar Club,” they told me.

“Cripes,” I thought. “Just what I need. Gentrification has come to our quiet little Haitian neighborhood.”

I bought this warehouse in 2013 because it was cheap. A few years later, I converted it into a private Cigar Club – for me and my friends. We weren’t exactly welcomed into the neighborhood, but we weren’t shunned either. I came to enjoy the area as it was. And now it was going to be surrounded by big apartment buildings and hipsters.

I asked my brokers to buy whatever they could that was north of me. “It’s too late,” they said. “He’s bought all those units too.”

The next day, Gio told me that we had a call from Mr. R. “He wants to talk to you,” she said.

“I’ll bet he does,” I thought.

We met at the Cigar Club. He was shorter and a bit older than I imagined he’d be. He looked a bit like Jimmy Buffett with his hair slicked back. He wore khaki shorts and Gucci loafers.

We talked for an hour. He confirmed that he had, indeed, brought up all the land behind and to the north of me. (The property to the south was already permitted for 60 townhouses.) And he confirmed that my worst fear – that I’d be surrounded by 5-story apartment buildings occupied by young hipsters – was also true.

I told Mr. R that I was impressed that he was able to buy up so many properties in the neighborhood so discretely, without setting off a bidding war.

“We took very good care of them,” he said (referring to the Haitian homeowners).

Then we got down to talking about what we both knew was the only thing on the agenda: Was I going to sell my property to him?

“Had you asked me a week ago, I would have given you an immediate no,” I said. “But since then, I’ve been thinking about what it will be like to have the Cigar Club here, surrounded by your buildings.”

I asked him if he’d be open to selling me a 4,000- to 6,000-square-foot chunk of his complex that I could use for the Club.

“The project is for rentals,” he said. “But I’m sure there’s something we could do – even as much as a 99-year lease.”

We chatted a bit more about this and that. I told him I’d give him an answer in a week or two.

I didn’t know what to do. I considered the pros and cons of selling:

The Pros 

* I’d realize a good profit on my building. Probably about 400% in a little more than 8 years.

* I could reestablish the Cigar Club in a newer building.

The Cons 

* I’d have to close the Club for a year or two until the new building was finished.

* I’d be destroying an environment that I loved and that was much appreciated by my guests. (On the other hand… half of that environment was going to be destroyed anyway.)

It was one of those quandaries that does not have a clear answer. And extending or dissecting the pros and cons wasn’t going to make the decision any easier.

What to do?

I have this thing I do when I’m undecided about something and when a pro/con list doesn’t help. I ask someone else for their opinion. I listen to what they say and pay attention to how it makes me feel. If it makes me feel uneasy, I don’t do it. If I feel good about it, I do it.

It so happened that later that night we had our first in-person book club meeting since the COVID craziness began. We had pizza and wine and talked about Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine. (I wrote about that book discussion here.) [LINK 5/21]

After the discussion, it’s our custom to break out the cigars and cognac and have a conversation about anything else that anyone wants to talk about.

This, I thought, would be a perfect opportunity to lay my Cigar Club quandary on them.

And so, I did.

I explained my concerns. I gave them my pros and cons. And then I asked for their opinions.

Their response was immediate and unanimous. “Nah, don’t sell it,” they said. “We like the Cigar Club just the way it is!”

How did that make me feel? It made me happy. So I know what to do. I’m going to get in touch with Mr. R and let him know that I’ve decided not to sell.

And if he asks why, I’ll be able to tell him, “My book club decided. They said they want to keep it just as it is.”