Metathesiophobia

"Metathesiophobia" is defined as the persistent, abnormal, and unwarranted fear of change. Over the years of my work experience, I have seen such fear among users while implementing systems.

Years ago a very funny incidence took place while implementing a project for one of the clients. 

The objective of the project was to implement an integrated system across 50+ departments of the organization and thereby eliminate sporadically spread systems that were generating islands of information isolated from each other. 

One of the managers of a department called me over the telephone and sounded quite disturbed. When I met him he explained that one of his Senior Staff was quite upset because he could not find "his" screen for entering invoices. Assuming that the Manager was not fully aware of the new system, I explained that earlier, there were individual software for stores, purchase and finance, hence some data was being entered in all these old systems. With the new integrated system, there was no need for his Senior Staff to enter the invoices because it would be entered by the stores staff when goods are received from suppliers.

The Manager nodded indicating he was aware of that but he said "Please do something. This man has been with us for a long time. His friends are telling me that he has started drinking heavily every day. I am afraid he may end up doing something desperate. Please let him enter the invoices". I refused accede to his request because if I did what he was asking me to do, I would be violating my contractual obligation by not delivering an integrated system. He seemed to understood my stand and the meeting ended at that.

The concern of the Manager was quite understandable, he might have feared that his Senior Staff might end up doing something stupid, not knowing how to cope with change.

I remember one incidence narrated to me some years ago about a man who was working for an oil company. He had been in the job for over 20 years with a good salary and other facilities. On a fateful day he received a letter from personnel department informing him that his services were not required anymore. The man was devastated. He did not talk to anybody and went totally silent. That evening, his friends went to his room to console him but the room was closed but they could hear the air conditioner running. They knocked the door for a long time, and finally when the door was force-opened, they found the man sitting in a chair with the termination letter in his hand, tears still fresh in his eyes, dead! Perhaps he could not handle the shock of losing his job, the shock of his life getting uprooted from his comfort zone!

Telling somebody that they are sacked must be one of the most difficult things to do. This was very nicely portrayed in the movie “Up In The Air”. Wonderful performance by George Clooney as the guy who has to pass on the pink slip with the “bad news” to the guys being sacked.

It is very common that job insecurity starts kicking in with some employees when a new system is implemented. There is a general assumption that whenever a new software application is implemented, some employees would lose their jobs. Such users pose a big threat to the success of the project especially if they are placed in critical positions, working with important information of the organization. But as the training starts they begin to get assurance that their job was safe, that the new system provided new opportunities for doing work in a better way. But there are some users who do not even want to look at the new system. They blindly assume that they are going to lose their jobs!

Most of the time, it is to do with being in a comfort zone after holding the same job and same function for years. When their position gets threatened they become quite disturbed and desperate, not knowing how to handle the change, just like Hem & Haw of Dr. Spencer Johnson’s "Who Moved My Cheese?".  Sometimes some end up doing desperate things.

I ran into the Senior Staff few times after the meeting with his Manager. He would give me such a deadly glare as if he was going to kill me. But in the end, he had reconciled himself to the change and accepted the new system. Good for him!

I am sure many organizations experience such situations. A lot of money is spent in acquiring ERPs and such high-tech systems but some departments succeed in retaining their own systems, with or without the knowledge of the top management! A total waste of investment!

Puppet On A String!

Another day of closely watching the impact of technology on human behavior.

As I walked into the eye clinic, I saw the place quite crowded with close to a hundred people, ladies in the left wing of the waiting section and men on the right.

I got myself registered after a long wait. In between registering the patients, the clerk was busy with his smart phone, answering his "whatsapp" messages and sharing the messages with his colleague sitting next to him and both having a laugh. 

As I took a seat after registering, I noticed that the place was absolutely quiet. No one was talking to anybody. The only sound I could hear was that of technology.

A couple of ladies in wheel chair seemed to be just staring into space.Few older men were looking at the program on TV. One man was dabbing his eyes and waiting perhaps for the eye dilation. Everyone else seemed to be hunched over their smart phones or note pads or tabs, some poking with their index finger, some with both their thumbs and some just swiping the index finger left, right, up & down.

Now and then I could hear the sound of the default whistle notification ring tone. There was a time when whistling was considered to be an act of indecency, even a crime. Even pursing the lips in the shape of whistling was considered as a sin. By mistake if you are caught whistling, then you had it. But how times have changed! The whistle ring tone does not bother anyone these days. It is cool! A definite sign that you are using a smart phone!

There were two girls smartly dressed in some kind of a uniform, must be in the security services, intently hunched over a "tab". The one holding the "tab" was vigorously swiping across the screen, as if she was playing some game (maybe “candy crush saga”!). The other girl was having a tough time containing herself from having a go at the screen. The girl playing the game paused just for a moment, then the other girl could not resist anymore, she swiped across the screen. It was so amusing to see the two enjoying themselves!

Three adults, two men and a woman, sat huddled close together. No prize for guessing what they were doing! Each was bent over, busy with their smart phones. They reminded me of a famous three-some!

An old man sat by himself with a small phone held close to his eyes. He seemed to be playing some kind of a game, I could hear the "plop, plop" sound. After some time, as of his hands were tired, he hunched over, almost doubling himself up, with the phone on his lap. Finally, the game ended or he got tired, he put his phone in his pocket, then he looked at the TV, squinted, put one hand across the left eye, then the right, then put his head on one arm and heaved a long tired breath.

The whole scenario looked quite unnatural especially for a place from these parts where people have been known for their social and civil behavior. There were hundred odd people in the room and yet during the whole time I sat there, no one was aware of or even cared to know who was sitting next to them! No one greeted anybody. Maybe, it is a good thing that everybody was minding their own business not prying into others business. But then, whatever happened to the good old “civil or social human interaction”! I realized how chill the place was, not because of the air conditioning, but because of the deafening "sound of silence"!

From time immemorial, inventions and technological developments have played a big role in our lives, bringing personal comfort and economic and social development. There is no doubt that if used properly, technology will continue to serve humanity. 

But it is the misuse or improper use or the addiction that is really scary! The scariest of them all is how our social behavior has gone through such a drastic change since the invention of "personal devices"! 

Years ago, I had the good fortune of working with a Plastic Surgeon as one of the co-consultants for a hospital project. We hired his services to strengthen our experience in the "medical domain". When I went to receive him at the airport, I saw him standing outside the arrival lounge totally tilted to one side. He looked as if he was in some kind of pain or discomfort. As I walked closer, I noticed that he had a laptop hanging on his left shoulder. Those days, the laptops were quite heavy, weighing few kilos. His left shirt pocket was sagging under the weight of his PDA, which was again a very heavy thing. He was tilting to his right side, desperately trying to balance the load of the gadgets on his left shoulder and his left shirt pocket.

I felt very sad for this man, standing there sweating and looking very tired and obviously in pain. It made me wonder, do we really have to carry a yoke around our necks, however exciting and fantastic the gadgets may be!

With the advent of smart phones and online social networking, social interaction has moved from the "one-on-one personal domain" to the "virtual domain" and how it has moved, it is quite sad! The elders cannot give any advise anymore on how to behave in this virtual domain. They used to advice "not to talk to strangers"! But that advise does not matter anymore! It is all about having more and more "friends" in your network, does not matter even if it is a stranger. You cannot even be sure that the person is really who he or she claims to be. Anything goes in the name of "networking"!

Popularity is based on the number of people you have in your network and how many of these friends are following you. According to a study released late last year, about one in five users were willing to add a complete stranger as a friend on social networks. 

There is no doubt that the Internet and social networking has more good than bad! The speed at which communication takes place is incredible! We can instantly get in touch with our friends and loved ones, communicating and sharing unforgettable moments through text and pictures. But it is the obsessive nature and how it has altered our social behavior that is attaining scary proportions!

Today's technology is so compulsive, so pervasive, so invasive and so intrusive, we seem to have lost total control over ourselves. One blogger compares people's addiction to social web sites to "Pavlovian Dog Response". The very sight of the smart phone makes us want to check our status on the social web site, just as a dog starts drooling at the sight of the food bowl or any other such stimulus. This response seems to be affecting people at work quite adversely.

Fred Stutzman, a software developer, created an application called "Anti-Social" to combat his "time wasting" habit. He realized that every time he wanted to check something on Wikipedia, one page turned into two to five to 10, and then end up spending hours learning about things but not necessarily getting his work done. When he came to know that many like him were suffering from the "time wasting disorder" and were desperately looking for help, he made "Anti-Social" software into a successful commercial product.

Some people seem to be endlessly obsessed with themselves by posting pictures of self. Psychiatrists and mental health workers are linking excessive addiction to posting of photographs of self and addiction to "selfies" to mental health conditions related to narcissism (excessive obsession with one's looks). Some experts are linking such behavior to "Body Dysmorphic Disorder". According to an expert,  “selfie-ing” is a sure sign of how lonely the person is!

Some social web sites and other experts provide tips and guidelines on safe and ethical usage of internet and social web sites. But they will not tell you anything that would affect their business. After all, their business thrives on the number of users subscribing and getting “hooked” to their technology and applications. They cannot afford to scare away the users talking about bad things that could happen.

In one of her recent talks, a "User Experience Master" of one of the social media companies, says that one of the things required to design applications for the Internet is the "audacity" to believe that the thing being designed is what the entire world wants and needs, to live better lives! Simply, amazing! How can someone sitting in some corner of the world, know what the entire world needs? The plain truth is, most of today's corporations just churn out stuff to get maximum number of people hooked to their applications and they grow and grow. There is no need to attribute any philosophical justification behind it!

Our social behavior seems to be determined and controlled by few handful corporations. It is very sad, but with their so called "smart devices" and "cool apps" these companies have got us by the scruff of our necks, dangling like a "Puppet on a String"! They pull the strings, we dance!

These are our new masters, the modern pied pipers. They play the tune, we follow them like hordes of mice. They tell us that it is cool to behave the way they design the applications and we accept them, we feed and gorge on their hype.

A new idea has been brewing since few years to connect "everything" to the Internet. It seems to be quite close to becoming a reality. As if it is not enough that they got us by our throats by giving us the smart-phone, perhaps now they want to get their hands on our television, our refrigerators, the coolers, the cooker and everything else in the house, may be even the combination to the door and the "safe". The day may not be very far when we will have a "numbered micro chip" embedded in our bodies to be part of the "things" connected to the Internet!

During the eighties, I watched a science fiction movie called "blade runner". The story was about few "mega corporations" manufacturing genetically engineered "replicants" endowed with extraordinary powers. These "replicants" were so close to humans, it was difficult to distinguish them from humans. Only special police operatives known as "Blade Runners" could identify them through special interrogation techniques by monitoring retinal movements in response to questions.

While the very concept of that movie sounded quite dark and scary, today's situation looks much more scary! The way they have been successful in altering the human behavior, could it be a grand plan of some mega corporations to turn humans into "submissive robot-like things"!! Considering the way we are ceasing to exercise our wisdom and our individuality and becoming slaves of technology, it looks quite a possibility.

From time to time the world has experienced and survived behavioral changes, some fascinating, some crazy, some abnormal and some outright scary. The world survived the hippies, their concept of "free love" and their LSDs, the long hair, the tight pants, the pointed shoes, the pedestal shoes, and the bell bottoms (I shudder when I see some of my old photographs! How did we wear those things!).

Can the world survive this so called "social" menace? Only time will tell....or will it!


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Curiosity does not always kill the cat!

“Curiosity killed the cat” is a famous saying used to warn people not to get too curious because it could get them into trouble.

It is not always so! I personally know of two persons, Inquisitive Driver and Inquisitive Helper, who reached from "nothing" to "something" all because their curiosity got the better of them.

Few years ago we had implemented a system for tracking the movement of the company fleet vehicles. During one of the training sessions the trainer was giving orientation to a group of drivers on how to record the trips they made. 

He explained that details of the trip is entered by identifying the vehicle through the Fleet Number. A meek voice came from behind “Is Fleet Number the Primary Key”? The trainer stopped dead in his track as if someone had knocked on his head, then with a surprised look on his face, he turned around to see who the Inquisitive Driver was. The other drivers giggled thinking that the Inquisitive Driver who asked the question must have said something silly. The trainer looked at the Inquisitive Driver and said “yes, Fleet Number is the Primary Key”. With that, the other drivers fell into an embarrassed silence.

It is quite understandable why the trainer was surprised at the question. Primary Key is a technical term used by database designers and computer programmers. A lay person is not expected to know about it.

We were quite keen to know how this Inquisitive Driver came to know about such a technical stuff. The explanation he gave was simply amazing.

He told us that before joining our organization, he worked as a driver for a software company. While transporting the programmers from the office to clients and back, he used to overhear the programmers discussing about their work. The driver was quite curious about some words the programmers used in their conversations.  Somehow, “Primary Key” caught his fancy. 

Out of curiosity, he asked one of the programmers what “Primary Key” meant. And, thus began his journey of learning, culminating into his becoming a programmer. By asking many more questions and with the help of the generous programmers he became very much interested in computer programming.

Later, he took up a job as a driver when he got a better offer from our organization. He also told us that after joining our organization, he had requested the management to give him a chance in the IT department but it was rejected  as he did not have the basic qualifications as required for even the junior most post in the IT department.

As he started telling his story, we realized that he had a very good concept about databases, programming languages and even Lotus Notes. It was his lucky day that this episode took place during the training session.

The trainer took up the issue with the management by conveying the passion and the tremendous potential this driver had for learning. It needed special recommendations to push his case forward. Finally, the management agreed to send him for a basic qualification course. Inquisitive Driver has been given a chance to pursue his passion, all because of his curiosity to know something. I am sure, in due course he will be a very good programming resource for the IT department.

The second story is about the Inquisitive Helper who joined the organization as a “helper”, many years ago. At that time, the bar attached to our club needed a helper to assist the bar tender. The club management was trying to implement a Microsoft Access based system to keep track of the stock. When the system was ready for implementation, the Inquisitive Helper volunteered to do the data entry. 

Whenever there was a problem, as the programmer would try to debug the programs, the Inquisitive Helper would peek over the programmer's shoulder trying to figure out what he was doing. His interest in programming started to increase and he desperately wanted to learn more. 

He borrowed books on programming and with the help of the programmer, his journey of learning began. In due course of time he started doing some very basic programming with the generous help of the programmer. Soon, word spread that the helper was some sort of a computer wizard. 

Few years later, the management decided to do away with all desktop based systems by  consolidating the applications into the enterprise system. The management decided to give a chance to the Inquisitive Helper to work in the IT department. He grabbed the opportunity with both his hands. He spent hours, learning from books and other documentations, on his own, by staying late after office hours. This man with just secondary school education, with no formal IT education is today a very important programmer in the IT department.

According to a Danish Proverb “he who is afraid to ask, is ashamed of learning”. Millions saw the apple fall, but only Isaac Newton asked “why”. Because of that “why” today we are able to fly in the sky, in a mass of metal, comfortably sitting in a chair, thousands of feet high, defying force of gravity!

"Curiosity does not always kill the cat!"

According to a Chinese Proverb “Learning is a treasure that will follow its owner everywhere”. How true! It is not just the curiosity but the thirst to learn, that makes a person successful! Learning is "an endless, incredible journey", age, color, creed, nothing matters!