Summer begins

It really is great that the sun is out, baseballs are flying, and we are on our way...

This past week was bike to work week and even though I work way out in the boonies (West Bridgewater, MA) I was able to borrow my roommates old rickety bike and do the 28 miles back each way on Thursday. My legs were dead but it was an interesting experience, also a sad one as I realized that this would really be impossible to do on any regular basis.

The ride in itself was uneventful but coming back I found a parking ticket (street cleaning) on my car and couldn't believe it - not because I got one, this is probably my 7th ticket or so since moving here, but because I had forgotten about my car specifically because I biked that day. This was sadly ironic.

Speaking of sadly ironic, just a few days later I was playing tennis at the MIT tennis courts and noticed afterwards that a joyous barbecue was taking place so I went by and was offered hot dogs, chips, drinks, the whole works (I sweat I didn't even try to fit in as a student, although I guess I already do - small, dorky, and Jewish). I wasn't going to say no and so I partook and enjoyed a free afternoon of food and drink on M.I.T. But was it really on M.I.T.? The more I thought about the more I realized how college tuition is so high these days and some portion of our parent's tuition money is being channeled into places like this and ending up in the mouth's of the wrong people - like me. I guess you could say the same thing about a thousand budgeted items at a college and all of the student organizations which serve no purpose except to have their own bbq's and partake in the fun and enjoyment of redirecting a small portion of our parent's tuition money towards our fun. Yeh college

10 cavities

No, I didn't actually think this was possible, but today I found out I have 10 cavities when I paid (which will soon also be litteral) the dentist a visit after taking a year of absence. I know you probably don't care about my teeth but I just need a minute to complain here about the problem of incentive structures in this world. Obviously, every dentist has a different opinion over what constitutes a problem or something that actually needs fixing sooner rather than later. Dentists, like mechanics, stand to gain when they have more work and problems to fix.

Luckily, I DO NOT work on commission in sales for Equal Exchange so this problem really is avoided. I don't even get bonuses at Christmas. That way if some one is being a jerk or wants to bring in our coffee for the wrong reasons I can even say no (although yes in a small unnoticeable way my individual patronage rebate goes up slightly with each sale). But I would say this incentive based work structure - the "earn your keep" model that fuels most of America and has CEO's earning mega million dollar bonuses to sell sub-prime morgages in irresponsible manners is clearly not sustainable even if it does induce most recent college grads to work their asses off for an extra couple hundred dollars a week in exchange for having no life. There has to be some middle ground...Alpha, the alternative learning program in grades 6-8 that I went through where we each just set our own goals seemed to work just fine. Those of us with little ambition did little and for people that actually wanted to learn it was a great environment. And in the end, everyone knows, you can't beat a dead horse, or maybe that's the wrong expression, what I meant to say is some people will work hard and others won't and incentives, while well intentioned, often produce unexpected and additional results to the primary purpose.

So with all of that being said and a good rant out of my system, you might think I'm being cynical and over-the-top but I'm not. As I was leaving the dentist today, they sold me a tube of prescription tooth-paste for $15 - can I get a second opinion on this? I mean common!