This probably is the weirdest thing I’ve ever tried. Fermented shark. (still recovering from its memory).
Back in 2019, on our trip to Iceland, (me & my spouse) discovered this local specialty in Reykjavik. I remember being super excited when we saw this in the menu of a cafe in city centre. We ordered it right away. The waiter seemed thrilled with our request. He came back in a few minutes with a miniature bowl of shark bites. (My first thought – too expensive for its size!). People sitting around us (both sides) started staring at our table.Their eyes were fixated on us. I wondered why this was such a big deal.
Then, I put that first nibble in my mouth and an explosion of ammonia filled my senses. I was overwhelmed with that strong, pungent taste. I kept struggling to keep chewing. My eyes rolled every time I bit a piece. I heard the laughter of our neighbours from both sides .They seemed to be enjoying the show. I realized then, why they’ve been staring all along. They expected this to happen. (what else do you think, a decomposed fish would taste like?)
The Greenland shark is fermented for close to six months under the sand, where it rots in its own ammonia & uric acid. It is then dried and chopped into small pieces. (ready to eat). All this effort, so one can eat a shark!(which otherwise would be too toxic to eat)
Alas! I swallowed that bite with a shot of liquor.(I was grateful that they served it along.) My taste buds were numb for the rest of the day. I was glad it was over. Never been thankful after a meal before.
I wonder how the Vikings cherished it! (Either the food was scarce or their taste buds were seriously destroyed) 🙄
Happiness is unreal. Our own instincts are designed against it. There are thousands of books on the topic of Happiness. The self help industry is basically obsessed with this subject. But it is not a natural state of our minds. If it were, why then would we need to learn to be happy?
Comparison is our mother. We evolved from monkeys. What did you expect? C’mon, we don’t invent our needs. We identify with what others need. We crave for more, for better version of what they have. Until, we have it all. (which basically is never 😎 ). That instinct to compare, leaves us unsatisfied. I knew this guy from school. He was so dumb. Couldn’t write a sentence without a spelling error. Wonder how he landed that job. 🙄 I wish.. blah blah.. Why on earth is she so thin? She looks so damn good in that pink dress. Ohh god! When will I loose some weight. Crib! Crib!
We have an urge to belong. Humans are social. We live in herds. That desire to fit in comes in very natural. It is what makes us do “adjustments”. We adapt ourselves constantly to keep up with the rest. So what, if you moved to a new country. What? They don’t speak English there? Ohh, okay. You can adjust. (yourself & your expectations). You can speak a new language. Years pass. Arghh, this is so tough! (sorry, we can’t teach you no more, you just don’t belong!). That urge to belong somewhere can be really exhausting.
We are constantly searching “the Meaning”. We love to believe in destiny. They say, “everything happens for a reason”. So we spend our whole lives, searching for that purpose. We try find meaning in whatever the heck we do. So, you frustrated with your life yet? Can’t do that work, eat, play no more? Planning kids? Hell yeah! Of course, we were born to multiply!
At any given time, we live in all three dimensions of time. Believe me! We already have a time machine. Every living moment, we traverse through three time zones – The past, the present and that glorious future. If you look back now, the past seems beautiful.(It may have sucked at that point!). We tweak our past, every time we think about it.
The future on other hand, is a promising dream. We gather a wish list every time we think about it. That past & the future are benchmark to the present. So imagine living through these three eras in a single instant. Does that make you feel depressed about your present? Does it seem miserable somehow? That tendency to time travel leads to disappointment, leaving us unhappy.
We are scared of unknown. You wanna know what happens after that vaccine comes? You die from its side effects instead of Covid itself. You think dying is dreadful? Imagine living with a lousy lung for the rest of your life. Uncertainty scares the hell out of us. In the monkey mode that we operate , we can’t cope with new problems. That’s why we are obsessed with finding standard solutions. Our theories publicize solutions. That makes us comfortable to navigate our journey.
Imagine happiness as a theory to navigate living. It makes us hopeful. It makes us feel content with life. Would we strive for it, if nobody talks about it? Or would we start accepting ourselves (& that bag full of crappy feelings)?
Do you wonder why things are not looking good at work? Why does your hard work not pay off proportionally? Why is it that Tom, Dick & Harry got promoted while you are stuck here (reading this post)? Maybe it’s your first time experiencing this disappointment? Or may be you have had this frustration before? When things don’t seem good constantly, there may a reason underlying it.
In 1969, a psychologist named Dr. Laurence Peter came up with a principle – The Peter Principle that explains how an organisational hierarchy functions. It drills down the cause of why things really go wrong at workplace. While It may seem quite old, I found his wisdom relevant, even today. In fact, they even teach this in several management curriculum.
Why are some employees so Incompetent?
Do you ever wonder why you are surrounded by incompetent morons? (well, you may have at least one around?). Think about it this way – The skills required to get a job often have nothing to do with the job itself. This, is relevant in every job and every industry.
Consider Presidency for example, the skills required to run and win a political campaign are quite different from what it takes to do the actual job. Trump lives this example. Similarly, there is nothing about being a great surgeon that prepares a doctor to run a hospital. So by this means, a lot of people who shine bright in interviews might lack the skills to perform their job. No wonder, why you are stuck with them! 😕
And why are they getting promoted?
Speaking about promotions, there is a simple theory to this much coveted phenomenon. Everyone in an organization keeps on getting promoted until they reach their level of incompetence. At that point they stop being promoted. So given enough time and enough promotion levels, every position in a firm will be occupied by someone who can’t do the job.”
How do we let this happen?
The truth is, employees in a hierarchy do not really object to incompetence. They merely gossip about it. Question is, how can an employee move up the ladder when blocked by someone who has reached his level of incompetence? The answer – he can’t. Neither by his efforts nor by the help of a patron. This is because demotion is a rare phenomenon. The only way to rise up the ladder is to move into a promotion channel that is not blocked. In reality, this is often visible when people change departments or leave companies.
What happens when you are super competent?
If you are a supremely competent employee surrounded by idiots, you probably should be worried about your fate. 🙄 In most hierarchies, super-competence is more objectionable than incompetence. Ordinary incompetence, as seen, is no cause for dismissal: it is simply a bar to promotion. Super-competence often leads to dismissal, because it disrupts the hierarchy, and thereby violates the first commandment of hierarchical life: the hierarchy must be preserved.
Then, how do we get the work done?
If everyone eventually gets promoted to reach his or her level of incompetency, do you not wonder who really is turning the wheels at work? 😳 Well, we rarely find such a system where every employee has reached his level of incompetence. Work is accomplished by those, who have not yet reached their level of incompetence.In most instances, something is being done to delay their progress, so the hierarchy can still exist.
What does this mean for you?
Now you know why things don’t go well at work. You may be the one causing it 😉 OR perhaps you are just a victim of Peter principle. Question is, can you change your situation? Maybe. this is easier said than done.
Most organizations, these days, employ techniques to avoid the pit falls of Peter Principle. They attempt to flatten their organisational hierarchy. Be it by being agile or be it by sharing 360 degree feedback or be it any other mechanism. The truth is, while this might work for some, in most cases it just brings a false sense of accomplishment. (we aren’t all competent to steer this change)
So, going by the record, the Peter principle is here to stay, We can’t really get completely rid of it. Perhaps, it just helps to know that it exists and that’s why things go wrong at work!
