| I spent a large part of my career working for a small company in Silicon Valley that became a Very Big Company. One of the things that the CEO liked to do for a while is have a "lunch with the interns” during the summer. He’d chat with them and give them an opportunity to ask questions. As the manager of a lot of interns, I was also invited, and I often went. I was (and still am) on a first-name basis with the CEO. One time an intern asked, “what do I need to become the CEO of a company like this?” The question made me laugh, because I already knew the answer. The answer is that there is no answer. You must have a vision about what you can do, and you must believe it. If you allow every idiot in the world to draw a box around your behavior, you won’t accomplish anything. I know that the Kindle (with wifi off) isn't going to crash the airplane. Amazon knows that the Kindle isn't going to crash the airplane. So why should I respect the opinion of the flight attendant? The flight attendant is, after all, a flight attendant because they would have never had make it through differential equations without sleeping with the professor. So why should I give that ditz any respect? This isn’t about ‘entitlement’. Take all that crap your professors at the university told you and put it in /dev/null where it belongs. Reframe the issue in terms of what is right and what is possible. If you want to be truly successful, you must learn about breaking the rules. (And by “truly” successful, I mean truly successful. If your goal is to accumulate $800K in your 401K and own a house in Sunnyvale, California outright… well you can do that by following all the rules and following Company Policies.)
Write your own rules in life. Perhaps I already answered your question, “And what's so difficult about following the rules and being inconvenienced for 20 minutes.” And if you don’t feel that I did, it means that you’ll never find the answer. Maybe you’ll find success. Or maybe you won’t. But the feeling will be liberating. There is no man like a free man. |
I was with you until this smug bullshit. Using your Kindle during takeoff isn't entitled at all, but thinking your college grades make you a better person than a hard-working wage-earner is both ludicrously entitled and plain stupid.
Lemme clue you in here: The flight attendant knows your Kindle won't crash the plane. The gas station attendant knows your cell phone won't blow up the pump. They do not get to make the rules; they only get to follow them, or else lose their jobs. By all means, go about your business once the attendant is settled in for takeoff; but respect them while they're trying to do their job. They probably work harder than you, for less respect and less pay.