The e-VeryThing Syndrome
About six years ago during the height of the dot-com madness, I was flown across the continent on very little notice for an e-learning consultation, and promptly placed in a high-end hotel (the type that feels no need to include “quality” in its title). Each morning the hotel would sponsor a special e-networking breakfast room for select guests, and it was here one morning that I stood, overlooking San Diego while indulging in aromatic coffees, decadent pastries and exotic fruits. There I made the acquaintance of the CEO of a newly-public company (e-something- or-other, of course), a man in his mid-twenties, just a few years younger than I, but far better-groomed and clad in clothes costing more than a luxury sedan.
The first ten minutes of the conversation was decidedly one-sided, and he went on at length about how he outsmarted his stock advisors and “stuck it to the vulture capitalists” to attain the nearly $40 million he needed to pursue his super-secret business idea (which, true be told, once he explained it to me, sounded like a flaky advertising project to create and sell ads to run within a company’s own intranet). R&D money, for him, meant wining and dining celebrities and high-powered executives in epicurean and orgiastic parties held in rented designer mansions. To determine what people actually wanted, of course.
He asked what I did, and I told him why I was there, and a little bit about my jack-of-all-trades background. He didn’t seem interesting in anything besides himself, so I kept it short. The conversation then went something like this….
“Listen, guy,” he said, mouth half-full with baklava no doubt flown in from Greece –he called everyone guy, even the women in the room– “there are two types of people in the world: the generalists and the specialists.”
I nodded, trying to hold up an tiny expresso cup in my large hands without jutting out a pinkie, because my father told me it wasn’t a manly thing to do.
“The specialists back themselves into a corner, you see. They only have one set of skills, and when those aren’t needed any more, where are they?” He awaited my response, a Socrates probing his Plato, while he picked his teeth with his forefinder and flicked the flakes ramdomly.
“Where?” I asked, cleaning off my tie in as subtle a fashion as possible.
“I’ll tell you where, guy… no where!” he exclaimed, slamming down his empty cup upon the table by way of punctuation. “But people like you and me, we’re too smart for that.”
“Are we?”
“You betcha, guy. You see, we’re the people who evolved, while others got left behind. You don’t see us running around with apes, do you?”
My mind returned to university, when a female friend of mine started dating a large and uncouth individual with an excess of body hair, but I simply shook my head.
“We’re the ones who adapt, who know enough about how everything works that we can be leaders. And leaders are leaders.”
A brilliant observation, I observed.
This went on for another ten minutes, wherein he expounded upon the virtues of those people who knew little about anything in particular, but about many things in general.
It almost made me feel good, however briefly. I had always been a generalist –I prefer the term “well-rounded”– with a hand in everything from project management to art and design, from high-tech multimedia production to marketing, from programming to teaching high school literature. I’d always adapted, often quickly, to whatever role was necessary at the moment, learning whatever skills were needed. It wasn’t a waste of time after all, I reflected.
In 2003, after the dot-com collapse had bankrupted the technology-based private college I was working for, I started going through all the business cards I had collected a few years previous, partly out of curiosity but mostly in the vain efforts to catch a few leads. The CEO’s company, like all the others, was redirected to a squatter’s perch with the pitch “This domain name is available and can be yours!”
Meanwhile, I’m still in pursuit of permanent employment with a good future, while all my specialist friends have been gainfully employed for years with decent, stable incomes. Sometimes it doesn’t pay to be a generalist, I’ve decided.
9 comments January 14th, 2006