Off Topic: Generic Equivalents

You've probably seen or heard of the phrase, 'It doesn't need to be perfect, it just needs to be good enough', or if you read a lot of popular business or productivity books or follow the tech start-up space, you'll be familiar with the common mantra to 'just ship', shorthand for 'Don't endlessly obsess on every last detail in a pursuit of a kind of elusive and ultimately unreachable perfection that will only result in you never actually producing anything and giving up in frustration, i.e. it's better to 'ship' or release too soon than too late.'I have never had this. Probably.

I generally tend to agree with those sentiments, even if sometimes I think the 'just ship' people start to drift dangerously close to the 'Just be fantastic if you want to be fantastic' types. Like the kinds of tautological statements found in many self-help books, inspirational tweets, and inside fortune cookies. Oh really, if I want to be incredibly successful, I just have to start doing things that will make me incredibly successful? Wow, thanks for the tip.

But in our professional lives these kinds of decisions have to be made all the time, whether to chase the bigger and better solution, to invest time and money in the latest technology to support a particular organizational process, or whether we need to extend our normal salary ranges and budgets in order to land that person or two that might be formerly out of our reach and likely to get snapped up by our better known and better funded competitor. Even in our personal lives we come up against this all the time. How many folks reading this have already had a mental conversation with yourselves about ditching the iPhone 4s you just got for the upcoming iPhone 5 will be the right move?

So here is my question for you on a Friday - how do you know when 'good enough' is really 'good enough' and perfect isn't needed? What criteria do you use? Do you ever get comfortable accepting less when better or faster or more capable is still out there, just a little bit out of reach?

When might you decide, for example, that generic beer will do the trick?

I'm curious.

Have a Great Weekend!

PBR, Irony, and Duct Tape

If you are sort of old like me, and not all that cool, you might not know that amongst wide swaths of the young, hipster crowd that Pabst Blue Ribbon (PBR) beer has become a popular and trendy beverage of choice.

Part of the reason for PBR's popularity with that scene is it's relative value; I think a 12-pack of PBR can be had for a reasonable $7.00 or $8.00 in most parts of the country.  The other explanation for the brand's recent success with the cool kids is less about value and more about image; by drinking PBR, a brew that is more or less bland, nondescript, and 'old',  the hipsters are making a kind of statement. They are sending a message that they simply don't care about what the beer they choose says about them, and going further, if they do choose to drink cheap, mass-produced beer that they choose to consciously and conspicuously shun the mass-market, mass-advertised, and more obvious choices like Budweiser or Coors for a more 'indie' choice in PBR. 

In a way it is the ironic choice.  To try and rebel against the incessant marketing messages from the major brands, the hipsters choose to go even more down market, all the way down to PBR.  When was the last time you can recall seeing a PBR commercial on the Super Bowl, or for that matter, any kind of PBR advertising at all?  And no, the aging 1960s era posters at the local bowling alley don't count. At the end of the day, the folks that make and sell PBR probably don't completely understand this newfound popularity, but they know that for the moment anyway, and for the first time in maybe 40 years, the PBR brand has some relevance, some cachet even.  

My Dad still lives in New Jersey, in the house I grew up in.  His neighbor and friend that lives across the street is named Phil, and for most of my childhood Phil worked in a brewery helping to make PBR beer. As kids, we never thought Phil was all that hip or cool. To us, he was an old guy, he wore a workshirt with the PBR logo that we, in our ignorant and narrow view of the world, thought was low-class.  He used duct tape to hold the muffler assembly on his aging Buick, an improvised repair that we laughed at, with our childish lack of awareness of the realities and problems that mortgages, insurance, and medical bills put on an unskilled worker in a brewery.

Phil came home from work every day and took his son, Phil Jr., out for a walk.  Phil Jr. was just a year or two younger than me, but I never had a relationship with him. Sadly, he was a victim of Cerebral Palsy. He could not walk, could hardly communicate, and could not see. Phil would take Phil Jr. out, stand behind him and hold him up, and proceed to try and walk him up and down the street, the entire time having what to us seemed like a one-sided conversation with his son. To Phil these were probably the most precious few moments of the day.  Phil took these walks with this son every day for years.

As I think back on it, I wonder if Phil secretly hoped that these walks with his son, where he essentially was carrying him along, would somehow, someway be the catalyst that would enable Phil Jr. to walk on his own one day.  Eventually the combination of Phil Jr. growing too tall and heavy, and Phil getting older and weaker put an end to these daily supported walks.  Phil Jr's condition never really improved, and at some point after I had gone off to college and moved away, he was placed in an assisted living facility.

Around that same time the fortunes of PBR beer were clearly on the decline, and the brewery where Phil had worked for 20-odd years was closed. After that Phil bounced around in a series of jobs - maintenance worker, janitor, maybe even night security guard, until he finally was able to retire a few years ago.  

I saw Phil earlier this year when my Dad was hospitalized, and he came to pay a visit.  He looked tired, seemed a little bit confused, but for someone that has endured a long and often emotionally painful life I suppose was holding up as well as can be expected.  It was good to see him.

I wanted to tell him about the resurgence of the PBR brand, about how in the last few years it has suddenly become hip to drink PBR, but after a few minutes I realized that he would not have really understood or appreciated or even cared. 

And come to think of it, I am glad I didn't try and tell the story to Phil.  When most people see the PBR label today, they think of the Brooklyn hipsters looking and acting so much cooler that the rest of us. Shallow, transitory, and meaningless.

When I see the PBR label, I think of Phil, in his workshirt, carrying his son up and down the street.