Stinky Cheese
Posted on September 20, 2002 Posted by John Scalzi 1 Comment
Krissy came home the other night with Who Moved My Cheese? It was pressed onto her at work by one of the managers at her new place of employment, who told her that all new hires were actively encouraged to read it (Here’s a clue to the sensible Midwestern frugality of her new place of work: Rather than buying a copy for every new hire, which would cost $20 a pop at list price, they simply lend out the same copy over and over). My understanding is that it’s arguably the number one business motivational book on the market. Well, I’m in business, and I prefer to be motivated, so I read it. And now I can say, if this is what people are using to motivate themselves in corporate America today, no wonder the Dow is where it’s at. It is, without exception, the stupidest book I have ever read.
The motivational lessons in the book come in the form of a parable, suitable for reading to your three-year-old, about four creatures in a lab-rat maze. Two of them are mice, and two of them are little mice-size humans, and they eat the cheese that’s placed in a certain location in the maze. Eventually, the amount of cheese decreases and then disappears. The mice, who noticed the decreasing amounts of cheese, take off through the maze to find more cheese. The little humans, on the other hand, bitch about the loss of cheese and reminisce about the days when cheese was plentiful. Eventually one of the humans gets off his ass and heads out to find more cheese, and in doing so, has a motivational epiphany every few steps, which he feels compelled to scrawl on the walls of the maze.
Eventually he finds more cheese in the maze, as well as the mice, who have grown fat and happy with their new store of food. The little human considers going back for his friend, but then decides that, no, his friend must find his own way through the maze. He leaves his old pal to starve, as that’s almost certainly what his dim, stubborn friend does, and feels all shiny and self-important for finding his new cheese.
The entire parable is framed with a conversation between several friends, one of whom is telling the parable, and the rest of whom spend the parable’s epilogue wondering how they ever got through their professional and personal lives without hearing about the cheese (an interesting rhetorical cheat, incidentally — the author is confirming the usefulness of the book by creating characters that are helped by its philosophy, but which don’t actually exist in the real world. This is a very Ayn Rand thing to do).
The overall idea of the book is that change is inevitable and if you’re smart, when it happens you won’t spend much of your time bitching about how you don’t like change; instead you’ll adapt to the change and get on with your life. The “cheese” represents all the things you’ve come to rely upon. Well, let me save you 20 bucks and boil the lesson of the book down to exactly five words: Shit Happens. Deal With It.
Also, the book throws in a few other lessons, which are hopefully unintended:
1. Life is a maze that has been laid out without your control or consent. The best you can do is run through it and hope you run into the things that make you happy.
2. You have no control over the things that make you happy — their quantity and quality are controlled totally by outside forces, with whom you cannot interact, and which have no interest in your needs.
3. The mice in the parable understood that the “cheese” was decreasing but neither informed the little humans nor seemed interested in helping them once the cheese was gone. Mice represent the “other.” You cannot trust the “other.” Stick to your own kind (alternately, the mice represent management, who know more about the reality of the situation, and the little humans are the rank-and-file, intentionally kept in the dark by management. Either way: Not to be trusted).
4. The one little human found more cheese but decided not to return to help his friend, rationalizing that it was up to his friend to find the way. Moral: Once you’ve got yours, you don’t need to share. It’s not your responsibility to share your knowledge with others, even if the cost of sharing that knowledge is trivial and doing so will immeasurably improve their lives (i.e., in this case, keep the other little human from starving to death).
In other words, the formulation of the book posits a world that is confusing and sterile, in which the things that might make us happy all exist outside of ourselves, and in which the ultimate successful qualities are selfishness and paranoia. I wonder how popular this book was at Enron and Global Crossing.
Look, people. If you ever find your “cheese” decreasing, don’t run around frantically in a maze, looking for something else to replace it. Simply learn to make cheese. Which is to say, be responsible for creating your own happiness internally instead of relying on something outside of you to provide it, and living in fear that it will go away. This way, when the cosmic forces take away your cheese, you can look up and say, screw you and your stinkin’ maze. I’ll move when I damn well feel like it.
Even better, you won’t have to compete with others for your cheese. Heck, eventually you’ll have surplus cheese to give to your friends who might be starving for some. You can teach them to make cheese, too. Give a man a piece of cheese, and he has cheese toast for a day. Teach him how to make cheese, and you’ve got a life-long fondue party pal.
Mmmm. Fondue. Much better than scampering blindly through a maze. Or paying $20 for a book that condescendingly tells you that’s what you should be doing with your life.
This book was recommended to us by the head of engineering while the company was going through some tough changes. It was ironic because the most obvious conclusion was to find some cheese at another company. Within a few months, the head of engineering found his cheese at another company and many others followed suit.
And yes, the book is pathetically simple-minded.