Green Party Open Primaries, An Interesting Opportunity, And Thoughts on the Quality of Productivity in "Quality Jobs"

If wealth is created when something is produced, does disruption of productivity create inflation?

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A few posts back, responding to a resounding void, where there should be a pronounced alternative, to a development paradigm that occludes environmental sustainability, I found myself writing a hypothetical Green Party platform.

In important news today. Green Independent Party opens primary election to all Maine voters, a good move in times ripe for strong third parties to emerge.

Whatever is occluded in an outmoded paradigm is the starting point for a fresh new strategy. The Green Party isn’t new but it’s new here in the Boothbay Region. In 2016 when Andersen Design could no longer use the water of Knickerbocker Lake to mix ceramic casting slip, as we had been doing so since 1958, I read the report from the water department to find it leading with drought as a boon for business. When a business boom is what leads drought news, we need a Green Party.

It is a breath of fresh air that the Green Party is opening up its primaries to all voters.

I am mainly familiar with the Green Party through Justin Beth who is promoting caucuses. I would like to see a caucus for businesses in a home since currently home businesses are treated as nonentities by the economic development and affordable housing orthodoxy, when in fact home businesses merge both streams and is an alternative to the “build and they will come” mentality. Instead of centrally managing the whole economy from the top-down, home businesses grow the economy from the grassroots, a very green concept, and offer a quality rural lifestyle, which in the era of remote working is on the up and up.

This is Justin Beth talking about caucuses

Andersen Design News

Vintage Boat Bowl with Brown Tree By Brenda Photo by Mackenzie

I submitted my application for legal help on my non-profit project to my contact at VLA in Boston, and I am waiting on that.

Subsequently, I came across an article titled Developer seeks community input for future of historic Bath building. The developer Sean Ireland of Windward Development, is a Maine Preservation Honor Award winner.

If Andersen Design were to work with a developer, it would be a developer who appreciates the importance of history. Sean Ireland bought the property from John Morse who is quoted in the article:

This is an important piece of the downtown puzzle," he said. "It needs someone with vision and energy. It’s not a traditional retail space like much of downtown, so the project is going to need some creative thinking. Sean’s demonstrated a willingness and ability to find the balance of maintaining what works but also thinking outside the box, when appropriate.” Maine Biz Developer seeks community input for future of historic Bath building

All that sounds promising and hopeful. Could it also be a piece of the puzzle for Andersen Design? We are non-traditional and innovative. Andersen Design built its business as “destination shopping”, not being located in the center of town. Destination shopping is good for Main Street. Individualized hand-crafted products are a reason to shop Main Street instead of online. Seeing, touching, sometimes smelling and listening, are important. We aren’t quite ready for space but the article indicates that the developer sees the project as taking time to evolve. Currently, I am looking for the door that leads to becoming a part of the discussion. The article says the developer wants community input and mentions the usual organizations but without any names or contact information.

More Insights on Remote Working

I am finding it very valuable to follow the life journey of Tim Denning on Medium. Denning is so massively followed that he is the blogging equivalent of a reality TV star. Tim Denning has finally quit his “quality job” and for the reasons that resonate with my own objections to state definitions of a “quality job” bereft on any consideration of work engagement, which may be because the only direct engagement with the work that the state negotiators ever see is the payroll tax revenue that comes to the state.

Tim Denning, the super-productive content provider with a massive following, quit his “quality job” because it interfered with his productive flow state.

If you believe the corporate spin. the corporate workplace is an environment where the highest level of creative inspiration thrives as nowhere else on earth. Workers have spontaneous encounters in elevators and elegant atriums and engage in earth-shattering inspirational conversation which can only happen in the hallowed halls of large corporate spaces. Perhaps that is true for those with creative-elite jobs but for the “x” number of workers, employed in the corporate workforce, the experience portrayed by Tim Denning is more believable. In Denning’s world view he gains by quitting his “quality job” by the ability to experience an uninterrupted “flow state”, wherein Denning finds his own creative and inspired productivity.

Quoting Denning:

I’ve found when you spend more time in flow states, you finish the day feeling like you’ve achieved something. When you spend your time constantly task-switching and producing low-quality work, you feel terrible.

Quitting my job is going to allow me whole days where I can sit in my home office and focus on one task. I miss the one-task life immensely. I miss being so engrossed in a work activity (outside of writing) for eight hours during the working week.

Depth of focus rather than width of focus changes how you feel.

Leaving a traditional job behind gives you control of your time back. When you control your time again, it’s your choice how much of it you spend in flow. Being on-call or attending impromptu meetings is terrible for flow state dreamers. Flow states require extended focus. Tim Denning The (Real) Power of Quitting a Job

Denning is talking about the value of being engaged in a meaningful and fulfilling work process. He writes about the uselessness of middle management as hindering rather than helping productivity,

Considering that when states barter for x number of jobs at higher than average wages and benefits, they are bargaining for quantifiable payroll income for the state, if the corporation doesn’t really need to hire so many people, the size of the workforce creates unnecessary distractions and needless middle management within the working environment. Perhaps that is one reason why some corporations are welcoming remote work. It changes the relationship to hiring policies mandated by the state. Will that result in greater productivity and is productivity still the basis of wealth creation? At least, it is worth exploring.