STANDARD POLICY
On February 20, 1962, John Glen was the first American astronaut to orbit the earth. Reflecting on his experience, he said, “… as I hurled through space one thought kept crossing my mind – every part of this rocket was supplied by the lowest bidder.”
Interesting. One would think getting the best quality would be the standard when you are on the edge of disaster.
The reality is our whole society runs on low expectations, and minimum standards, on the edge of disaster.
Our laws setting basic salaries are far below what is known to be a living wage. The employers who opt to go over the minimums are few and far between.
Just following the building codes is not any guarantee of having a well-built house.
Corporate ethical codes also don’t seem to inspire many people to seek the high ground. Sadly the codes and standards allows many to claim to be honourable and righteous as they are self-serving, demanding and unfair. Indeed, when codes, rules and regulations are set common practice for many corporations and institutions is to rush immediately to find ways to circumvent them. The pressure is not to seek to do better but do the minimum.
Interesting, the standard policy when disaster strikes is to blame the rule makers and not the failure of those who did the minimum.
How much better life would be if more people were inspired to seek the high ground; to reach for fairness, morality, charity, honesty, truthfulness and integrity.
The minimum sort of works; the lowest bidder sort of works, living on the edge, courting disaster, sort of works.
As we Rotarians know, it is not good enough.