I actually thought that I would sit further to the left. I thought my scores would show me as the anti-corporation hippie that want every process and strategy regulated by the government. The other week at work I found an article taped to the door of every bathroom and breakroom. This article was exactly the sort of thing that should not show up at work: A political posting. The author decided that they really disliked California’s new emissions law (AB1058). They claimed that it would outlaw personal watercraft that used two-stroke motors and stated that we should call the governor’s office and key state senator’s offices and complain about the law.

This enraged me for several reasons. 1) I considered it cowardly to not put your name on a posting of this nature. 2) I considered it deceptive that the full text of the legislation was not posted right next to it. 3) It is completely inappropriate for a workplace environment (creates a potentially hostile work environment that opens the company up to lawsuit, and it’s impolite to start conversations about religion or politics in the workplace). 4) This posting is exactly the kind of misguided interpretation of freedom that makes me foam at the mouth and seriously consider violent protest in the form of a baseball bat to the back of somebody’s head (key word being ‘consider’). The idea that I was working with somebody that would post something in this manner and of this environmental disregard made me boil. In fact, after reading the legislation and all the amendments I was even more angered that it was as weak as it was. I wanted it to say something like “Listen, we know it’s hard for car manufactures to come up with this stuff, but it’s like you people haven’t even been trying. Get it together in 7 years or don’t expect to sell any cars in California. That’s right Detroit; we want clean cars in 7 years…and make them affordable while you’re at it. I mean really, who did you think you were fooling with the EV-1? Honda’s knocking at the door right now with the Insight and what do you guys have to show for it? An SUV style car built on the same premise but that gets half the mileage and isn’t even out yet...good work guys, next time you complain about Japanese cars elbowing you out of the market we know what we’re going to say.” But no...it’s much softer than that.

So that’s why I thought I would be a bit further left...but like I said, now that I think about it...