Living In America

I was sitting at my desk yesterday, thinking about politics.

Here's what I do, if you're wondering: I run an inspection company. Half of the house works with banks and finance companies to help businesses to get new equipment. I've seen it all. Restaurant equipment, vehicles, computers, software, yellow iron, manufacturing equipment, medical equipment. I've seen a custom-built reverse osmosis sytem and crematories, pedicure chairs and paint booths, and the interior of more Subway franchises than one human being should ever have to see. I've overseen inspections in all of the lower 48, Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico for companies investing in new equipment to keep their businesses running and to help them grow.

It's cool.

Unfortunately, I've also had to oversee inspections for equipment that is being repossessed. We're often hired as "lookers" -- it becomes our job when an account is in default to go out and try to find the equipment, or the borrower, and to determine how hard it would be to get the equipment out. We go to businesses who are in default and try to get them in touch with their lender so they can make payment arrangements -- it's easy for us, since we have someone on the ground pretty much everywhere.

This is NOT so fun.

The other half of the house works with insurance companies, completing inspections for a variety of types of coverages. For many of our clients, we perform commercial general liability inspections. A lot of those have to take place at job sites... and a lot of the customers don't have job sites right now.

However, because of this, I know things about this country. I know what people are buying and who's going into default. I know which industries are busy, and which ones are struggling. I know which franchises are the most likely to go under, and which ones are booming.

I also know this: Lots of people in this country are working their asses off.

And they still have hope.

Hope is actually what I see in every single job that comes across my desk. Hope for the future. Hope for expansion. Hope for success. Hope that if I just keep at it, if I continue to work hard, I can build something amazing. I also see backbone -- people who refuse to give up, who won't quit, even when the odds are stacked against them.

The thing I don't see, though, is a belief in our political system. No one really believes that their politicans are working for them. There is very little positive political discourse in this country, from the television ads where pundits and politicos bash each other at every opportunity to the diner counters over coffee. The negativity in the political ads is generally grosser and directed at someone or something specific; the negativity at the breakfast counter is mostly directed at a system which no longer seems accessible to the working or middle class American, who seems resigned to the fact that in November we might possibly meet the new boss, who won't be that much different from the old boss.*

Our elections have become a situation where most Americans believe that they are choosing the lesser of two evils, but less evil is still, last I checked, kind of evil and not REALLY what people want.

So what does the average American -- the working class (who doesn't get that much lip service, now that I think about it -- and what's with that?) and the middle class -- do about it?

From here? It looks like they keep hoping. Hoping that someday they'll be heard or represented. Hoping that the people who can afford to run for office (which, let's face it, is not the average American) will do right by them.

I love hope, and don't want to knock it. But what this job has taught me is that hope is a weak creature. It needs that backbone to go with it. The companies that I work with, the ones who are growing and who have stayed viable when the economy tanked? They were the ones that hoped and hustled.

If we want our political system to work for us, as Americans? Then we need to attach our hope to more work. It's like dieting. No one gets thinner through HOPING the weight will go away. You have to DO something. No business ever magically just became successful. Someone was behind the scenes, working and selling, making it happen. And no major political change was ever achieved merely by casting a vote, I don't think. It's easy to believe that the branches of government have a responsibility to Americans, but not very many people seem to understand that Americans also have a responsibility to their government that goes beyond voting and extends to making sure that government is actually working on their behalf.

Because isn't that the beauty of America? Isn't that what we want? To have a voice and use a voice? To have hope for change and to create that change, generate and inspire it, and to bring it forward?

I want to believe that Americans -- all of them, the ones I agree with and the ones I don't, the ones that are wealthy and the ones who are broke, the ones who are educated and the ones who are not -- can all agree that in order for our system to work properly, it has to be invested in every bit as much as a business. It requires attention and effort. Hope and backbone.

If there's one thing I know for sure, it's that we're a nation of thinkers and doers.

I think we could get this done, too.


*I don't personally agree with that, which probably doesn't surprise you. I'm a fan of the old boss.