I’ve worked in operational environments over the years as a systems administrator.  When I worked at IBM one of my responsibilities was ensuring uptime for the semiconductor design environment in Austin.  One of the most valuable lessons I learned there was about panic.

Downtime in that environment could cost millions (the rough planning figure I used was in the vicinity of a quarter of a million dollars an hour in lost productivity with the first 15 minutes of the outage losing between 4-24 hours of work.  Lots of money was on the line, and I had plenty of senior management at IBM regularly telling me how criticial it was.  I even got a phone call once from the VP in charge of the Server group to let me know how critical uptime was for a particular chip build.

Needless to say, in that environment it would be easy to panic.  Most times I didn’t because I had a strong team backing me.  The few times I did panic were very instructive.  Here are some of the lessons I learned:

1. Panic will not make the solution better.  It usually prevents the solution.
2. Panic will not get anything done any sooner.
3. Choices made while panicking will almost universally prove to be the wrong ones.
4. Panic immobilizes.
5. Panic equals FAIL.

Panic is what I see going on with the bailout.  We don’t know what to do, so we gotta do *something*.   And we do need to do something.  But does it need to be so panic driven?  What will change between today and tomorrow that will make such a huge difference?

Bold and decisive action does need to be taken, but it should also be deliberate action, not the panic driven need to do anything to show we are doing something.

Rudyard Kipling (under read in our politically correct society said this:

If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you; If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, but make allowance for their doubting too; . . . If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster and treat those two impostors just the same . . . yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it.

We forget this to our peril.

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Below is the text of an email I sent to my senators today.

Please vote against the bailout bill.  I have already contacted my Representatives office (Mike Conaway) and thanked him for voting against it.  I hope to be able to thank you as well on Wednesday.

The bailout has been necessitated by poor policy that was the enabled by the Community Reinvestment act and poor oversight by Congress.  The activities of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the stewardship of Henry Paulson, John Snow, and their predecessors.

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Guy Kawasaki, former apple evangelist and current entrepreneur has suggested that the Republicans need to reframe the debate on the bailout.  While I don’t completely agree with the solution, since I oppose the bailout entirely, he has an interesting point.   Politics is marketing.

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I’ve decided it is time to re-engage with politics in my life.  I do not like the way that things are going.  I’ve always been center-right, but since Reagan I’ve pretty much voted and not much else.  So what have I gotten for my inaction?

Eight years of Bill Clinton, almost 4 years of Al Gore (shudder), and 8 years of a weak George Bush.  A congress lead by Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, who do not seem to know how to lead, but only to blame.

Now, I’m not happy with my own party at all.  But what alternative do I have?  A party that would rather see a weakened America, with good paying jobs shipped overseas so as not to offend the radical environmentalist wing of their party?  A media willing to lie to get their candidate elected?  A nearly trillion dollar bailout because the Democrats created a system that required and encouraged and enabled banks to make bad loans to people who shouldn’t have gotten them?

I can’t continue being part of the problem, I’ve got to start being part of the solution, or at least to stop enabling the corruption that is destroying our country.

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