Charles Jaco has written opinion and commentary pieces for dozens of magazines and newspapers. Each week, read and comment on a fresh on-line version. The discussion page enables you to share your view points world wide. If you would like to make a comment go to the " Join the discussion" link below. If you would like to view past editorials visit the Editorial Archive. Editorial: 08/25/00 SURVIVAL OF THE SELFISH Corporate Backstabbing Meets Gilligan's Island America loved Survivor because it reminded us of work. Backstabbing, greed, craven lying, plotting--just another day in Dilbert-land. Survivor succeeded because it boiled down our poisonous 21st Century corporate culture to its pure essence. It's all about money. It's not enough to succeed, others must fail. What's in it for me? Every man for himself and screw you. It's the credo of every dot com age corner office vampire whose never done anything more dangerous than suffer a paper cut and keeps a copy of The Art of War on his desk. Psst, Mr. Gates. Real war and real survival are about co-operation, not competition. The rules are simple. Every member of the team is willing to sacrifice himself for any other member of the team. Otherwise, everybody dies. Last year, a suit I know of was lambasting an employee for being seen at dinner with employees from a rival corporation. This is war he sputtered. Those are bad guys. They're the enemy. The employee, who had spent weeks at a time on Long Range Reconnaissance Patrols in Vietnam, eating snakes with Montengard tribesmen and ambushing Viet Cong units, was astonishingly unimpressed. This isn't war, he replied. This is just business. People get killed in war. Business just makes them depressed. The suit skulked back to his office to take care of some more paperwork. Our culture is doing its best to convince all of us that it's a snarky, dog-eat-dog world. Edgy TV ads convince us we're better than someone else if we buy the product. Everything's for sale. Hip hop glorifies the gangster life and Donald Trump. Detatchment. Cynicism. Money. Power. It's a World Wrestling Federation tag team where you aim to lay out other team members with a chair while they aren't looking. You want real survivors? Come back to a hot September day in 1976 on the Chesapeake Bay. The late summer storm filled the horizon like a fast-spreading mushroom cloud and came down on the 42 foot yawl like the Fist of God. Lightening popped off the water and the gray-green bay blended with the umber sky and the howling rain that hit our faces like needles. Six of us--five experienced sailors and me, the landlubber who got seasick in a swimming pool--fought for four hours against a storm that, unknown to us, had driven a freighter aground, sunk a half-dozen boats bigger than ours, and knocked our the electricity on both Smith and Tangier islands. The pilot put on a snorkeling mask to be able to steer in the open cockpit against the rain. Bolts of lightening that shivered across the sky allowed him to glance at the compass and steer us southwest, toward Smith and the only safe harbor within reach. At one point, we were all thrown to the deck and found ourselves lying in a vertical position as the yawl hove heavily to starboard and briefly dipped its bare mainmast into the boiling bay. Three of us had to scurry down to the worst place for seasickness--below decks. One grabbed a flashlight in his teeth and jerked open the engine compartment. He had to make sure that the oil and water hoses we'd replaced the day before were holding on the small engine. If they didn't, the engine would die and we'd probably follow. I ran to the centerboard crank while another crewman planted himself in front of the depth-reading sonar. The bay is full of unexpected and uncharted sandy shallows. The keel on a sailboat is a sort of shark fin below the water, keeping the craft stable. In our case, the keel was a centerboard. It could be hand-cranked up, then dropped again if the water got too shallow. If the centerboard hit the sand on the bottom, we'd be hung up. And if that happened, the wind and surging waves would torque the yawl into splinters within minutes. With the uncowled engine hissing and sputtering like a teapot over my shoulder, I stod next to the centerboard crank and threw up on whatever was handy. The crewman staring up at the ghastly green glow from the sonar would yell "Raise it!", and I'd crank until my tendons burned, raising the centerboard so we could glide through slaoow water. Then he'd bellow "Drop it!", and I'd release the brake so the centerboard would drop down again and help stabilize the heeling boat in deeper water. So there were five of us--one pilot straining against the wheel, one lookout tied with a safety rope to the bow rail, one mechanic standing by with duct tape to patch any sudden leaks, one sonar reader to keep his eyes glued to the depth finder, and me. We survived. We limped into Smith Island harbor, tied off, and fell asleep wherever we could. I plopped down in the soggy sail locker and snored. We survived because we worked together. And the Survivor castaways? They would have probably gone to the bottom. As it is, they'll probably end up in a corner office.     Join the discussion

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