General Motors, Decline and Fall,

1980 – 2009

William Sundwick

Founded in Flint, Michigan in 1908, the corporation that ushered in the automobile age in America and came to dominate the nation’s industrial economy by the 1970s, declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy just after celebrating its centennial.

What happened?

In 1980, journalist/folklorist Ed Cray published his history of that corporation, Chrome Colossus: General Motors and Its Times. GM then held a 46 per cent share of the domestic U.S. auto market. Cray notes it had been over 50 per cent in the early to mid-1960s, inviting threats of anti-trust action from Congress, amplifying anger at GM manufacturing decisions concerning safety and lethargic pursuit of emissions reduction. The Boards of Directors in those days were confident they could ride over these assaults. They were right -- so long as sales and employment were strong and stock valuation high. I certainly felt no insecurity growing up as a teenager in a Flint GM family!

But there was an unseen threat building, starting in the 1970s, which should have foretold a deepening challenge to GM’s place in the automotive market.

It came from Japan, with its much younger automobile industry looking toward export markets, not just in the U.S., but around the world. The first Toyotas and Datsuns appeared on the West Coast in the late 1950s. A curiosity at first with little penetration even in California. But that penetration grew and went nationwide by the mid-70s. GM management did recognize that there was something peculiarly competitive about Japanese manufacturing. They sought to learn more about it via partnership with Toyota. NUMMI (New United Motors Manufacturing, Inc.) was formed in the early ‘80s at a closed GM plant in Fremont, California (since sold to Tesla). It produced both Chevrolets and Toyotas side-by-side on the same assembly line.

But NUMMI failed to change “The General.” What General Motors couldn’t understand was that the secret of Japanese manufacturing, and growing preference of U.S. consumers, had nothing to do with efficiency of the machinery in the plant. It was not the “culture” of employees (the old GM workers were rehired in Fremont). Instead, it was mainly the culture of management. The Fremont plant was run differently from other GM assembly plants, following the Japanese model. But apparently, corporate management failed to notice a fundamentally different job design. Workers in Fremont rotated among many different jobs, rather than simply tightening the same bolt every day for an eight-hour shift on thousands of cars.

GM had advance warning of this problem from the wildcat strike at Lordstown, Ohio in the early ‘70s – where sabotage led to slowdowns and generally low production quality of the new “import killer” small car launched there, the Chevrolet Vega. Production rates were punishing, workers took it out on the product. Yet corporate management took no notice. After the “experiment” at NUMMI, Japanese style “relational management” never spread to other plants. The Vega’s design was considered flawed, too, not merely its manufacturing quality. General Motors could not see its employees as anything more than cost centers, whether hourly and salaried engineers. The public could see the effects.

“Corporate culture” has become a popular trope over the last thirty years. It probably had its origin in the sad story of General Motors’ decline. The corporation had its beginning in the early days of the automobile, in an environment analogous to how we thought of Silicon Valley in the 1980s. It was where entrepreneurial ventures based on engineering advances were the foundation of economic growth. Billy Durant, the founder of the corporation, was the embodiment of that entrepreneurial, risk-all, American myth that surrounded figures like Steve Jobs in later times. Durant’s genius (some would call it recklessness) was his willingness to take a chance on a bevy of garage tinkerers he met in Michigan. The first of them was Flint mechanic David Buick, struggling with his own version of a horseless carriage. His Buick automobile was the brand that started General Motors. Durant, however, did not build the GM corporate culture. The myth of that industrial spirit was, instead, created by Alfred P. Sloan. Sloan led an ever more centralizing corporate Board through the 1920s and 1930s. The stable of brands assembled by Durant and his early associates had all been managed independently at the engineering and production level. They always had shared technology and parts, but Sloan made them mere “divisions,” subservient to the General Motors Board of Directors, directed jointly from Detroit and Wall Street. Sloan was the archetype modern corporatist.

Sloan organized the corporation around profit centers and marketing concepts. Any original ideas for products or engineering had to clear rigorous financial hoops – the “bean counters.” The overwhelming strength of the industrial engine this strategy created caused General Motors to be perceived as a key factor for allied victory when World War II came. Its then-president, William S. Knudsen, became FDR’s head of the War Production Board.

But, after the war, that old, inherently conservative, midwestern corporate culture returned -- unable to focus its marketing on anything but the ego-enhancing product differentiation that Sloan had pioneered starting in the 1920s. The five automotive brands that GM successfully hawked during the postwar years (Chevrolet, Pontiac, Buick, Oldsmobile, and Cadillac) were distinguished mostly by size and flash – what would today be called “bling.” All were built on a similar platform with more engineering in common than unique. Chevrolets and Cadillacs were built during the period to be fundamentally the same, different enough only to make a convincing argument that the higher-priced brand was somehow “better.” This was, of course, illusion – manufacturing standards and quality control were identical at all GM plants.

GM corporate culture could not grasp the reason for the increasing success of Japanese imports through the 1970s and ‘80s. It was not their cars’ designs, but a combination of several factors. There was the above-mentioned relational style of management in plants (and with suppliers); the uncomfortable fact that legacy costs were low at the much younger Japanese firms (not as many retirees collecting pensions and benefits); and, yes, a less risk-averse product-planning style, greater willingness to take chances on new designs without the relentless bottom-line calculations, the Wall Street side, that dominated GM decision-making. It was the old company, Toyota the young company!

When the UAW chose to strike General Motors in 2007, the walkout lasted three days. But three days lost production was not enough to change GM’s ways. Market share in the U.S. by then was down to only 20 per cent, a far cry from thirty years earlier. The public had caught on, even if management had not. GM was a global enterprise, but European market share was declining as well, and China was just getting started. South American (primarily Brazilian) operations were significant, but not on the scale of North American or European. When Wall Street was hit by the 2008 crash, the General finally took off his stars and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2009, the corporation’s 101^st anniversary. Only a massive U.S. government bailout saved GM from liquidation.

Arising from the ashes, the “new” General Motors, General Motors Company, LLC, promised to be leaner and better – not necessarily meaner. But global market share, even after selling off subsidiaries, and shuttering brands (Hummer, Opel, Pontiac, Saab, Saturn, others), has not revived over the ensuing decade. By 2019, U.S. market share had eroded even further, to about 17 per cent. Had the General learned anything?

CEO Mary Barra has flirted with new products, especially electric vehicles, and claims the company will transition completely to EVs (well, 70 per cent by 2040), but we’ll see. The plug-in hybrid Chevy Volt was discontinued in 2019, with no replacement named. Lordstown, site of the painful wildcat strike decades earlier, was not reconfigured, but closed – then sold to a start-up who will manufacture all-electric pickup trucks there soon. Will the GM Cruise Division, formed to manufacture autonomous vehicles at its Hamtramck plant, ever see the light of day?

If I were a prudent investor, I would not buy GM stock.

Car Buying: The Experience

William Sundwick

For a life-long car buff like me, shopping for a new car has been an exciting, intensely pleasurable, experience. Cars are fascinating to me: their design, their features, their engineering. I grew up with the industry, and I’ve followed the automotive press intermittently ever since.

My latest experience was no exception. My Excel workbook of all possible competitors compared not only numeric specs, but capsule summaries taken from reviews and road tests. The process lasted two years – my spreadsheet had tabs for 2017 models, 2018 models, and 2019 models. I didn’t pull the trigger in either of the first two model years I tracked. In 2017, I merely collected data on all possible popular-priced SUV/Crossovers. For 2018, I devised elimination thresholds based on certain specs. This, combined with a comprehensive tour of the 2018 Washington Auto Show, allowed a hypothetical emergence of an “elite eight,” then “final four” contenders (roughly on time for the 2018 NCAA basketball tournament).

But I didn’t buy a car. Rinse and repeat for 2019 models. For this model year, I could only reduce to five finalists – I had tightened my elimination standards, but there were simply more cars that met those requirements.

Test drives at dealers finally became a reality this August. Dealers were ramping up their summer clearances, seeking to clear out inventory for the coming model year. They wanted my business. Five contenders quickly became four after a disconcerting phone call to a Nissan dealer where the salesman conceded: “nobody stocks Rogue Hybrids -- they don’t sell!” – the Rogue Hybrid was only model that made Nissan one of the five finalists. “Thank you, I guess I can cross Nissan off my list!” Four different test drives ensued. VW Tiguan was eliminated after a decisive spin – too big, ungainly, slow. A slight delay before following up with the remaining three choices found both my wife and me getting bored with the process. Eager to reach a decision, we arbitrarily crossed Ford Escape off our list: “It is due to be replaced for 2020 with an all-new model,” I reminded my wife. “And Consumer Reports rates its ‘expected reliability’ as low,” granted a statistical assumption. That left a titanic duel between Subaru Forester and Honda CR-V.

We went together to other Subaru and Honda dealers, searching for the one thing that might be key to a final decision. This was somewhat painful until my wife took the wheel of both contenders. Even though she had insisted throughout the test drive process that this would be my car, not hers, the final word belonged to her! The Honda felt more “familiar” – coinciding with my own feeling that it was more “straight-forward” (less “gimmicky”) than the Subaru. And there were no minuses with the Honda, except that it didn’t include a heated steering wheel in the price (a $500 accessory, we later discovered).

The decision was made! Now came the hard part. Where would we buy my Honda? And, how to avoid being taken for a ride by that dealer? Further Internet research followed.

All dealers publish their inventories online. While it is possible for them to trade cars to make a sale, I found that such practices work against the best price – seems reasonable, especially in this annual inventory reduction environment. All dealers may not have equally well-managed stocks of cars. They do compete after all. In our case, a larger inventory worked to our advantage.

With some insight provided by Edmunds.com, I decided the best approach was to email blast all local Honda dealers with my requirements and wait for the best quote for an “Internet price” to come in response. The Edmunds site provided the interface for my blast. The response came same day -- from the dealer which had claimed, when we visited, to be the largest in Northern Virginia (Ourisman Honda of Tysons Corner). The test drive there had been pleasant enough. The salesman said he remembered us from five years previous when we were last car shopping – and, we didn’t even buy from him! It’s possible he could have done advance research on us, since I made the appointment with another sales associate – I didn’t remember him. “What did you buy five years ago, you were looking at a Civic Hybrid?” he offered unprompted. (Winner then, a Chevy Volt!)

One of the best qualities in a car salesman is the ability to put the customer at ease, with personal anecdotes, less-than-perfect knowledge, and general easy-going demeanor. This salesman possessed all these skills. He had some knowledge of features he could demonstrate – hands-free tailgate, remote starting with key fob, personalized settings for almost everything in car. He continued his presentation, even after we announced we were ready to buy his car.

He did, however, gloss over a problem we had with our “Internet price” quote: the fine print said “dealer financing required” – we expected to pay cash! Since Virginia doesn’t allow pre-payment penalties for financing, we all agreed that the “dealer financing” requirement was a mere formality. We could pay it off with only one additional small payment – our salesman insisted. But that was before he went to his sales manager to seal the deal.

Hard-nosed negotiation commenced. Finally, a concession from the sales manager: “I’ll give you two free oil changes if you agree to make at least three payments.” And only the oil changes were in writing! He seemed so pathetic in his desperation to make a small amount in interest for his bank! Margins must be very tight in this business. The law was on our side. He can’t force us to pay interest!

And, he wanted to sell us a car.

Driving away from the dealership in my new Honda gave me a sense of accomplishment. I’m not sure I’ll bother with the two free oil changes, anyway. I still needed to arrange for the towing of our old car, to be donated to Vehicles for Change, as we have for the last two cars we’ve replaced. The satellite radio needed to be registered (first 90 days free), presets set, old car’s radio deactivated. I needed to read the manual cover-to-cover. Fortunately, Honda also provides a website with a collection of videos on how the car’s controls work (the manual is not especially comprehensive or well-written). 

Driving is the best way to learn about the car. And that is what I’ve been doing for the last few weeks. Its HondaLink navigation system now knows where I live!

Drive Better Electrically

EVs, Past, Present, Future

William Sundwick 

Electricity as a means of propulsion for self-contained road vehicles is as old, or older, than the internal combustion engine (ICE). But EV market share declined to zero for a large chunk of motor vehicle history.

There were a variety of reasons for the demise. They were expensive, while the Model T was bringing motoring to the masses. Battery technology was limited. Baker Electrics and Detroit Electrics, “popular” in the first two decades of the 20^th century featured luxurious closed bodies, but had a range of less than 40 miles, and top speed of less than 20 mph. But when ICE-powered cars needed to be cranked to start, electrics could be started with a button. They were thought to be aimed at urban women, especially. Henry Ford bought a Detroit Electric for his wife, Clara. And, Baker Electric manufactured 800 cars in 1906 alone. Peak sales occurred in the second decade of the century. Altogether, by the end of the electric era in the early 1920s, there had been 33,842 electrics registered in the United States. No other country had as many EVs, although there were manufacturers in Europe, too. The explosion of demand for the Model T, and associated massive improvements in the national road network, tended to leave those early EVs to an affluent urban niche market.

Shortages of gasoline during World War II did cause some renewed interest in electric vehicles in Europe, especially Britain, which invented its famous commercial “milk floats,” and the Wehrmacht experimented with, but was unable to produce, hybrid electric armored vehicles, under the direction of Ferdinand Porsche.

Further experiments were carried out around the world during the fuel scarce 1970s and 1980s, but not enough market incentives existed to attempt series production of any electric. By 1997, Toyota took the gamble with its hybrid electric Prius, based on regenerative braking technology, manufacturing it in limited numbers for the domestic Japanese market. Plug-in hybrid design was pioneered in France, where Renault introduced the Elect’Road version of the Kangoo minivan in 2003. It used “blended” technology, where despite an AC charger, the battery electric drive and gasoline engine worked in tandem much of the time – much like the hybrid electric Prius.

In the U.S., General Motors was forced to offer electric driving. It’s novel EV-1 was leased, not sold, in California, in 1999 -- an answer to the CARB (California Air Resources Board) mandate for more fuel-efficient vehicles. GM famously de-activated and destroyed all examples except for a few survivors in museums. The film, “Who Killed the Electric Car?” offers a better, if more sinister, explanation for GM’s decision.

The CARB mandate was reversed when that happened, at the end of the non-renewable lease period. GM’s official explanation was that there was insufficient consumer demand for the relatively short-range EV (~80 mi.) – but, by 2011, Nissan began successfully selling its Leaf, with only a 90-mile range. 

Tesla’s emergence in 2008 marked a serious benchmark for EVs worldwide. Tesla’s market-changing invention was the Lithium-ion battery. Storage capacity, thus range, could now be far greater than any previous attempts at electric propulsion. As battery technology continues to improve, the need for hybrid gasoline engines will decrease. An all-electric future may eventually come. But, will it come fast enough? And, what about continued reliance on an electric grid mainly fed by coal and natural gas?

While California leads the nation in the adoption of EVs (and plug-in hybrids), other nations lead the U.S. By the end of 2018, 49% of all cars sold in Norway were electric. China has marshaled massive state intervention to manufacture EVs for its growing motoring population, with some projections as high as 46% of the domestic market by 2020. However, thanks mostly to California, the U.S. still has more registered electric and hybrid vehicles than any other country, despite a lowly 1% market share for EVs.

How do electric vehicles work? There are three different kinds of electric propulsion available in the marketplace today:

1) Battery-electric vehicles (BEV) like Tesla, Chevrolet Bolt, and Nissan Leaf. These cars have no ICE at all. They rely entirely on their electric motors and battery storage, which can be replenished externally (i.e., “plug-in”) in three modes: 120-volt household circuit, 240-volt “level 2” charger, or 480-volt “level 3” fast DC charging.

2) For the more range-anxious consumer, there are plug-in hybrids (PHEV), which rely on battery storage until it’s depleted, then seamlessly switch to a “range extending” gasoline engine. All-electric range for PHEVs varies from about 10 miles up to more than

50. Total range depends on the size of the gas tank. My Chevy Volt has a small 9.5-gallon tank which gives it a total range in excess of 200 miles. I’ve filled the tank only about five or six times in the 4 ½ years I’ve owned the car – and, several of those times was because of the automatic “fuel maintenance cycle” that burns old, stale gasoline.

3)  Gasoline-electric hybrids (HEV) like the Prius, which continue to be popular, especially in the United States, where gas is relatively cheap and plentiful. Many consumers think the 50-60 mpg that they can get with their Prius is sensational. But it doesn’t compare to 100-120 mpg-e (equivalent) for a PHEV or a Leaf.

Teslas are fast, too! Indeed, one performance characteristic of electric motors is they produce a great deal of torque at lower speeds, hence your 0-60 mph acceleration is likely to be quite good. Currently, there is a preponderance of luxury brands in the list of BEV and PHEV vehicles available in the U.S. That is mostly attributable to the phenomenal success of Tesla. While concept-to-production cycle times are longer than Tesla’s recent dominance of luxury-segment sales, many of the world’s luxury brands had been working on electric propulsion for some time. Tesla’s success moved competitors into crash programs.

How green are EVs, really? It is true that the connection to the nationwide electric grid is a limiting factor on how much CO2 and other greenhouse gases (GHG) can be saved with plug-in electric vehicles. However, it has now finally come to pass that everywhere in the United States, the net carbon footprint of driving an electric or hybrid vehicle is positive. It will be better in places that have higher renewable infrastructure. But nowhere is the impact negative. This has been true only for the last year. All-electric BEVs are best, PHEVs next best, HEVs third.

The only remaining question: will the market move fast enough without massive state intervention like China’s? Rural areas in the U.S. will, of course, be the last to convert. Electric long-distance trucks are under development. And BEV or PHEV pickups are coming within the next year or so. But It may ultimately depend on political will, on getting behind a Green New Deal.

In the 1950s, General Electric and Westinghouse collaborated on a massive media campaign called “Live Better Electrically” (LBE). It had the support of utilities, the U.S. government, and state and local governments. Its sole purpose was to pump up profits for all the participants, selling appliances as costs of the grid were dropping dramatically.

Now, however, it may be time to think of your grandchildren more than your commuting convenience. Is America up to the challenge? 

How Painful Can a 5-mile-per-hour Collision Be?

Wrestling with GEICO and Koons Body Shop

William Sundwick

This is a No Good Deed Goes Unpunished (NGDGU) story. One sunny, thoroughly pleasant, Sunday afternoon in October, near the end of the fall election campaign, I was eager to get my Arlington Dems canvassing commitments behind me. I had signed up for a three-hour shift that afternoon, showed up at the staging home, collected my turf map, clipboard, pen, and (I thought) my handout materials. It was the same routine I had followed the day before, from the same home base. I checked Google Maps for directions to the turf neighborhood, threw everything in my car, and headed out.

Reaching the neighborhood, not unfamiliar to me in North Arlington, I found a parking space on the street.

As I collected my clipboard, turf map, and began to walk toward the first door on my map, I realized that I FORGOT the handouts! I would have nothing to leave at most of the houses (canvassing always seems to find the bulk of voters not home, or just refusing to answer their door). I knew going back would delay my mission. But, after evaluating how long I thought it would take to cover the turf, I decided to do it anyway to collect my packet of handouts.

That was my fatal error. The delay was long enough for me to feel rushed, and embarrassed, when I retraced my route back to the base. Also, it used up battery range on my Chevy Volt EV, something which inexplicably still causes me anxiety (it shouldn’t, as the Volt has an “auxiliary” gasoline engine which extends range to 200+ miles). In any case, I impatiently set out again for the turf neighborhood following a slightly different route. The sun was getting lower now. It was the 4-way stop at Little Falls Road and Harrison Street that got me.

I was southbound on Harrison. I stopped, let the car to my right, heading northeast on Little Falls, proceed through the intersection. There was a second vehicle behind that one, a late model Toyota Highlander (bigger than me). Its driver had the bright sunlight obscuring her view to her left (me). Virginia rules of the road, which I have always followed, allow for only one car at a stop sign at a time. If vehicles are queued up at the sign, they must advance only to the sign, not proceed into the intersection without stopping. The Highlander behaved as if it were in tow behind the first car and didn’t stop. But I had proceeded into the intersection after that first car. Collision resulted: Highlander front bumper connected to Volt front passenger door and right front wheel well.

Speeds probably didn’t exceed five miles per hour. There were no injuries, no air bags deployed. But, lots of damage to little Volt, very little to big Highlander! 

As we moved out of the intersection, we became aware that a witness had also kindly stopped to assist. This was good for me, not so good for the other driver. As I tried to reach somebody at GEICO, the witness (an attorney with the firm of a family friend) said he “saw it all” and called the police. But they would not send a car. I needed a tow, the Highlander did not.

We were all very polite. I made sure the other driver was all right. Her husband then arrived. After we exchanged information, including a business card from the witness, they all drove away. I called my wife, then waited for my tow. 

GEICO has a desk at Koons Body Shop in Falls Church, within easy walking distance of my house. But it was a Sunday afternoon. So, I rode along, filled out a form, sealed it with my keys in an envelope, dropped it in the after-hours slot. I collected my canvassing materials, walked home, then took them all back to the base in our other car – no canvassing from me that bright October Sunday!

Next day I was contacted by Koons and my GEICO insurance adjuster. By Tuesday, I walked back to Koons, picked up my estimate -- $9000 (Yipes!). I had a $500 deductible, and the adjuster initially indicated a shared liability, meaning I would be out the $500. GEICO allows me $900 for car rental while my vehicle is being repaired. The adjuster did some math in his head estimating how many days that would last. Seemed like I had plenty of time, he thought. He was wrong.

The next serious miscalculation was caused by my own vulnerability in this stressful situation. The Enterprise rental agent managed to sell me a $20/day insurance policy for the rental car. After my experience of the last two days, I felt I couldn’t say no – despite her assurances that the decision was mine, entirely optional. Also, my GEICO adjuster failed to calculate fees and taxes added onto the per day Enterprise rental (which he also underestimated). That $900 allowance would only last a month. I didn’t see my Volt again for seven weeks.

Costs were mounting fast. The first break in my favor came when I insisted that GEICO contact my witness – they had not done so previously. This resulted in the liability adjuster (the other driver was also insured by GEICO) declaring the liability to be entirely on the other driver. Victory! Now, the $500 deductible, at least, would be against her policy. Witnesses are good.

I was left to struggle with Koons Body Shop. Why was it taking so long? Well, they said, the parts had to be shipped piecemeal. Many front suspension components were needed. This took time. But my $900 rental allowance would be running out soon, not to mention the daily rate insurance that I was paying.

All the parts were received and installed, including a new battery for the electric drive. But then the system had to be fully charged (it doesn’t come that way, apparently). This led to another delay when Koons couldn’t seem to charge it. They towed it to Koons Chevrolet at Tysons Corner, where a certified Volt technician could give it a try. But I knew from previous service experience there, the circuit-riding Volt technician is only at their dealer two days per week. When he arrived, he was able to charge the vehicle. Koons Chevy then towed the still unassembled, still unpainted car back to the Body Shop in Falls Church. When I complained about the delays, that I was now paying a daily rate for my Enterprise Ford Fusion Hybrid (economical, yes – but not zero gas like my Volt), Koons offered me a “loaner” (technically another rental, but free). I accepted.

All this time, I had been unable to speak with the Koons estimator who failed to return any of the phone messages I left her. She was “very busy” said her manager, and updates on the status of my car were not forthcoming.

While waiting for completion of all the work on my Volt, I will admit to enjoying that loaner. The Ford Escape with the optional “big” EcoBoost engine was a blast to drive! Of course, the penalty for that fun driving was reduced fuel efficiency compared to the Fusion, but it was just temporary.

One day, returning from an errand on Lee Highway, I was felled by one of those “traffic calming” protruding curbs. Both left tires destroyed! Perhaps this wouldn’t have happened on a car I was more familiar with. It happened to me driving a loaner.  I had long suspected that someday I would be caught by those fiendish safety features Arlington traffic engineers were installing around the county.

I called AAA for a tow to the AAA Service Center not more than a block-and-a-half from Koons Body Shop. They accommodated me with the cheapest tires that would fit, no alignment. I was still out $380. I read the fine print of my “rental” contract only after the tires were already installed. It said I was supposed to return the car to Koons after any such incident – they wanted the money for repairs!

In the end, there was no additional cost to me for violating the terms of my contract. I believe I had extracted enough contrition and apology from the Koons Body Shop manager that he felt he couldn’t lean on me. So, after seven weeks, I finally reclaimed my beloved Chevy Volt. It appeared none the worse for wear. I was out only about $1100 for an accident that was not my fault, but which would have been truly catastrophic without the insurance coverage.

The whole experience did enlighten me about new car choices when I start shopping again later this year. I learned that bigger cars crush smaller cars in collisions. I learned that fun-to-drive dynamics may come with a penalty in fuel economy. But despite the greater fuel efficiency of that rental Ford Fusion Hybrid, and its safety advantage, I’m not too thrilled by big cars. Give me small and maneuverable over hulking tank or limo, any day.

These things I’ve learned. But, venturing out by car to do good works. That remains sacred.

Celebrating Banality: Why Those Daily Routines Have So Much Power

William Sundwick

Excitement vs. Routine

We all love exciting new experiences. The faster heart beat of the unexpected thrill, or the shot of feel-good dopamine or serotonin neurotransmitters into the brain, are what many of us associate with a life lived "on the edge." Much popular literature, art, and music consider the excitement of danger and unanticipated adventure to be a great virtue.The appeal of newness can reasonably be associated with feelings of optimism, hopefulness. Novelty is undeniably an attractive prospect for many.

But, what about routine? We all engage in daily rituals, or some banal activities, to which we pay little heed, in our imaginations. Why do we continue to practice such ordinary, repetitive, processes in our lives? Indeed, we often conclude that life may amount to nothing more than replacing one pattern of banal activity with another, on and on, throughout our short time on this planet.

The facts are that daily routines contribute much to our psychological, and physical, well-being. They generate comfort and security, predictability -- necessary prerequisites to develop skills, mastery, in life. Just as a corporation seeks predictability in the economy, to enable growth, so, too, do we individuals need that security for us to grow. Routines reinforce our "being present" in reality, as opposed to anxiously contemplating the future, or drowning in regrets about the past. Meditation is often reduced to the most fundamental routine: breathing in, breathing out. Continued practice of routines is what enables mastery of any skill, hence from childhood on, we need routines in order to keep our world functioning. Schools and workplaces emphasize routine for exactly that reason -- mastery.

There exists an interesting circular interaction between "exciting" experiences and banal routines, throughout our lives. On the one hand, moments of excitement can create energy needed later for stamina in maintaining daily routines: those neurotransmitters, and the psychological lift they produce. But, simultaneously, the very repetitiveness of the daily routines frees up creative energy, which can be used to induce further excitement. Not much energy is expended by the banal, unless you let your mind wander to an uncertain future, or become paralyzed by regrets for past mistakes. Hence, a reservoir can be built up, ready for release when the opportunity arises.

Patterns

In addition to the binary system of "excitement" vs. "routine," we also possess a mechanism for controlling the pace and scheduling of routines. Complex lives, those which need variegated scheduling, depending on lots of contingencies, will require another behavioral tool ... "patterns."

Patterns of behavior are really layers of routines. Depending on their sophistication, they may mitigate uncontrolled variability ("uncertainty") with varying effectiveness. While daily routines are governed by clocks ... actual clocks ticking off hours, minutes, seconds; or, lifetime clocks related to aging and stages of life; or, quotidian biological clocks with alarms signaling hunger, tension, lethargy, sleep deprivation, etc. Behavior patterns will trigger the routine when certain combinations of circumstances occur, perhaps not following a predictable clock; but, instead, following the completion of a previous routine, as a precondition. Some of these patterns have no apparent cause, but are totally arbitrary: e.g., I raise the venetian blinds on the clear story windows in my family room on alternating days of the week, depending on when my cleaning ladies are scheduled to come, so that on the day they clean, the blinds are lowered with only slats open. This routine has no purpose other than an alternating diurnal pattern, I could just as easily make sure that the blinds were lowered just before the cleaning crew arrives, and not worry about the other times! Perhaps the behavior pattern helps me remember which week they are due to clean (alternating weeks), but surely I could come up with a less bizarre reminder!

When multiple routines compete for the same space, other contingencies must determine which routine will be followed. I take late evening showers, if I intend to go outside afterwards (usually to unplug my Chevy Volt from the outlet in the driveway, so that my wife doesn't have to do it before she goes to work next morning), I will get dressed, else I will get in my pajamas after my shower! The operative contingency here is whether I plugged the car into the electrical outlet early enough in the evening so that it will be fully charged by the time I finish my shower; which, in turn, may depend on how much battery range was left on the car when my wife or I last returned it to our driveway that day. One can imagine far more complex combinations for many of the decisions they make regarding which routine to activate, and when. Since the logical flow chart for all these behavior patterns could become very elaborate, most of us rely on our own internal circuitry, and memory, to pull up the correct behavior for the contingency at hand. As long as the patterns and routines further our progress toward a goal, we should be okay. But, what about that goal? Where does it come from? ... Whose goal is it, anyway?

Goals

Some goals are low risk projects. We have ready access to the routines, and patterns, that we know can let us reach those goals easily. Little energy is invested in achieving those simple goals. If we have food in the house, and minimal food preparation skills, we will eat. If we find we are dozing off on the sofa, and the clock shows an appropriate hour, we go to bed. If we have an established home exercise routine, and the time and tools to execute it, we will do so. Other goals, however, are more difficult to achieve. Sometimes, it's because the goal is unclear ... why do I have a pattern for opening those venetian blinds, anyway? Sometimes, the skill set needed to achieve the goal is not yet mastered, we may have to learn new routines, or maybe we have lost the skills needed, during the course of our life. We may have simply forgotten the routine  ...  where are light bulbs in this store, again?

Even a routine as silly as opening and lowering those blinds on alternating days, when you break it down to its origins, has the goal of reminding me when the cleaning ladies are coming ... and, keeping track of which day of the week I'm in, as bonus! Some goals are related to maintaining good health, like meals, sleep and exercise. Some goals are selected to foster creativity, like frequency of posts to Warp & Woof blog. And, some patterns of daily routines are invented for the purpose of building structure in life. In these cases, the routines came first, the goals that the routines facilitate only take shape after the routine is established -- does this explain the venetian blinds?

When goals are selected by others for you, your behavior patterns may be ad hoc. Deadlines and priorities may be imposed which determine how the patterns are structured. Which should I do first today, if I know I have to be at a meeting in Alexandria by 7:00? Should I go to the gym, shower, then take a walk? Or, should I start writing my blog post first, then go to gym, and leave the walk optional, as time permits?  Any combination of routines may be possible, inclusion or not, based on priorities or deadlines. Constraints imposed by others tend to govern some people's behavior more than others ... and, at some stages of life more than others (not so much in retirement!).

Banality

There is an annoying lack of authority on the subject of the banality of daily routines. Most everybody agrees that daily routines are good for you. They seem to be responsible for all the positive direction in our lives. The disagreement arises in assigning relative value to different routines. It seems everybody has an agenda, something to sell. Which routines are labeled "good" versus "bad" depends on that agenda. I am left with the conclusion that it is the very banality of the routine which generates its value. Banality has multiple definitions, too. One definition focuses on the "ordinariness" of the banal, Another definition, based on its Old French origins, is "common to all."

If we focus on the banal as being the "ordinary" or "unexceptional", we are confronted by the fact that what's ordinary to one person may be very extraordinary to another. Think about routines for somebody with a disability, versus the able. Perhaps the routines that seem most ordinary are precisely those which we should be most thankful we can call banal! On the other hand, if we accept the definition "common to all," we are now entering the realm of lowest common denominators. Is it fair to say that these routines are at the heart of what makes us human? None of us can survive without them, much like the case of meditation exercises.

Banality, as ordinary, obvious, or uneventful, is often associated with "boring."  Yet, our shared experience in life supports the concept that very interesting, and creative, people can lead lives filled with banal routines. It may even be the banality that spurs their creativity. Conversely, how many boring people seemingly have "exciting" lives, free from such banality? Of course, the dark side of banality is seen in the excessively compulsive person, who can't seem to control the banality of their daily life (like people who have patterns of raising and lowering venetian blinds, which seemingly cannot be altered!).

Yet, there is a school of art, music, and literature which celebrates the banality of daily life. Andy Warhol comes to mind, and more recently, Jeff Koons. Pop culture, in general, is often thought to be a celebration of the banal, and Bob Dylan receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature last year seems to confirm this view.  Last year's indie film "Paterson" has been billed as a celebration of the banal, whose main character is a New Jersey bus driver with no formal education, who becomes a poet. Some even place pornography in the category of banal art. Clearly, then, the banal has its place in the arts. Consequently, it should not be denigrated in our personal lives, and it certainly does not have to be seen as "boring!"

On a personal level, it is impossible to ignore the banal nature of my daily life. It has become even more apparent over the last two years, since I retired from a 42-year career in an office environment at the Library of Congress. Although, clearly, that long career was, itself, a monument to banality. I contend that this mass accumulation of banal activity consuming my entire adult life has been the raw material for sparks of creative energy. And, these sparks have been igniting on a regular basis, all through my life, without my noticing! I haven't noticed mostly because I've been so conditioned to demean the role of the banal.

My Banal Life

These days, routine definitely trumps adventure. Virtually every weekday, I get out of bed, get dressed, unplug my Volt from the outdoor electrical source, retrieve the newspaper from the front yard, kiss my wife goodbye as she leaves for work on Capitol Hill, eat a breakfast consisting of some bakery bread, banana, coffee, and orange juice with my prescription drugs, vitamins, baby aspirin.

This routine only varies by the occasional substitution of Post Great Grains cereal for the bread, and possible elimination of the outdoor unplugging of the car (if I had already done it the night before). The entire routine lasts from about 7:30 - 8:00 until around 9:00. I eat slowly while checking email, recording estimated calories in my Fitbit app (both for breakfast and previous evening's snack), and maybe begin the secondary routine of following my Facebook news feeds and friends' posts.

After making the bed -- and, on Monday or Tuesday, starting my laundry -- the Facebook routine typically fills my morning until it's time for a "second breakfast" sometime after 10:00. This morning snack will consist of Yoplait yogurt (various flavors) and either cereal or bread, with more coffee.

There could be interruptions caused by a need to respond to an email, but this is often the time when I plan the rest of my day ... which routines, and in what order? Wild variations sometimes follow these activities: today I drove to Alexandria, to reconfigure the prison videoconferencing equipment at my church, some days I go to Planet Fitness next, for my standard 40-minute cardio-heavy workout routine, other days, if the weather is nice, I use this block of time for a walk around the neighborhood, and listen to one of several podcasts to which I subscribe.

Whenever I choose to walk around the neighborhood, I will follow one of eight possible routes, some of them can be varied by incorporating portions of another route. On bad weather days, I have been known to get my required steps (Fitbit tells me I should get 10,000 per day) by going to the gym and simply walking on a treadmill while reading a book. Some days, like today, interruptions to my usual routines cause me to jettison the steps ... an example of ad hoc variance of routines.

Lunch consists of a sandwich with cold cuts and one slice of cheese, pickles or cantaloupe, and iced tea or non-alcoholic beer. Every weekday, afternoons will consist of either the gym workout plus shower, the walk, or both. Lunchtime is always between 1:00 and 2:00. Recently, a new routine has been added two days a week, before dinner. At 5:00, on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, I am now expected to pick up my toddler grandson at his family day care provider and play with him at his house until one of his parents returns from work. This is fun, and reminds me of how important routines are -- little Owen gets a written report from his day care center each day which looks EXACTLY LIKE MY DAY! Except, he fills time in the afternoon with a nap ... I don't.

When wife returns from work, around 6:00 or 6:30, sudden retooling for excitement and unpredictability takes over! No telling what may happen next! Dinner typically is not planned until this point, beyond some speculation which may have occurred the previous evening. Now is her time to do all those wonderful routines that I had the whole day to do. I will either spend time with dinner prep during the next two hours, or not, in which case, my creative impulses can either start, or continue where I left off earlier in the day. This very moment is such a time during just such an evening.

Weekends have different routines, since they generally involve my wife as well. Breakfasts for me are the same as during the week, and I have to try harder to squeeze in those health/fitness routines, since it is over the weekend that we go places and do things! Errands must be run, occasionally we must go out to eat, or a movie, or even something more exciting, like theater. Sundays typically include some portion of the day at church, and these days, some Saturdays also include church activities (like this week). Generally, weekends are a struggle to preserve my precious routines of the weekdays, they contain more unpredictable activity, more people interrupting the automatic repetition of my solitary behavior patterns of the week. For this reason, I find creative production more difficult on weekends.

Evenings, both weekday and weekend, have one very dear routine ... interrupted only when there are extreme late nights out, such that we just collapse when getting home. My wife and I always indulge ourselves in watching recorded, or streaming, television in the late evening hours. This ritual never begins prior to 11:30, often not until after midnight. It consists of me closing my browser on my office computer, thus shutting down Facebook for the night, making a snack ... which includes an alcoholic nightcap (beer, wine, or a mixed drink from my Calabrese bartenders' guide), getting into my pajamas, and selecting which of our favorite series to watch tonight! There is a long list of possiblities ... the two of us watch lots of TV, just not when it's broadcast.

It's clear that I am pursuing goals with my banal routines, but many of those goals are never quite realized. It seems that the behavior continues until I feel the goal has been reached, then I may change the routine. Some goals, of course, by their nature, are lifelong motivations: good health, wisdom, and the like. But, others could be achievable, if only we had enough time! Alas, things always seem to interfere with our spending sufficient time "practicing" our routines. And, we are told we are all mortal, anyway.

Hence, we may have to abandon some goals as impractical. This is the sort of thing that causes deep sadness at times, indulging that phenomenon of spending much time reminiscing (regretting) the past, with no payoff except depression. In my life, four lost goals stand out, two due to impracticality, and two because they were successfully achieved, but the associated routines are equally missed for all four: 1) piano, not practical at my age and state of mind, or small muscle coordination; 2) child rearing -- grandchild rearing is not the same, since I won't see the actual results; 3) meetings, that's right, I miss the balm of listening and reporting group endeavors, but I'll call this one successful achievement of the goal, as I may rediscover the goal, social in nature, who knows?; 4) projects, those big, long-term, endeavors which I was responsible for executing, whether alone, or with help from others -- the skills exercised, when successfully applied, always made me feel good. Note that all four of these missed routines, and associated behavior patterns, characterized earlier stages of my life (except piano, which I now concede, I began too late in life).

For the future, it appears that it's necessary to plan our banality.  My future plans include a basement remodeling project, transitioning off the Board of Deacons at my church, perhaps some level of political activism, and grandchild rearing (whatever that entails). All will likely involve new routines, which will need to be practiced, and the complexity of my life won't diminish so much as to obviate patterns of behavior, which will still be needed to facilitate the practicing. Inasmuch as some existing routines will have to be replaced, I will have to prioritize the new over the old, if my new goals are to be achieved ... in my lifetime. I can't contemplate just yet the costs of leaving unfinished goals behind, perhaps it's inevitable that there will be some. I was compelled to leave a record of ongoing activities and projects when I retired from the Library of Congress (it was 2015, after passage of the Federal Records Act). This blog post doesn't count as such a record of my life goals!

Your Banal Life

If my reader is burdened by too many goals being imposed on you by others, try some engineering design of your daily routines. Invent new patterns of behavior, tweak the existing patterns. Don't be afraid to let the banality of tasks release some pent-up creative energy which can be directed elsewhere. If you feel imprisoned by your compulsiveness, try a rational evaluation of how effective your familiar routines really are. Are they the best possible vehicles for achieving your stated goals? Sometimes, you may have to forcibly break a routine (a "bad habit"), even if you remain fuzzy about what its replacement routine looks like. If you are "self-actualized" already in your banality, then congratulations! That means your routines and patterns of behavior are well-suited to meeting your life needs. Keep it up!

But, whatever adjustments you make to your daily routines, remember not to pass up opportunities for excitement, even if the end result might only contribute to your life's banality. That banality enables future excitement!

First post for "Totems" page:

33 mi. all-electric range, almost as good as my Chevy Volt ... the plug-in hybrid Chrysler Pacifica