Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Good thoughts, hard work, a good team – they are great, but don’t guarantee success in projects. I find yet another television show that illustrates the need for thought and planning.

I have found another television show that I love to hate to watch. It is Alaska Gold Rush on the Discovery Channel. From the web site:

In the face of the economic meltdown, determined men risk everything to strike it rich mining for gold in the wilds of the far north. Todd Hoffman of Sandy, Oregon, along with his father, lead a group of greenhorn miners in search of the American dream and a new frontier.

I want these gold “miners” to succeed as they are in terrible economic trouble at home, and this is their last chance. (See NOTE below for other thoughts.) They are in Alaska for the short summer mining season.

It finally hit me as to why I am attracted to this show; it is a remake of Gilligan’s Island. On that old TV comedy, the seven stranded castaways always had another idea of escaping the island and returning to civilization. Nevertheless, at the end of each episode, reality entered and their idea failed.

That is the center of the Alaska Gold Rush. These well-meaning miners are good people, they work hard, they are ethical, and they don’t seem to have any idea of what they are doing. They try this and that and something else, and in the end, reality bites them.

I worked for many years in government acquisition. Countless times I would visit a contractor that was trying to build something. People would tell me things like:

we have a good team

the guys are working hard

I have a hunch that we are going to make it

I have a good feeling about this

What I didn’t hear was:

We analyzed the situation, here are the facts, and here is a step-by-step plan that will take us from here to the end.

I hear the former statements on Alaska Gold Rush; I never seem to hear the latter.

I don’t know how the second season will end (the final financial make-or-break season for these television celebrities). I hope they find enough gold to pay their mortgages and bills until they can find steady, boring, paycheck-bringing jobs. I have my doubts. After all, Gilligan and the castaways never escaped the island.

NOTE: I am not sure if this is really a make-it-or-bust situation. These guys are being paid something to be on television. One of the miners, received enough publicity during season one with his back pains that Johns Hopkins flew him east and gave him expensive treatments at no cost.