Invisible Silver Linings
Apr 24th, 2011 | By Dawn Rivers Baker | Category: Policy MattersYou would think I would be used to the peculiar phenomenon of microbusiness invisibility by now.
Sadly, I’m not.
It’s even more frustrating because it wasn’t so very long ago that microbusinesses seemed to stop being so invisible.
Granted, our President is nowhere near as micro-friendly as I was expecting back in January 2009. But that didn’t seem to matter. There were lots of other people in lots of other parts of Washington, talking about microbusinesses.
Let’s put it this way: on the day that a representative from the National Federation of Independent Business spoke up at a Senate roundtable on behalf of microbusinesses, I thought we have arrived.
That newfound recognition, that microbusinesses had their own peculiar policy needs and issues, was heady while it lasted.
Looking back, it seems to have lasted for about a minute.
But, as much as I’m inclined to complain about this state of affairs, every now and then I am reminded of the fact that there are advantages to be invisible.
Microbusiness owners are a hardy lot. They have always been there (long before there were corporate multinationals, there were microbusinesses) and they always will be, beetling along as they mind their businesses.
Whenever policy makers notice them at all, most of the time they are pondering ways and means to get them to do things they don’t want to do.
They don’t do those things, of course. They simply ignore the policy makers and, on a day to day basis, they don’t seem to mind very much when the policy makers ignore them.
Sometimes, invisibility doesn’t seem so bad.
