It was back in the early '90s, and many newspapers were going through the well-intentioned but regrettable phase of trying to get their people to become better journalists by becoming ... better people.

Looking back at it from the 21st century, this attempt at human engineering was not only pretty silly, but terribly presumptuous. By attending a few seminars — the thinking was — we would change our lives and learn what was right and what was not so right.

We were awash with "altered paradigms" and other nonsense though which some "cutting edge" self-help companies undoubtedly made a fortune.

During one of these mandatory meetings, I was seated at a table with some newspaper colleagues, mostly female as it turned out. We were listening to this incredible woman who had been commissioned to lecture us about her perfect life.

She was blond, trim, quite attractive and knew it.

She told us she had her master's degree, was working on her doctorate, owned her own thriving business, got up every day at dawn to work out and had very-reasonable expectations of being a millionaire before she was 35.

"And," she said proudly, "I change my own oil."

I was pretty sure she was talking about her car.

The gist of her talk was, if only we would all take control of our lives as she does hers, we could accomplish anything and live a well-ordered, ultra-successful existence.

After the seminar, I sought out several of the women at our table to find out what they thought.

They hated her.

I mean, they despised this woman.

Whereas she gave the appearance of perfection, they were a little overweight or lived paycheck to paycheck or knew little about the internal combustion engine.

In other words, they were human ... imperfect.

To those of us who are imperfect, there's something nauseating about those who claim not to be.

That's why this whole Martha Stewart contretemps is so delicious.

Truth be told, I never paid much attention to anything Martha Stewart did. I didn't watch her TV shows or read her magazines or benefit from her advice on how to make a perfect lunch.

There's that word again — perfect. Just like with that seminar speaker, even as they were emulating her, a lot of women must have really hated Martha Stewart before her recent trial.

Given that, I'm surprised her attorneys allowed eight women to be on the 12-person jury. During the trial, it was revealed that Stewart was often bossy to the point of being rude to underlings.

Men hate that sort of thing, particularly from a woman.

So, if you've offended women and men, it makes it rather difficult to find a sympathetic jury. I didn't follow the trial very closely, but there seemed to be a lot of evidence against Stewart, and the jury did not seem the least inclined to cut her any slack.

So, pending sentencing in a couple of months, Martha's going to the slammer for a while. Certainly, we shall all learn the many wonderful decorating possibilities for iron bars and cots.

If we were better people, we would not get such pleasure when someone so sanctimonious gets her comeuppance.

But we are, after all, human.

I'll be the first to admit, I was a miserable candidate for all those 1990s "be all you can be" seminars.

I had already been through the "I'm OK, you're OK, Charles Manson's OK" stuff from the previous decade. So, I wasn't crazy about some guy with a slick brochure telling us our values needed to be changed into a one-size-fits-all system.

This one particular guru advocated keeping a color-coded journal/appointment book (available from his catalogue at an outrageous price) outlining every aspect of our lives. When I noticed one of his acolytes color-coding his entire day, including 20 minutes with his child, I started to laugh uncontrollably.

"What happens," I asked between giggles, "if your kid has to go to the bathroom during those 20 minutes? Does he lose his time with you, or does it just throw off your entire anally structured schedule?"

The guy got mad at me. I can't for the life of me figure out why. He hadn't color-coded any anger time into his notebook. The great management brains at my newspaper who had paid a lot of money for this garbage were not happy with me, either.

So much structure, it appeared to me, was ... well ... too perfect, too inhuman. I kept flashing back to "Star Trek V: The Final Frontier" when Mr. Spock's Vulcan half-brother offers to relieve Captain Kirk of all his mental anguish.

Kirk refuses.

"You know that pain and guilt can't be taken away with a wave of a magic wand," Kirk says. "They're the things we carry with us, the things that make us who we are. If we lose them, we lose ourselves. I don't want my pain taken away. I need my pain."

I need my faults. For good or bad. You, me, the lecturer who changes her own oil, Martha Stewart, we're all human.

Nobody's perfect.

And isn't it wonderful?

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Sam Pollak is editor of The Daily Star. He can be reached at spollak@thedailystar.com or (607) 432-1000, ext. 208.