My retired life is quickly
approaching its ten year mark. Before
you give me the finger, remember that I had worked for 41-years, in many
capacities.
And during those two score, I had
plenty of bosses – most of whom were mediocre, at best.
They so badly wanted to impress
their bosses that they felt compelled to make us do something – anything – to
give the impression of productivity; the end product was actually less
efficiency. Allow me to explain.
I once had a boss named Eddie who
was always the smartest guy in the room, if only in his mind. Eddie was a numbers fellow who loved to see
statistics, and he often used them in an attempt to impress his boss.
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| Eddie-like product |
Eddie didn’t care about what his
boss thought because he was too smart to listen to da man. So he inundated the upper echelon with
countless, useless charts, graphs, and summaries.
His boss thought those stats were
nonsense; nonetheless Eddie wanted and thought he needed them to justify his
existence. Eddie’s employees were not important
to Eddie; only Eddie was important to Eddie.
And so life went for many, many
years.
All this brings us to the cusp of
the mid-term elections in the United
States
In November, we will be offered
an opportunity to make our selections for representatives at the local, state,
and federal levels.
We will be inundated with smarmy
ads and cardboard signs and countless robo-calls to make our decisions of whom
should be sent to work in the government on our behalf.
Some of us will do our due
diligence to make an informed decision about who may be trustworthy and who
will not, that will treat my tax money as if it was their own, and who will
likely take my concerns to heart instead of deep-pocketed special interest
donors.
Others will simply look at the
candidates and vote for the woman, or minority, or transgender, or lesbian, or
Muslim, because those voters are simply shallow.
Calls will be issued to “get out
the vote!” and enter the voting booths with little, or no, information and
direction. This is the feel-good bunch
of our society who has no plan or clue about what the future should hold. Alas.
But the most important issue in
any election is not if the candidate wears beautiful suits, wants to punish
success, is related to a former office holder, or is even plain
inspirational. The most important issue
is will our candidate heed our wishes and wants.
Just as with Eddie, no one else
mattered. Decisions as how to realize
our goals and missions were irrelevant, although we as rank-and-file employees
with institutional knowledge and historic information were more mentally
prepared to achieve significant accomplishments, Eddie was the boss. Amen.
So many failures were the result
of these poorly executed plans instituted by arrogant incompetence.
That is why our stable of
politicians should do their jobs. And
their jobs are the execution of their voter’s desires, since they are our
employees. They work for us.
They receive our money in the
form of paychecks and should listen to their constituents.
Rarely ought the absolute
independence of their votes trump my desires.
Once again, they work for
us. Make them do their jobs or send them
to the unemployment office.
