It’s just as bad in State Government. From one of the many conversations I had in my life with administrators,
Admin: “You told me that yesterday?”
Me: “I did, we had this conversation at 2:30 right after your call with _____”
(Said seriously) “Well that was yesterday, I can’t be expected to remember what happened yesterday.”
— the next day.
“You never did this for me!”
“We spoken about this both yesterday and the day before. Yesterday we took an hour going over it.”
“Well, you need to do it now!”
“As we talked about yesterday, it needs to be done by an Administrator–I walked you through it as much as I could.”
“I don’t have time for that now!”
(Pauses and counts the years until I was to retire) “It’s a State law. I don’t have the authority to do it.” (As I told her 10 times over the last two days)
Administrator grabs the document and stalks off.
— two weeks later after the project is late because the admin didn’t do what she was supposed to do.
“Meeting today on why staff can’t get things done on time!”
Wash, rinse, repeat.
(And I’m certain that too many TPMers have similar views on management from personal experience)
Had a job, many years ago, with a company that produced vast amounts of waste petrols in their processes. We paid enormous sums to have it removed and disposed of, along with the permits and infrastructure to store it while awaiting the periodic pick up. I found a heating system that was EPA/OSHA and state approved that would burn it all, heat a huge facility and produce minimal waste doing it. Buy in cost was surprisingly reasonable. Savings over a decade paid for everything many times over.
Idea was nixed. Reason? The capital budget for the year was already set. I’ll give you three guesses what was decided when the next year’s budget was formulated. The first two don’t count.
Companies don’t want good ideas. They want you to keep your head down and muddle along.
Wasn’t that the Republican Party’s method for choosing their presidential candidates once upon a time? This time the idiot pushed his way to the front.
Calling them “promises” is a pretty big leap to begin with. That suggests forethought and a plan might be involved somehow. Trump only says and does whatever gets him applause at any given moment, and has a hard time remembering what he said even 30 seconds ago. Of course he isn’t going to keep his promises because he doesn’t even know he had made them in the first place. I’m actually a bit shocked there are still people who think otherwise.
I am stunned to learn that such a large minority of Americans take seriously anything he says enough to rate each a “promise.” Under no conceivable circumstance does bullshit become anything other than bullshit.
The last year has taught us that “thinking” is vastly overrated as a precursor to rational action. Unfortunately, when the whole world is aflame there will be no one left to say or hear “I told you so” or “This is why you never hire a circus entertainer to do your heart surgery.”
Or he will declare martial law, announce mandatory tattoos for all non-christians, and start random bombings while his supporters take to the streets and the chatterati gasp at how decisive and presidential he is.
We’re short of 100 days into Trump’s Presidency. The manner in which he conducts himself, if followed carefully and cared about by anyone observing, will wring a person out. He’s emotionally draining unless you exert a Herculean effort in staying dispassionate about it all. Can you imagine the mental state of those that worked closely with him in his businesses over the years? He certainly was the same or worse with them. Those have to be some very psychologically damaged people.
