Driving Madame Petit Bureaucrat
Mining your customer for tips is a subtle art known to everyone in the hospitality industry. Knowing when to talk and when to shut up and let your customer have the lion's share of the conversation is a big part of that skill. I offer you the following from last night:
I picked up "Sharon" at the Brotherhood of Police Officer's Lodge which is essentially a bar where cops go to get hammered in the company of their own kind. I recognized her from a previous run I had done from the B.O.P. to her home. One of the most common questions when meeting someone here is "how long have you been in Santa Fe?" It's a way for locals to establish the pecking order over interlopers like myself. So Sharon knew that I had lived in Washington D.C. from a previous conversation. As luck would have it Sharon had just returned from D.C. from an "education conference" the previous day. Now pay attention because I'm going to show you what our future looks like (except that in my case it's the present).
Sharon was highly animated as she described her trip to our nation's capital. The food was top-notch, she had staff waiting on her at every turn, and there was even a male strip club for the ladies. Washington was better than San Francisco or Las Vegas in her opinion, though she lamented that it was a second choice this year because too many school districts couldn't afford the cruise scheduled for Alaska. Cruise to Alaska?
I quizzed Sharon about the conference, and it turns out that she's the director of our state's G.E.D. program. Most of us know it as a high school equivalency diploma. Now dig this. Here you have a succesful former teacher from a charter school who prepared students for college working as a chauffer for a bureaucrat who hands out phony diplomas to kids who have mastered an eighth grade education. Ironic, much?
I dropped her off at her home on a parcel of land carved out of a ridge top overlooking the city. She had in the driveway an RV as big as a barn, a boat, and three imported cars. The lot was nicely appointed with landscaping and very secluded by the topography. Nice, huh?
I don't complain about my lot in life because I have it pretty good. I own a home and I'm able to cover the mortgage without too much sweat. There's money left over at the end of the month for an occaissional splurge. But consider Sharon the petit bureaucrat with her phony job and her phony credentials living the good life on the taxpayer's nickel. This is the future for Americans in the administrative super-state. Not much different from the former Soviet Union where the ruling class consisted of party members and apparachiks. For Americans it's here now. And it's going to be permanent if we don't roll things back in the next election.
God Save the Republic!
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Jun '10
Re: Driving Madame Petit Bureaucrat
And they are all so smug and sure they are saving the world and curing cancer.
They have indeed become the ruling class.
Jun '10
Re: Driving Madame Petit Bureaucrat
Two insights from Richard Weaver in Ideas Have Consequences:
"These corrupt bureaucracies are contemptuous of the people, in whose name they so piously speak."
Bureaucracy: "Power without wisdom."
Mar '11
Re: Driving Madame Petit Bureaucrat
And she hangs around in cop bars? My kind of bureaucrat! And how generous was the tip?
May '10
Re: Driving Madame Petit Bureaucrat
Four legs good, two legs better! (and no, I am not referring to the police officers mention in the above)
Don't you know Paules that you are but a Boxer to Sharon's needs.
Sep '10
Re: Driving Madame Petit Bureaucrat
Paules - I believe you don't watch TV, but there is a local investigative reporter on Channel 13 who might pick up your story, and have a discussion with "Sharon". Hah!
Mar '11
Re: Driving Madame Petit Bureaucrat
We are running a deficit of over a trillion dollars a year so our tax dollars can be used to send phony educators on cruises to Alaska and yet us Tea Party types are the crazy extremists. Nuggets like this cause me to wonder if the fight has already been lost and there is nothing left but to wait for the inevitable collapse à la the Soviet Union.
Aug '10
Re: Driving Madame Petit Bureaucrat
Paules
I have been studying the levels of compensation and benefits for public employess and the numbers are mindblowing . Here in my midsized midwestern town, the annual budget for salaries, pensions, benefits is $40million . There are 600 employees working for the city. Quick math, without all the actuarial gymnastics,etc. that is a $66,666 each. Average pay in this blue collar town is half that.
That kind of disparity can't last for long.
The trick is the vast conspiracy of comparative wage levels analyses that they all use to justify this theft.
With the economic distress of municipal entities approaching 85% of all cities, towns, the only solutions are privatisation of most services, and a return to core mission and the services that one expects from their city.
The nomenklatura will get theirs at the ballot box, and we'll root the rest out. Now how will they handle the educators, the managerial class of bureaucrats, and the AFSCME of the world ?
Jun '10
Re: Driving Madame Petit Bureaucrat
Paules, I realize that this is only tangential to your essay but my learning disabled daughter would kill for a GED, fake diploma or not. Thank you, South Carolina, for dumping such students. Alabama was far better — scary thought.
Jul '10
Re: Driving Madame Petit Bureaucrat
Why do I not go get a government job?
Jul '10
Re: Driving Madame Petit Bureaucrat
Jimmy Carter
Why do I not go get a government job?
Decency?
Edited on Jul 31, 2011 at 10:34amAug '10
Re: Driving Madame Petit Bureaucrat
Ask Rosalynn.
There are taste thresholds for stage names.
Re: Driving Madame Petit Bureaucrat
When I retired from active duty, more than a few people wondered why I didn't turn right around and go civil service. A big part of that was that I had no desire to be a cog in the bureaucratic machine, but another part of it was that I wanted to work in the PRODUCTIVE sector. Paules, you validate my point perfectly. I'd rather live in my 18 wheeler than scam the taxpayers.
Jun '10
Re: Driving Madame Petit Bureaucrat
In my experience, they're also poor tippers. That tells you a lot about a person. I guess if you're not getting enough income and benefits without gratuities, they'll hook you up with a good union activist, but they don't like to dip into their own pocket.
Jun '10
Re: Driving Madame Petit Bureaucrat
It's said that virtue is its own reward, but I appreciate your righteous attitude, Dave. Our nation will rise again on the basis of our virtues, or die for a lack of them.
Re: Driving Madame Petit Bureaucrat
From my paper:
So they voted to pay them more. It’s only fair.
Bonus fun:
* Almost four grand went to “the director of total compensation.” You can only hope there’s no assistant director, let alone a director for partial compensation.
* During this period, the school system laid off 52 teachers.
* The study also found "that 75 percent of district employees are compensated above market, a matter the district plans to address in future contract negotiations.”
Sure they will.
May '10
Re: Driving Madame Petit Bureaucrat
Oh. My. Goodness.
Unfortunately, this kind of thing is so common. I grew up in Albuquerque. I live in Alabama now, putatively more conservative than New Mexico, and lovely junkets on the taxpayer dime have been a depressing, disgusting, and familiar feature of Birmingham politics. This kind of thing leaves me terrified for the future of our republic.
From the City Different, you've issued a warning to us all, just like Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn warned the west. Keep fighting the good fight, ~Paules!
Jan '11
Re: Driving Madame Petit Bureaucrat
Heard on the Ricochet podcast - I think - 100 years ago a union member had a lunchbox and overalls - these days a union member has a briefcase and snappy clothes
Oct '10
Re: Driving Madame Petit Bureaucrat
Here in Texas, the rule seems to be that when overpaid school administrators retire, they just continue working as 'consultants' at half the hours and twice the pay.
When I visited Jamaica a few years ago, a tour guide pointed out a handful of very nice, mansion-like homes, on a hill overlooking the far more numerous shacks, shanties and hovels, and told us that's where the "moneybags" lived. Curious, I asked her who the "moneybags" were - rich foreigners, celebrities, business owners? Her answer - "they work for the government".
Jun '10
Re: Driving Madame Petit Bureaucrat
James Lileks: From my paper:
I spent 25 years a big corporation: any chance I can get some of those "retroactive raises?" It would sure help out the old cash flow.
I'm sure the NLRB is working on a plan for me to get that money (even though I wasn't even a member of a union). Hail bureaucracy!!
Nov '10
Re: Driving Madame Petit Bureaucrat
Another topic should be discussed: Almost certainly this Brotherhood of Police Officer's Lodge is a non-profit organization, exempt from taxes and offering cheaper beer than its competitors. No doubt there's a Commander of the lodge, pulling a salary, perquisites, and opportunities to filch.
The non-profit organization is a scam and the whole idea should be scotched. I'm sure the whole industry is shot through with a LOT of corruption.