The Public Good
It was another day of mulching and mowing and yard work for me while trying to distance myself from the goings on in Washington D.C. Having convinced myself there’s nothing much I can do, having already voted, I had decided to let the big dogs eat and try to not watch or even comment. But I’m sensitive to the currents of history and I’m an interested citizen, so I look their way on occasion. Layoffs are the big news I see, and that’s interesting to me because I’ve laid off people before, and it was hard to do, especially because I delivered the news personally.
I think most of the folks in DC are getting their notices by email, which seems a tad callous, but when you’re trimming what you see as fat, who cares about the feelings of the fat? The scope of the work, however, reminds me of the time Gulf Oil Corporation had massive layoffs in Houston, whacking entire departments in their drive to profit. I wrote about it for Houston City Magazine, and opined that a more selective approach might have yielded the same results while keeping people around who might have helped the company survive as Gulf Oil Corp eventually disappeared into the bowels of Chevron.
It will be interesting to see how this all plays out in Washington. I don’t think anyone will absorb us, but it sure seems as though life will be different. Of course, the courts are in the game but as Andrew Jackson famously said after a supreme court ruling went against him, “"Well, John Marshall has made his decision, but now let him enforce it.” So, I guess for me, it’s just more waiting and seeing and wondering how long it will take them to get to Medicare and Social Security, because then my ox will truly be gored and I’ll get to discover the real depth of my insignificance in the face of work being done for the so called, “public good.”