Tucson Sammy

I am willing to bet that many of you wonder why the crooks at City of Tucson Waste Management were reinstated in their City jobs after they were fired for cheating on the time clock. I think I can explain the situation with an anecdote.

Many moons ago, I had a friend who worked for the City. She worked in the Tucson, Pima County Public Library (it was owned jointly then). She worked as a manager of a small department, and supervised two to three people.

We were chatting once, and she talked about work, about how much she liked her job. She said that she really liked the people with whom she worked – except for one.

I asked about the one she disliked – I’ll refer to her as “Amy”. She told me that Amy did not do her work. I asked if she meant that Amy was slow, or did she commit many errors. No, she did not do her work. In fact, my friend asked her boss if she could tell Amy to stay home and just mail her check to her. In so doing, my friend would have freed up valuable time that she wasted trying to explain to Amy that which she was supposed to do, but apparently could not.

I thought that I must be missing something. I figured that if I kept talking, I would pick it up. I suggested that Amy might be terminated. “You can’t fire anyone,” my friend told me. This gave me pause. I had heard that government jobs were relatively secure, but this was something else.

“Who has the authority to fire Amy?”, I asked. She told me that the authority was hers. I felt as if I had moved from missing something, to not seeing anything. I backed up a little, and asked why she could not fire anyone – particularly someone who did not do her work.

She explained that she could fire her, but then Amy would appeal the firing to the independent review commission (I forget the formal title of the commission), and the commission always reinstates the employee. I asked why it always sides with the employee.

The answer is a simple case of incentive. You see, if the employee is reinstated, the case is over, and the employee is no longer the commission’s problem. There is no recourse for the City, and the employee has what he wants. On the other hand, if the firing is sustained, the employee can retaliate in any number of ways. For example, he can sue the City and the commission, or he can go to the media and make a public stink that might draw negative attention to the commission. If he is a member of a protected group, both those efforts are slam-dunks.

The commission is so independent that it serves its own interests, rather than fulfilling its responsibilities to the City and the employee.

And that, my friends, is why City of Tucson employees cannot be fired.

A friend forwarded the following to me in an email:

“mt hood has always felt like an extra room in my house - a great big
playroom - intimate, familiar…home. i feel as if a crime has now
happened inside my demense - a murder, a rape, an unspeakable act of
violence - i fear that it will be a long time before i will be able to
walk on that hill i love so much without seeing the ghastly fingerprints
of the tragedy. i want to go back now very soon - as soon as the
mountain clears again i will return, if only to excorcise the demon that
has temporarily claimed it. i don’t need to look like some voyoeur on
the crime scene. i need to forgive the mountain, and try too to forgive
myself for the things i am inexorably drawn to do to those who love me.

the mountain will live longer than all of us. longer than our children.
longer than our race. it will last longer than any tombstone. it is
therefore a fitting and appropriate memorial for all who have left their
lives there. please don’t look towards it with hate. let that go. go
there again soon, with me if you want, or alone which is often much
better - go there and look up from timberline, or make tracks up the
long slope - go there and remember it is a place of dreams, even if
sometimes they turn to nightmares - in the morning we will all wake and
it will better - believe it.” -ivan

Now, don’t get me wrong. I believe that mountains, and other places, can have great spiritual significance. In some places you can feel the presence of Grace.

What offends me is a man (I assume he’s a man with the name “Ivan”) writing a crybaby missive like some jilted girl. He was correct to criticize himself for anthropomorphizing the mountain. He is also worthy of criticism for making the death of the climbers some great personal tragedy. It is a tragedy, but not his. It is a tragedy for the climbers and their families. It is not some great sin committed by the mountain for which the mountain must seek forgiveness - forgiveness that Ivan appears to be prepared to offer, after much wringing of his hankie.

I know what you’re thinking, “Dang Sammy! You’re really going off on the guy!” Well, not really, I don’t know “Ivan”. I do know that the sort of self-absorbed emotionalism on display in his note exemplifies a type of cultural decline. It’s quite bad, for the individual and society at large, to have no higher purpose, no vision, and little awareness beyond his own emotional roller coaster.

In another time, the families would be supported by those close to them, while the climbing community would learn as much as possible about the tragedy, in the hope that a similar event might be avoided in the future. That’s it, no more, no less.

Look, I don’t intend to criticize Ivan personally. I’m sure that he’s a regular guy and doesn’t watch “The View” while having his nails done, or anything like that.

I just added a piece to the “Articles” section in the column at the right – the title is “Street Protests in the New Millennium.” It covers an anti-Bush protest/counter protest. Note that the anti-Semites have a home on the Left; if you’re still in doubt regarding this, read Jimmy Carter’s latest book.

I did not mention, in the article, that I ran into a couple of friends there. They were on the anti-Bush side. They were full-on kook-fringe types. I’ll bet that when they sit down to talk national politics, it’s not about whether or not “No Child Left Behind” is working, it’s about whether or not Bush is the Anti-Christ. (I actually have a Democrat friend who made that suggestion)

Now, I have many policy and philosophical differences with President Bush. He’s certainly no libertarian, nor is he particularly conservative, but I do not feel the need to create a fantasy world in which President Bush vacillates between being an evil genius and a total moron. I think he’s a good man, just wrong on a lot of stuff.

I’m sure some of you are thinking, “Yeah, well, you sure were critical of Clinton when he was president.” C’mon, you don’t have to pay close attention to see the difference. I’m not aware of anyone who called Clinton evil, or a Nazi, much less the Anti-Christ. President Clinton was criticized for illegalities ranging from hosing the subordinate at the workplace on the clock (textbook sexual harassment), to selling missile technology to the People’s Republic of China for campaign money (illegal campaign funding). When he did stuff that the conservatives liked (NAFTA, welfare reform), they praised him. Is that sort of fair treatment too much to expect from Democrats regarding Bush?

Anyway, I asked one of my friends, an older woman, why she hated Bush so much. She said that he’s destroying the Constitution. I challenged her to give me an example of his extra-constitutional activities. She told me that he appointed judges when Congress was not in session.

“Yes,” I said, “They’re called ‘recess appointments’”.

“I know what they’re called,” she said, acting a little offended.

I explained that recess appointments were not some evil thing that Karl Rove developed in the White House basement. They’ve been around for a long time. She said that she new that, but Bush made a lot of them.

I pointed out that if the Democrats had not blocked the voting with filibusters, he would not have to make any recess appointments. I was about to point out that if anyone created a new evil thing with which to destroy the Constitution, it was the Democrats and their new application of the filibuster which changed the votes necessary to confirm a judge from a simple majority to a de-facto super majority!

Alas, I could feel my anger rising along with my voice; worse yet, I could see the same thing beginning in my friend. I changed the subject. We finished our conversation saying that it was nice that we could be friends and disagree, blah, blah, blah.

Though I failed in my quest for reasoned conversation, I witnessed some successes that day when other people crossed over to the other side and spoke one on one.

There is always hope.