The Game Of Musical Jobs

Remember playing the old game of musical chairs? You know where you have a group of people and you set up a number of chairs with one less than the number of contestants. You start the music and the contestants walk around the chairs then at some unknown point the music stops and everyone tries to find a seat. Of course with one seat less than the number of contestants someone is left without a chair and they are eliminated. The next round starts with one less contestant and one less chair and you keep doing that until only one person is left with a chair. Sometimes it’s called a cake walk and the winner usually won a cake.

In Giles County this game is played a little differently. Instead of the music stopping at an unknown time, some contestants are given small earpieces, like a lot of security agencies use for communicating in the field. Those with the earpieces are then warned just before the music stops so they can get a seat. This is a great system if you have an earpiece, if you don’t well; you’re just out of luck.

Now let’s look at this situation and put the proper names on the contestants and the game pieces. The chairs are jobs, the contestants are applicants for those jobs and those with the earpieces are family and friends of those who control the music, our elected and appointed officials, the music player is the Boss. So when the jobs come open the family and friends are told before the other contestants and they get the jobs. Occasionally there will be a fly to get in the ointment; I’ll get to that a bit later.

Here is a description of a recent game played at the courthouse annex. A person leaves their job in the election office (some may have overlooked this one), so a person from the County Clerk’s Office moves to the Election Office leaving a vacancy at the Clerk’s Office.  In the meantime a person retires in the financial Management Office, (had the Commission not replaced two jobs in the budget for this and another job, attrition would have saved the county a huge amount of money). A janitor is hired to fill the position in the Financial Management Office. Here’s where the fly in the ointment comes in. A commissioner says hey wait a minute, my family member wanted that job and if I don’t get it for her I’m gonna raise a ruckus. The boss steps up and says you’ve always been a yes man why stop now. Well, you don’t mess with a person’s child so they have a hissy fit about the right thing but for the wrong reason. Suddenly the commissioner is taken seriously and the janitor is quickly and quietly moved out of Financial Management into the County Clerk’s Office.  Now the job in the Financial Management office is open for the commissioner’s child and no doubt in a few days that job will be filled.

Now understand I am not in any way trying to denigrate those seeking a job, they are simply taking advantage of the situation to better their lives and I have no problem with that. The problem I have is with those in charge who enables and engage in such a perverted practice because it leads to waste, inefficiency, duplication and the taxpayer always gets left holding the empty bag and told to refill it. 

This is my opinion you are welcome to share yours.