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.
