Just as I was finishing up my entry last week, I heard the comments offered by my governor at his inaugural address. My favorite part talked about the government buildings standing behind him, and his hope that one day they would stand empty – no longer needed. He went on to speak about what he referred to as the fallacy of throwing more money at a problem, that if just one more piece of paperwork got done then our problems would be solved. Now here’s a surprise, in some ways I thought it was a good speech. That might sound funny, coming from a state employee, but I thought it was well said. Many government offices are there to deal with problems that we all would rather not have. Seeing them stand empty would seem to suggest that there was no need for them, and therefore no societal problems. But after I thought about the speech for a while, I kind of felt like he was saying everyone would be better off without me and my coworkers. Judging by his past performance on the job, it was hard not to see this speech as the thoughts of a man who has a genuine dislike of government employees. We live in this, the real world. There are real problems in this real world. I consider myself a realist: we won’t solve one hundred percent of these problems regardless of the amount of money we throw at them. But does that mean that we shouldn’t even try? One way or another, trying usually costs resources, and these resources usually have some monetary value associated with them. The governor is my boss, the leader of our state’s government. Just what kind of leader tells those under him that the world would be better off without the organization he or she leads. What are we supposed to take from that? Are we supposed to be inspired?
I feel like going right out and giving it my al-most, my fifty percent, the old college (drop-out) try.