How
Many Politicians Does it Take to Run a City?
Several months ago my wife and I were in one of the large building supply stores buying carpet. It’s not easy for one person to cut it and roll it up but we usually help if they let us. On this occasion they didn’t want our help and as employee struggled another came to help. The carpet got crooked in the machine and then jammed.
Then
another came to help. Soon there were four all pushing, pulling and instructing
each other. We were laughing and asking how many employees does it take to cut a
carpet. They may not have found it real amusing at the time but we still laugh
about it every time we go there to buy carpet. They did wind up with a quorum on
the job and did get it done.
I
had an uncle who is now long passed away. He was the plant manager in a large
manufacturing plant. Right after he retired things started going bad for the
company and they ended asking him to come back for just one more year to get
things straightened out. They offered him an enormous amount of money so he did
as they asked. When people asked him what he knew that made him so important he
would answer, “I don’t know anything. But I know people who do and I know
who knows what!”
That
reminds me of a story I read about Henry Ford. As the story goes an out of town
newspaper referred to Ford as an ignorant man. He immediately sued the paper.
When the case came to court he stood in the courtroom and said that on his desk
he had a long row of electric buttons and if he wanted to know something he
would push one of the buttons and one of his men would rush in to answer his
question. He went on to ask the court if that sounded like an ignorant man. He
won his case.
A
few years ago I owned and operated a small tool shop. One day I received a call
from the CEO of one of my customers. I had never met him but he called to
introduce himself and express satisfaction with my company and our business
relationship. Being rather new in that position I started talking about a minor
issue I had with their engineering department. He cut me off rather quickly and
said, “Actually Bill I am a lawyer by profession. I know about as much about
engineering as my engineers do about the law. And I don’t micro manage.”
I
felt a little slighted since he didn’t even take the time to hear me out. But
after giving it some thought. I could see his point. In the future, as he
suggested, if I had a problem with the engineering department I contacted them.
If I had a problem getting paid I contacted the CFO.
We
got a call yesterday from a tenant saying that the city left something on all
the doors about the fire escape not being safe. We drove over and picked up the
notice and called to see what was going on. We just had the house inspected
maybe a year ago. We hadn’t heard form any tenants regarding the matter as is
specified in our lease. So we were quite surprised to hear from the city. We are
having the house painted right now so we stop by quite often. We just thought
they must have the wrong address.
As
it turned out a friend of a tenant had contacted the mayor in a lengthily email
expressing concern about her friends fire escape. The mayor apparently felt
compelled to contact city manager who was probably not busy anyway. Then the
city manager had to contact the planning director whom I believe is also the
head of community development, inspections and I don’t even know what else.
I’m sure she had nothing more important to do than interrupt the rental
inspectors schedule to go and look at the fire escape. On inspection the fire
escape was found to be in satisfactory condition and a lot of people’s time
was wasted for nothing. A much simpler solution would have been for the mayor to
direct the non resident to call the inspection department where a very nice lady
would direct her call.
I
wonder now if we really need a city manager. Our council members seem capable of
running the city themselves. Look at the great deal they got for the