"Workers on routine" - an appreciation

From 1962 to 2016, the population of the United States increased to 322 million, up from 186.5 million, an increase of more than 72 percent. This remarkable growth went unnoticed on a daily basis by most Americans, until, like drivers on the LA freeways, they began to suspect all the growth was in their backyard. 

One part of the American scene that did not keep pace with this bursting through the seams growth was the federal workforce. Every two years, however, politicians rant about the size of government and promise to cut back the number of federal employees. 

Over the last fifty years or so, the federal civil service grew at a slower rate than the population it serves despite the needs and demands for services which became more complex and diversified with the increasing population. (Fair Disclosure: I worked federal civil service from 1960 to 1979 in national security management positions.)

There are 2.663 million federal civil service workers and more than half of these  are employed in three agencies: Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security and the Veterans Administration. The man on the street would probably agree these workers are essential to security and safety and the care of those who bore arms for America.

President Lyndon Johnson referred to federal employees “as workers on routine.” This “routine” has become more complex and the skills and competence required more demanding as the years have passed. Analytical ability, judgment, discretion and personal responsibility are the norms today, a far cry from the mostly clerical workers of the 1950s.

Cabinet head appointments are all the news right now with a new administration being formed. But it is the “workers on routine” who will continue to explore the universe, hunt for criminals, attend to the public health, send out the Social Security checks, and backstop the servicemen and women who defend the shores. 

(The statistics in this overview came from the January 2017 issue of narfe, publication of the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association.) 

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Bean soup and the third rail of politics

Question of the Day: When the dining room is serving two-bean soup and the two people ahead of you each get a bean does this mean your soup is only water?

Buckle your seatbelt: The political roller coaster train left the station on November 8 and has been slowly climbing to the highest peak where on January 20th the brakes will release and America will begin a rocking and rolling four-year ride the likes of which have never been experienced in this country. The era of Trumpism will have begun. We will all be screaming our lungs out before it is over. 

Celebrating the centenary of the Russian Revolution:  Most of the old Bolsheviks of the last century are long gone (good riddance). Nevertheless, next year will note the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution and it will be interesting to see to whom homage is paid. Lenin is hardly mentioned these days; Stalin continues to have some mileage, but  all those who came after him are minor leaguers. Khrushchev almost started a world-ending nuclear war but that’s a negative even diehard old Soviets are likely to ignore. Sheila Fitzpatrick wrote in the Diary (London Review of Books, Dec. 1, 2016) that in the early days of Communism passive peasants listened and agreed to everything proposed to them at village meetings until at the last moment someone yelled “fire” and the whole crowd vanished before signing. Something similar probably awaits all the hoopla Putin will throw at the Russian people (and the rest of the world) for whom the Revolution is an “outright embarrassment.”

54 Million Will Die Cursing:  Congressional Republicans want to shrink the size of government and lower taxes. There is talk of “privatizing” Medicare or issuing “vouchers,” but a better topic would be increasing mental health services for anyone who votes to take Medicare away from 54 million people, most of whom are seniors. Seniors may have a reputation for not being able to remember what they had for breakfast but take away a benefit like Medicare and their final words will be a life long curse on those who voted to do so. Tip O”Neill said it best decades ago: “Medicare is the third rail of politics, touch it and you’re dead.”

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Brushing, walking and the next SC governor

Rest with the Angels, John Glenn.

About every month or so, sometimes two, life gives you a kick in the butt. I got my Nov-Dec kick, when, during a period of two weeks, I carried an Oral-B Model 1000 electric toothbrush around to two Wal-Mart stores  and a CVS drug store looking for replacement brushes.  No luck. At the CVS a sales lady helped select some brushes and said they would fit my model. I asked to try them. She said I had to buy them first, so I did. Then we cut the package open, they didn’t fit, and she reversed the sale. After “no luck” at the second Wal-Mart, I tried to order on-line. I learned Braun stopped making the Model 1000 in July 2015 and are now selling a upgraded version: the Oral-B Pro 1000. No one in the three stores knew the Model 1000 was discontinued.

A man, in his 80s, walked strangely when he came to breakfast one morning. His wife immediately went on alert. When he finished and walked away from the table he walked in the same odd way. The worried wife called 911 and took him to the ER. She waited and started calling family. Shortly a young doctor came out of the ER smiling and told the wife her husband was OK. “He just put both legs in one opening of his underpants and when he finishes re-dressing he will be out.”

Dreams do come true department: Henry McMaster, an attorney, former federal prosecutor and currently South Carolina Lieutenant Governor, will finally achieve his long held dream of being Governor when Governor Nikki Haley is confirmed as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations; she having been chosen by President-elect Donald Trump.  McMaster, one of the most aggressive self-promoters in S.C. politics is likely to start campaigning for a full term as Governor in 2018 while he serves the last two years of Haley’s term. 

When he was U.S. Attorney for South Carolina, Mr. McMaster was the master of the press release and self promotion. According to Wikipedia: “His actions were criticized as transparently political, with journalist Lee Bandy writing that ‘no one can recall any other U.S. attorney being so public-relations conscious’ and noting that McMaster had produced more press conferences and news releases than all of his predecessors combined.” 

Self-promotion worked for Mr. Trump, and Mr. McMaster was one of his earliest S.C. supporters. 

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You can go back again

Tuesday next will be two weeks since I returned to Independent Living at Franke at Seaside in Mount Pleasant, S.C., where I lived from 2008 to 2013.  Coincidentally, one of the thousands of pictures on my computer that popped up as a screensaver was a picture I took more than five years ago while the fountain in the small park in front of the apartment houses was being built.

The fountain was completed in March 2011 and continues to flow and life goes on. The reception from friends I lived among years ago has been warm and gracious. New acquaintances are likewise friendly. Life is good. 

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