Smiter
Dunce Cap For A Bit
I'm not sure we should allow people who really want the position to hold elected or appointed office. In too many cases, they want the post because they think they know what's best and can't wait to impose it on the rest of us.
I served on our town's Planning Board for six years, mainly because we were doing a lot of stuff for a tech park that now houses a GlobalFoundries fab that employs over 3,000 people at an average wage of $87k. But the processes drove me nuts. "Well, maybe we should set our own environmental standards and enforce them" or "I don't like that color." These were people on the Planning Board. But the kicker was when we had to attend a joint workshop with the Town Board on affordable housing in our burg. We went over definitions, and there was posturing, like "I want someone who runs a checkout line at Walmart (which isn't allowed in our town) to be able to afford a home." But I lost it when someone pointed to an older development and noted that a number of homes there met the definition of affordable housing. The Town Attorney said, "Yes, but there aren't enough of them."
I then said, "No, there are EXACTLY the right number of affordable homes. If more people wanted them, the price would go up and builders would rush in to meet the demand. That would drive prices lower. If fewer people wanted them, the price would go down until more people did want to buy them. Either way, we get to the price point where supply meets demand. That's where we are today." I don't think the attorney said another word for the rest of the evening. I was speaking a foreign language, as far as he was concerned.
A long rant to say that I have seen too many people in too many meetings who were really saying, "I bought this brand new home here for the quality of life. Now stop any further progress."
I was President of Football operations for about 5-6 years for our local school system. Sounds awesome but it was unpaid and a TON of work. I was supposed to coordinate (and interview the new one) with the HS head coach to get my youth coaches to run as close to the same terminology and offense and defense.
One, after the first year I didn’t take parent calls until Tuesday evenings (games were Saturday or Sunday). Give everyone time to cool off. I hung up on more people that first year then I have the rest of my life (maybe ex-wife excluded).
Two, while the district went out and got a proven winning coach, he was not the right fit for our program. As the only one that would have been involved in the hiring process with any football knowledge, I’d have passed even though he’s a big name locally. Not the right fit for our program. We have a ton of athletes but not much size. Most of our better athletes have been run off since this move anyways.
Three, what a pain in the ass and waste of time when my new HS Head Coach skips every f’ing meeting he was supposed to have with me. He then eliminated the youth program. Huh? Ok. Lasted a year and ruined our football program. Went 3-7 that year although it was an *year. Almost every single one of the starters got injured. I’m game 20/22 starting positions were filled in with 2nd and 3rd string.
Oh yeah, I got to tell the guy at the end of the season that he was fired. Thanks. I mean we appreciated his efforts and would really appreciate his resignation. He walks out and I turn to the AD and ask if we can return to youth football. We were full contact 3-6 grade then they hit MS ball in 7th. Nope. 3rd-6th is going to remain flags. I tendered my resignation from this prestigious position right then.
Flag. I won’t even let my kids play that as the fastest team always wins. In real football, the toughest and best coached team wins.