Gub'ment work

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electric chainsaws shipped to powerless N.C. by FEMA in anticipation of its workers using them as handsaws

Thirteen workers” to move a (very small) log fifty feet, plus one to watch, and how many off-camera, supervising?

If you had a wheelbarrow in that video, you could let all but one or two of those expensive federal employees go help someone else. 

Of course, efficiency was not the point: showing effort was--and the more employees, the better. 

Back in the pre-iPhone camera days, I wrote a letter (it was also before email) to the editor of Greenwich Time, noting that I’d seen a town crew digging a ditch on Summit Avenue in Riverside that day; there were two men actually doing something, a third standing around with a shovel, ready to ward off attack squirrels, I suppose, and five observers, presumably supervisors, standing around chatting. I thought that was a misallocation of resources, and said so, and the letter was just snarky enough to prompt a reply from the head of Public Works, “explaining” why those supervisors were critical to the mission. Uh huh.

My favorite composition from those days, because it actually elicited a public response by our Chief of Police, was one that pointed out an item in the paper’s police blotter reporting that eight of our finest had gone to the Cos Cob residence of one of the members of the Chimblo criminal branch (there are two branches of the Chimblo family in town: one is the good one, with plenty of notable accomplishments, the other is on its third — probably fourth, by now — generation of drug addicts, wife-beaters and thieves). Eight cops, but the target escaped out the back door. I suggested that, rather than have them all assemble on the front porch like a sad sack collection of Sam & Silos, a better approach might have been to station two officers at each of the four sides of the house and nab the miscreant as he fled.

“Although the Greenwich Police Department does not ordinarily publicly respond to citizens’ complaints”, the obviously embarrassed chief began, “in this case ….” . Hahahaha — victory! (I also received a nice postcard, illustrated with a drawing of his cartoon cops Sam and Silo, from Greenwich’s own, Jerry Dumas, thanking me for the nice mention; that was the beginning of a beautiful friendship that lasted for years until Jerry’s lamentable passing).

I was careful not to violate any traffic laws for several years after the letter’s publication, however.