One of my favorite ads had a picture of a DEA badge with Keith Richards name on it and
"don't get stuck in the wrong job".
Priceless right?
Clearly that is excellent advice. Our President is clearly in the wrong job---being president takes skills like honesty, curiosity, intellect, people skills and ---well a host of other skills in which he is lacking. However, he did have the right job---he was perfect as the head honcho in the reality TV world of 'The Apprentice' and any stupid stuff he did only hurt his own brand and that of his own company. I am all for an Apprentice reboot if it gets him out of the White House ASAP.
Our ex-superintendent looks like he also was in the wrong job. Being a leader requires leadership which in my book is demonstrated by good people skills and good salesmanship, and aided by a willingness to admit mistakes, own them and learn from them. A quick look at many of his hires (criminals with no experience), his daughter as a manager, a CFO who left a huge mess, and his unwillingness to own challenges (falling school rankings, teacher turnover, etc) are indicative of someone who doesn't have the skills for a high level leadership position.
Someone else who didn't have the right skills for his 'job' was the French student we housed for the past two months. Before you blame this on his language skills, his English was good, and to be fair he was willing to pitch in around the house doing dishes and walking the dogs. However, his interpersonal skills were non-existent. What do non-existent interpersonal skills look like?---his response to what he would like for dinner was ' I don't know'. I gave him a day to come up with one meal he would like to eat while he was here, and again 'I don't know'. He would go days saying only ' good morning' 'good night' and 'cool (to the question how was school). When I dug in trying to get him to speak, conversations went like this:
me "what did you do last summer'
French "scuba dived'
me "where'
French "indonesia'
me 'with who'
French ' cousins"
me 'how was it'
French 'cool'
You get my point---he just couldn't-wouldn't engage. EVER. He did however creep out the swim team by hanging out in the hot tub for hours watching them practice..... a number of times......yea he lived with us for 2 months.
The right job for him is as a witness in a trial offering up the bare minimum under cross examination. At that he was a natural. But coming to America for 2 months with no program to support him and another student from his home school wanting zero to do with him was the wrong 'job'. And it points the finger at the real problem--his mother who is in charge of the Chomonix sisters city program and sent someone who was completely ill suited for the situation he was being put in. I feel someone should take a hard look at whether that role suits her. I sure wouldn't trust her to make good decisions for other children based on this experience. Over two months she reached out to us twice--and one of those times was to let us know he had made it home.
Someone else who really has the right job was the person who sent anonymous hate mail to my wife regarding her running for school board. They used a weird salutation (Ms. Bettina) to begin the letter and a spooky closing (old Aspen speaks, there are many...). Parts of the letter were illegible forcing us to work to try to decipher meaning, managed to seem threatening without actually providing a specific threat (we are doing all we can to keep you off the school board), gaslight by accusing someone else of meanness in an anonymous letter, and best of all had a weird post mark (Boston, MA). Talk about ticking all the boxes for anonymous hate mail. To you 'old aspen' I must tip my cap---anonymous hate mail suits your perfectly.
Speaking of the school board election and jobs, I believe I have the right one in blogging. Seems my post about hoping my wife wouldn't win became something of a sensation with some of my wife's opponents who passed it around faster than a 3 year old fruitcake at Christmas time. I believe a good blog should be witty, timely and provocative. It should force you to think and be a bit uncomfortable. Seems I nailed it. It would be super cool if some of the recent crop of readers returned the blog. I bet I will make you laugh, cringe, and maybe even think outside the box. Quite possibly in each post if I do my job right (I often don't, I will admit). An example of this work can be found on the June 21 and 26 posts regarding race. If those don't make you think have a doctor check your brain functions. If you want to know when a new post goes live, scroll back up to the top of the blog and put your email address in the box and hit submit. I won't know who you are but you will know when I post, and you can feel free to point out the errors in my thinking.
Election is two days away---yea. And picking up the mail has never been more exciting.
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