Socrates swallowed poison rather than humble pie
Charlotte Yee wants to change the perception that federal employees have a cushy jobs. She used to be an economist for the Bureau of Labor Statistics until a male superior chased her around a file cabinet last year. She filed a complaint with an administrative court where, she has come to discover, accusers have a one-in-four chance of victory — if they get to the appeal stage. Yee calculates that fewer than three percent of complaints get anywhere in the process. (note: the text that follows the hyphen was added after a correction from Yee, who is my friend. See details in comment number two below.)
Now Yee blogs on the the theme that, while federal employees may have cushy jobs, the price they pay is a slavish submission to superiors because they have no recourse to blow the whistle on malfeasance by superiors. In a recent posting Yee focused on the case of a plumber at a Department of the Interior facility near Lake Mead who:
gets accused of smearing doodoo on the toilet paper dispenser. The burden of proof is on the agency, which has to prove by a preponderance of the evidence, that the substance of the charge is more likely than not. . . . “[Ms. Carolyn Steward] was curious about what was in the neatly folded paper towel so she retrieved the paper towel from the trash and put it in a Ziploc bag.” . . . (the) guy gets canned . . . see it for yourself, I’ve printed it here in PDF
So why the painting of Socrates (above) drinking poison? I once read a book, “The Trial of Socrates,” that was written by now-deceased journalist I.F. Stone. He wondered how the Athenians, inventors or democracy, could have condemned this great thinker to death. I have linked to an interview in which Stone explains his forensic reporting on the trial, but it summarize, what he found was that Socrates was a member of what would have been the fascist clique of his day. And in a two-stage trial, after Socrates was first found guilty of sedition against Athenian democracy, he taunted and mocked his accusers. So instead of simply expelling Socrates from the city, the normal punishment, they ordered his death. One last juicy morsel. If you know the word “sophist” to be a person who specious arguments devoid of substance, dig this. Stone argues that it was Socrates who displayed that behavior. Plato, his disciple, hung the “sophist” label on the Athenian faction that defended the democracy. And it was Plato’s version of the trial that survived. Socrates got the last laugh. He lives forever in fame while his opponents wallow in shame!
Misconceptions can kill. Saddam Hussein has WMDs. Oh, wait, he doesn’t. Our bad. A group of teen-aged girls in Massachusetts made a pact to get pregnant. Or maybe not?
It’s so difficult to know what to think at times. Better not to think at all. Just shake your fist when Bill O’Reilly gets into his harangues. Those federal workers with their fat pension! If private sector folks can’t have ‘em, nobody should! The Austin Louge Lizards, a folk band,has a song about this intellectual race to the bottom. It’s called, “Teenage, immigrant, welfare mothers on drugs.” Hey, I hear those pregnant bitches are behind Al Qaeda, too!
Oh wow, thanks Tom. One can never have enough readers learning about how the government wastes taxpayer money over crap like this — literally.
I love this story — it fits right in with the theme of how I tell the Department of Labor that my boss is obsessed and delusional, and he goes and tells them that I’m “attracted to [him], her supervisor.”
Guess what DOL does next? They investigate whether I’m attracted to him. It’s true. And they even waste your taxpayer money hiring a contract firm to continue it after I’ve quit, because people who are attracted to someone demonstrate their attraction to someone by running away from them.
I guess me and this plumber and Socrates will get the last laugh however — at least according to your theory.
From Tom:
Charlotte corrected by statistics in the above blog entry. Here is the full text of her correction, sent to me by email:
The 15/67 was the number of judges that had issued any judgment in favor of the appellant at all. Most judges issue more than a dozen in a quarter, so if you can imagine that the 67 is really a thousand cases. . . and the fifteen is – well — probably fifteen.
Anyhow, here’s a link to a post with broad statistical numbers.
http://www.fedhallofshame.com/?p=299
Only 13 percent of cases are decided at all. Twenty-nine percent are settled, and the rest are thrown out for various reasons. Of the 13 percent decided, 82 percent are decided in favor of the Agency. From the total number of cases submitted, the percent decided in favor of the appellant is 2.4 percent.
Hi Tom,
Hope you had a great 4th of July. You’re sweet to blog about these absurdities, but I’ve got to tell you, I’m not ready to drink the hemlock yet. (I’d rather drink hemlock than live a lie, but as far as I can tell, I haven’t been sentenced to death yet.)
Having seen it for myself, I enjoy unearthing these federal workplace oddities. Have fun with these stories and thanks for spreading the word, but I just wanted to let you know that there’s no “woe is me” in this story. If anything, there’s “woe is America,” and “what else can you do but laugh.”
Take care, and I hope the rest of your extended week is enjoyable.