Dispatches from M. Emory Layne – Desperately Seeking Ept

By M. Emory Layne

Because “inept,” we have plenty of.

I’m really trying to learn all I can about the people running for election or reelection in November here in North Plainfield. And once I do, having a big mouth, I plan on telling everyone I know what I learn – because, by gosh by golly, I ain’t planning on taking the Toonerville Trolley to Allen-Town again.

When I first started out in the corporate world, as the guy who dug the hole they put the totem pole in, I remember how people would cluster together and complain long and hard about management. “Wow,” I thought, in my polyester-jacketed naiveté, “these people really have a negative attitude!”

As years went by, and I had occasion to interact more closely for and with those members of management, I said: “Wow! Those people sure knew what the hell they’d been talking about!”

Catholic doctrine says, “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.”

That has to be amended when it comes to running things like commissions and committees, boards and boroughs: “Him that’s been there and done that gets a tandem full of rocks.” Having been involved with any number of ‘volunteer’ organizations, large and small, from the gofer to the shot caller, I have a fair amount of experience I can bring to bear on pinging these people right between the eyes with pebbles.

Volunteers.

That’s what the people who get the titled positions in town refer to themselves as, ad nauseum.

You’re not.

The volunteers are the people who do the dirty work. Simple way to tell who’s who: in any situation, the volunteers are the ones dragging the cables and speakers setting up the P.A. system; the big shots are the ones talking.

The volunteers in North Plainfield are the classroom mothers and fathers. The coaches for youth sports who only see a trophy on someone else’s shelf. The people picking up the equipment after an event, folding the tables, stacking the chairs. The folks helping out because it’s the right thing to do.

THEY’RE the ones who are giving their time without hope of (or concern for) recognition, power and compensation.

The people who are running things here are not.

The names are all there, on websites, on signs, in publications, with fancy titles after them. And in the fairest way I can put it, some of them are actually hard-working, honest, and committed to whatever it is they do.

Some of them.

And here I was thinking they all were supposed to be. I better go burn that polyester blazer in my closet, because it’s still giving off doofus vibes.

A few simple questions, because it’s getting very confusing.

First, why, in this town, does it invariably seem that the person with the absolute lowest level of people skills ends up in the position that calls for interaction with people?

As much as I hate being schmoozed, I’ll take it in a second over dealing with people who seem to have a perpetual mad-on or who seem to need a script to manage a simple “Hello, how are you today?” exchange.

How is it that so many people have risen to positions of importance in North Plainfield who, when faced with a variety of options to address a problem, invariably opt for the one that pisses off the most people?

We’ll start slow, for your sake. When a situation arises that would best be addressed by pitching in and lending a hand, ordering someone else to do it or issuing a command and assuming everyone will salute only works at Parris Island.

Did it ever occur to anyone that if you’re going to lie, you ought to at least be good at it?

I’ve seen lying at its finest-tuned: I’ve played golf with lawyers. You guys suck. Keep it up – look me right in the eye, and assure me of something, when I’ve already talked with the people involved. Makes me feel supremely confident about where my tax dollars are going.

Finally, a question related to all these ‘volunteers’ running all these important groups. In every single group I’ve ever been involved in where the pay is satisfaction, people occasionally disagree. I mean, the people who are actually running things. Big issue or small, there are differences of opinion. And that’s a good thing. Because from those differences of opinion are hashed out new policies and procedures or fixes for ones that are broken.

In this town, if someone who’s a chairman or president or grand poobah were to actually question the decisions made (not that anyone apparently ever does), you’d think Oliver Twist stood up and asked for more gruel. It’s like that Pepsi commercial during the Super Bowl; all the heads are nodding in unison, and we, the people on the outside, are the guy snarling “Stop it!”

When was the last time there was an honest-to-God difference of opinion in this fraternity?

“Attention, folks, the sun came up in the west this morning, not the east … right?”

“Yup yup yup yup yup yup yup yup ….”

The best way I can phrase this is that an alarming number of people running important things in North Plainfield have become inept at being inept. Somewhere, one of my old English teachers is rolling over in her grave, but I can’t think of another way to say it. There used to be some level of intellectual thrust-and-parry involved, a certain amount of intelligence. Now, it’s really little more than that stupid old cartoon that used to get passed around the cubicles: “Be reasonable – do it my way.”

All I can say is, hopefully, not for long, folks. Not for long.