Posted on 04/25/2014 9:45:59 AM PDT by Second Amendment First
When Martha Johnson thinks back to that Monday in April 2012 when she resigned as head of the General Services Administration, she remembers a day as still as the hands on a broken clock. She had spent the weekend practicing her resignation speech in front of the mirror. She repeated it over and over until her face had memorized how to form the words without twitching. Until her voice could say it without warbling. Until her eyes could stop all that blinking.
Finally it was time. She walked into the 2 p.m. senior staff meeting at the GSA, gave her speech, then immediately walked out the door. She snatched her coat from the closet by the elevator where she had strategically left it. No goodbyes or roundabout routes. It was an exit designed to be faster than tears. When she got outside the building, the gray spring morning was cast here and there with clouds. She remembers the stillness.
Two years later, time hasn’t quite started up again.
This is a story about taking the fall in Washington and what happens when the news cycle moves on. When power evaporates and you’re just a 61-year-old without a job.
In October 2010, the GSA hosted a training conference near Las Vegas that cost $823,000 for 300 GSA employees — and rang up all sorts of federal contracting violations. Officials made eight site visits to pick a hotel. Some received swag like custom GSA blackjack dealer vests and commemorative coins. The sushi tab was $7,000. They hired a mind reader.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
I give up.
Are we supposed to feel sorry for her?
A full 10 years ago I had federal employees telling me that GSA was the Disneyland of ‘public service,’ with fat budgets, minimal oversight and a very light schedule of duties vis-a-vis their manpower and facilities.
Each day the WaPo descends to heretofore unknown depths.
They go where no slime has gone before. (Cue appropriate awful music...something from Hip Hop will do.)
And to think that when I was young, I actually thought these clowns were intelligent.
The cruelty of this country is mind-boggling.
So sad to be thrown back into the real world
Gee...
Somehow.... I just .... DON’T... feel sorry for her.
Is that wrong? Is that Harsh? Do I care?
Ummm... lemme see... Nope.
obama’s war on women.
OH BOO HOO!!! A corrupt federal overlord quits once in a while when caught with a handful of tax dollars. If that had been a private company employee said employee would have been fired, arrested, convicted, and thrown in jail.
When you play with snakes you are bound to get bit. Am I feeling sorry for her? Not in the least...
A little. Someone else made all the decisions related to the conference in question. One can’t expect the administrator of the GSA to know all the details of what goes on at an individual conference. But, ultimately, the buck has to stop somewhere. So she took the fall. Its amazing that the guy who DID authorize all the crap that went on at that conference still does have a job.
Oh my think of that.
Like releasing a domesticated animal into the wild.
Sucks to be her.
Interviewed with them fresh out of college. Reagan had just been elected president and there was an air of optimism in the country so thick you could almost feel it. I’m still not sure why I didn’t pursue it, but something about them just did not feel right.
I have no animus toward this particular individual, but what is fascinating about the article is that it reeks with sympathy and understanding for what the loss of power meant to her, on the part of journalists who are very much a part of that ruling class themselves.
What will happen should the size of the federal government be trimmed (haste the day!) is that a very large number of such people will turn from ruling class into "61-year-olds without a job". If the current establishment GOP seems as afraid of the Tea Party as the Democrats are, that's why.
Nauseating puff piece. Political appointee: life’s a bitch. Then you die. She asked for it. She got it. With zero qualifications or background for the job, she signed on to head the most corrupted agency in the federal government, and Obama picked her, out of a pool of sterling candidates. The selection process and job description had “fall guy” written all over it. She gets no sympathy from me, as I write out yet another check for several thousand dollars to cover the cost of GSA’s malfeasance under her stewardship.
I worked there as a contractor for 2 years. I would estimate that about 20-30% of that workforce does nothing, and I mean NOTHING, yet collect a hefty paycheck. There are good employees at GSA which make up all that work not being done by the others. Furthermore, there are H1-B visa workers all over the place, which I found disturbing.
“Many nights they eat in and watch Netflix.” Just imagine! Oh, the Horror!!
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