Fire The Night Watchman

Following his election as Mayor of Chicago on Tuesday Rahm Emanuel held his first news conference on Wednesday & acknowledged that the city's budget had a $1 billion shortfall & that the public employee pensions were underfunded by $20 billion - not @ all surprising considering the latest news across America & Greece? On a good note Mr. Emanuel appears not to want to be a run of the mill politician & says he may conduct a good housecleaning @ City Hall. He cites as an example a reduction of administrative staff regarding the Chicago Police Department adding in recent years "nine to ten people in police bureaucracy without adding a single new beat officer."

We can only hope Mr. Emanuel holds true & does not follow the example below from a subscriber to ReturnToExcellence.net.

---Fire The Night Watchman---

Once upon a time the government had a vast scrap yard in the middle of a desert. Congress said, "Someone may steal from it at night." So they created a night watchman position and hired a person for the job.

Then Congress said, "How does the watchman do his job without instruction?" So they created a planning department and hired two people, one person to write the instructions and one person to do time studies.

Then Congress said, "How will we know the night watchman is doing the tasks correctly?" So they created a Quality Control department and hired two people, one to do the studies and one to write the reports.

Then Congress said, "How are these people going to get paid?" So they created two positions, a time keeper and a payroll officer, then hired two people.

Then Congress said, "Who will be accountable for all of these people?" So they created an administrative section and hired three people, an Administrative Officer, an Assistant Administrative Officer, and a Legal Secretary.

Then Congress said, "We have had this command in operation for one year, and we are $918,000 over budget. We must cut back." So they fired the night watchman.