If not comforting, it is interesting that I have come to identify with President Obama in his efforts to single-handedly solve most of our country’s problems. Let me explain.
In the mid-seventies I returned from an educational leave to a new job in labor relations at Ford. As a labor relations representative my first significant assignment was to conduct absentee hearings. The assignment meant that each day I would go to an interview room in the plant and conduct hearings for employees that had been absent or tardy the previous few days. Typically, dozens of employees would line up for their opportunity, accompanied by their union committeman, to face my stinging interrogation regarding their absence/tardiness. Without a reasonable explanation supported by appropriate documentation, I would administer discipline which could be as little as a verbal warning or as drastic as termination depending upon their attendance records. We employed a progressive discipline system which meant that each penalty was more severe that the last. Within certain limits, I had the latitude to exercise discretion in what the penalty would be. For example, I could give a person a three-day suspension without pay and then their next discipline would be a week suspension, and so on. I might, because of mitigating circumstances, administer the penalty but waive the time off. Theoretically, the employee having been given a gracious gift and facing a next penalty of one week (appropriately threatened with such at the time of the gift) would see the error of his ways and come to work from that point on.
You must be thinking, what does this have to do with President Obama? Let me explain. When assigned to the absentee hearings, I inherited all the documented absentee records of every employee. Those who came the hearings were most often employees that had a history of habitual absence/tardiness. I looked at the terrible attendance records and talked with the employees and heard their pleadings and hard luck stories and tears et al. I began to believe, that despite the failed efforts of experienced labor relations representatives to correct their behavior, I possessed qualities and skills that would succeed where others had failed. As a result, I launched a personal campaign to single-handedly solve the plant’s desperate absentee problems. It was obvious to me that my predecessors had not explained clearly nor used the tools of persuasion as I was capable of doing to turn this around. To make a long story shorter, in a short time disciplinary actions decreased and absenteeism began to increase. This did not go unnoticed by my superiors. I was informed that if I didn’t get on track I would be fired. So rather than be fired, I fired. My delusions of grandeur were burst and I learned a valuable lesson. The lesson wasn’t that I didn’t have some special or unique skills and/or qualities that may have very well improved the process. I learned that I could not ignore the reality of history and experience and succeed by the force of my personality. What success I ultimately achieved in improving attendance came because I recognized the reality of the circumstances around me and then began to apply whatever special traits I possessed to those circumstances.
There is, I believe, a basic human trait that leads us to arrogantly believe that we individually possess knowledge and understanding that transcends all others and as well as lessons learned from the past.
It is comforting(?) to know President Obama is human.
