It's President, Not Dictator

It’s official. PBS is playing a Pink Floyd concert that I am sitting here enjoying. Now I don’t know about you but I have always felt that PBS concerts were for old people. So, one of two things has happened. PBS has suddenly become really cool or the other alternative. Not to mention that I am suspicious that they playing actual Pink Floyd because those dudes on the show are old. But damn they sound just like them! My groups have migrated to PBS from MTV. And they censored the BS from the song “Money”. Sigh.
It looks as if the title of President has went to someone’s head. I tried to ignore the seating debacle. I figured maybe he was having a bad day when I heard the hall way argument of who should sit where. As I scurried away from a conversation that turned to what could technically be considered “board business”, I heard the Pres state that he has the “power, duty and responsibility to sit board members where he so pleases.” While I found the comment to be comically presumptuous and petty, I sat where I was assigned. Although I now have no elbowroom and am constantly paranoid that others are reading my very important notes, I suffer through the situation. I liked having my own desk because I am very high maintenance and need lots of “stuff” with and around me. I might try setting up folders between us like the third graders do so no one can cheat.
But last night the Presidents dictatorial attitude reached new levels. I shouldn’t lay all the blame on the Pres. His attitudes were supported by his right hand (wo)man. Please excuse how generic I must be, but because of a lack of our president to honor a contracted timeline, certain documents are not public record- yet. So I must be careful. But it is known that the board is responsible for evaluating itself as well as employees. A procedure is agreed upon and implemented. A major part of any evaluation is based on opinions. Do I think this task is performed effectively or not? Let use president Bush for example. If we all were to evaluate his job performance, and came to the war section of his evaluation, one of us may think too many have died and we need to pull out and give him a zero here. Another of us may feel that he is doing a great job with the resources congress has given him and would save the entire Middle East if congress would just let him have his way and give him a ten. Neither is necessarily wrong just an opinion of how that individual sees Bush’s job performance on that issue.
The board President needs to realize his place on the board. His place is not to admonish other members for their opinions, beliefs, and question our reasoning for decisions we have made. And I understand that sometimes the results of a combined effort of five very different people may not be pleasing to everyone, you will have to learn to live with it. There will be some instances where a board majority cannot keep a dissenting opinion off the record. Another thing the board president needs to learn is that you can’t change the rules of the game after it has started. A procedure was agreed upon. You can’t come in after the fact and try to write new rules for the game because you didn’t like the final score. Geez I was in the band and even I know that!
He stepped over the line last night by attempting to give that over-the-glasses dad look and whine about the outcome of a procedure that he gave the board one week to complete and told us how it was going to be done. And no one complained and we did it and got back on time. Missing the deadline because you didn’t like the outcome doesn’t fly in my book. Wanting to change the way things are done after fact doesn’t fly either.
But the most intriguing threat came from another member. She said “you know, our policy says we could have done this procedure and just had board majority rule on the score.” I’m waiting to see that policy! Sometimes the things these people say never cease to amaze me.