As reported from the fly on the wall . . .
One day not so long ago a group of bureaucrats were huddled in the
windowless, but palatial, conference room at the Pentagon. An older heavy
set man in an expensive, dark blue, pin striped, Armani suit said, "I was
just given a bunch of HMMWV's to dispose of at auction. I knew this day
would come and now it's here. What are we going to do about it team?" Blank
faces starred back, the prefered look of most GS-9's and above.
The large man now stood up from his padded red leather and dark oak chair and
leaned forward over the long, highly polished oak conference table and said,
"This auction is a test case ladies and gentlemen and we have to do it right!
If we don't, we could wind up making a lot of money!"
A young government intern sitting in the back of the office takes note of
this statement and naively says, "That's a good thing, right Sir?" A long
silence follows, but the snickering coming from the rest of his peers hints
at the foolishness of this comment. "Nooooooo Perkins, thats NOT a good
thing! It will encourage more vehicle sales... do you want them (civilians)
to own even more military vehicles? Think about it Perkins, you know the
score, you were in Greenpeace... you want the public to own military
vehicles, for cripes sakes!" The anger in his boss's voice made Perkins go
pale as he nervously said, "So, so what are we going to do about it sir, we
are ordered to sell them, right? The answer came quickly, "We'll do what we
do best, we're going to make this so-called auction as stupid as possible.
We will go thru the motions, but we are going to call this a Dealer Auction.
Ha, we all know dealers aren't going to offer as much as the general public.
Now hang on.... next and this is a stroke of sheer brilliance, get this . .
. we are not going to allow them to be titled for the road!" A broad grin
from the chief bureaucrat leads to random laughter around the room.
After the room quieted down the boss returned to his speech, concluding with
a comment aimed again at Perkins, "Do you now understand what this is about?
It's about stupidity, it's failure and it's what we do best!" Perkins
lights up and says, "Yes sir, gosh Mr. B. that's a great idea, I see why
you're a GS 15! Heck after we fail big here, nobody will say a thing when we
push em the sea, chop em half.. flatten em with the crusher!" lol "Thats
the team spirit Perkins, now you are catching on! Now let's start thinking
team and I want to see really stupid ideas from before the next auction!"
As the group is breaking up and leaving the room the boss places his arm
around the young GS-4 and says, "Perkins, you know I wasn't always a GS 15,
why just last year I was only GS 8 until I thought up the Form 6 thing to
stop armor..lol.... you follow my lead and you'll go places too."
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