Heartfelt life-transition advice for former Washington bigwigs:
At Iowahawk Congressional Outplacement Services our primary goal is to orient, retrain, and mainstream former employees of Capitol Hill for productive careers outside Washington. While we can’t get you back your seniority, your perks, or your mahogany-paneled office in the Dirksen Building, we can give you the tools you’ll need after your ignominious rejection by those bastard ingrates you’ll soon be living among. Follow this step-by-step guide and you’ll be back on your feet in no time! Probably.
Step 1: Assess Your Skills and Competencies
The road to your new non-Washington career begins with an inventory of your personal strengths and competencies. Read the critical skill list below, and circle the ones that you possess.
* Telling other people what to do
* Demanding money
* Peddling influence
* Talking loudly over others
* Condescension / arrogance
* Threatening, browbeating, arguing
* Narcissism
* Evading responsibility
* Spin controlAs a former Washington professional, you probably circled four or more of the above. Yes, there are some private sector industries where these skills are valued – such as journalism, bill collection, professional wrestling, higher education, and carnival barking. Unfortunately, these are all declining industries with low wages and/or fierce job competition. In order to maintain your standard of living, you will probably have to seek employment in other industries where you will find surprisingly little demand for your skills.
I think he’s overoptimistic on how fast they’ll be back on their feet. But at least they’ll be off our backs.
Eh. The “Washington Operations” offices of many companies are more than ready to hire former bigwigs. Supposedly it’s because they “Know how Washington works”, but more likely it’s because of the rolodexes they’re carrying with them. For the others, they’ll go and teach political science at some school somewhere, and the amount of Federal $ going to that school will go either up or down depending on the big-ness of their former wig-ness.
Many in my family are Washington bureaucrats. Your list is probably true, but unfortunately most of these people are actually totally unaware that this is what their job is actually like day to day. They think they’re doing good work.
In fact, I’ve become convinced that liberal elitism is actually a product of a mass delusion of intelligent, but not THAT intelligent elitists. That’s the dirty little secret: very smart people, but not quite smart enough to integrate the facts into a big picture – tragic and deadly.
Note: in the coming currency collapse and massive economic crisis, there will finally be a reckoning. Although, only to those of us who saw it coming. The rest will blame it on the free market. But, at least they’ll be punished, even if the justice of admitting you’re wrong may never come.