Let Not Pride Day Goeth Before the Fall

Recently, I attended East Meadow Pride Day and was again pleased to see many of our area's businesses, clubs, organizations and groups on display and in attendance, even in less than optimal weather. I was happy to see many familiar faces and it was my extreme pleasure to see East Meadow School’s Superintendent Lou DeAngelo in attendance.

Superintendent DeAngelo has done an amazing job in the office and, unlike some past people in his position, HE is constantly visiting our schools and attending area events and meetings and is willing to see things from the perspectives of those he represents. I was again pleased to see our elected  officials- Councilman Gary Hudes Legis. Norma Gonsalves, R-East Meadow, who also are constantly visiting our schools and attending area events and meetings and are willing to roll up their sleeves and step into the trenches of those they have been elected to represent.

Being around these types of people reminded me of a story my late dad ,Carl ( an  educator and administrator at “Brooklyn School of Automotive” told me upon my 18th birthday.

Once upon a time, there is this happy worker Ant. The Ant arrives at work early every day and always starts work immediately. The chief boss is a Beetle who is happy too, but surprised to see the Ant working early and without supervision. The Beetle thought that if the Ant could produce so much this way, he would produce more if he had a supervisor. So the Beetle recruits a Grasshopper with a lot of experience and was superb at writing rules and reports.

The Grasshopper’s first act is to install a time clock attendance system and a rule of not starting work early, to avoid paying any overtime. The Grasshopper decides he needs an assistant to help him write rules, reports and keep track of the Ant’s logged times. He recruits a Spider to answer his calls, schedule his appointments and keep track of the Ant. The Beetle seems happy with the changes, even though the Ant is not, and wants the Grasshopper to do more so the Beetle can present this if to the Board of Directors, the Praying Mantis'.

So the Grasshopper buys  a lot of new equipment like a computer, programs, laser printer, and so on and recruits a Flea to supervise the IT (Information Technologies) dept. The Flea now has the Ant learning programs, filing new paperwork and on-line forms, and attending training meetings. And when the system has a problem it takes the Flea’s staff, a Housefly, a Horsefly and a Wasp days to respond and get the system working properly again.

The boss Beetle now decides that he needs a department head to supervise all the various supervisors, because the Grasshopper installed a new lunchroom with a Keurig single cup coffee machine with 36 choices and a new water cooler.   

The dept head position is given to a Bumble bee, who has a new office built next to the Beetle boss and buys new furniture, new carpeting, more equipment, video conferencing, upgrades the phone system, and installs a surveillance system to guard against the Ant stealing or goofing off. The Bumblebee hires a personal assistant, a Ladybug and a department accountant, a Bedbug. The  Ladybug and Bedbug help the Bee to write a “Budget & Work Optimization Manual”. 

The department where the Ant works now is a hectic environment , filled with crazy rules that don’t seem to make sense, lots of tension, that has made the Ant visibly depressed. The Bumblebee made mandatory meetings that all the employees including the Ant, must attend after regular work hours with no overtime  on topics like,  “Sexual harassment in The Workplace”, "Social Networking at Work is the Forbidden Zone” and the “Proper Use of Trainees and Interns.” 

Then the dept. head Bumblebee gets fired for fooling around with the Ladybug in the workplace and is replaced by a Caterpillar. The Caterpillar tells the boss Beetle that it is urgent to launch a study of the workplace environment, because a review of the Ant’s production level shows it had fallen below half of what is was one year prior. So the Beetle and Caterpillar hire a Worm, who is a world renown consultant, to carry out an audit, suggest important changes and cost saving measures.

The Worm gets paid a huge sum and after six months he decides that that department where the Ant works is hugely overstaffed. So the Worm figures that he can get the supervisors to do the work of the regular staff as part of their salary and benefits packages and FIRE THE ANT, without any severance and using up his accrued vacation time,  for “lack of motivation” which hurt his chances of getting unemployment benefits.”

Ladies and gentlemen, the above story is IN MY OPINION (and not those reflected in any way by this wonderful online paper or any of its other fantastic employees) perfectly illustrates of how most our Nassau County Government seems to work now, with the exceptions of the names I mentioned in the first paragraph.  And what we need is those in office that are willing to see the moral in this story and let the worker Ants do their thing without interference and get “down and dirty” to to help them.

And that those duly elected officials stop sitting in their ivory towers , making decisions that negatively affect us. That like a select few ,they come out and work with the worker Ants (like an episode of Undercover Boss) and not against them. As many of realize “Change” while not always being avoidable , can sometimes be for the worse, if you never look up from the bottom. Keep in mind that there are those already in our community who get the moral of the story, I know I do.