Split Decision

Two topics today because I couldn’t decide.

Water
 

What did you think about when you heard the official request for voluntary water restrictions? My first thoughts were for outside water use. At our house that means filling the bird bath, rinsing and scrubbing it out every few days. Well, that’s not so much, right? We’re not watering the lawn, washing cars, or filling swimming pools.

Sitting here this morning I’m thinking of how much we use water on the inside of the house. There’s three of us. We all took baths yesterday. I ran the dishwasher. (No laundry, though.) Obviously we use water for brushing teeth, flushing toilets, drinking, making ice…

That’s a lot of water. What would we need to do if the situation required water restrictions? How would that affect our daily lives? We are so fortunate to have a consistent connection to clean, plentiful water. It’s often an invisible blessing that we don’t think much about. 

This morning I’m thinking about it.

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Local Trolls

I’m getting a bit truly irked with online trolls who show up on County Executive’s Calvin Ball’s social media posts complaining about whatever he is shown doing at the moment. It doesn’t matter what he is doing, these people think it’s the wrong thing. It’s more than that, though. They’re suggesting that these social media posts prove that he is not doing his real job.

What do they think his real job is?

Is there a job description posted and have they studied and analyzed it? Do they believe themselves to be completely informed as to what the County Executive does: every hour of every day? 

Here’s my take: much of what the County Executive does is necessarily in the public eye because a big part of what he does is communicating and keeping the public informed. On the other hand, much goes on behind the scenes, too: in meetings, conferences, and telephone calls. I suppose that it would be possible if you made it your full time job to create a pie chart that shows exactly how much of the County Executive’s time is spent “in the office” vs. “out in public”. 

What would that prove, exactly? 

Not much, if you were already predisposed to judge him negatively. Those who complain when he visits and promotes local businesses would most likely complain if he stopped. They wouldn’t assume he was putting in “more work at the office.” I imagine they’d either accuse him of not showing up for small businesses or of goofing off and doing nothing. Or perhaps they’d hatch conspiracy theories as to what the County Executive does when we can’t see him.

This is truly a damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation.

I am not suggesting that you can’t have serious disagreements with the County Executive on programs, policies and the like. Of course you can. But I have grown weary of the folks who show up at every turn to accuse him of not doing his job when I suspect they have no more than a superficial understanding of what that job is. 

When one is in the public eye, it is understood that this sort of treatment comes with the job. It’s not illegal. Elected officials must develop a thick skin and try to put all of their focus on doing what they were elected to do. That doesn’t mean that it doesn’t hurt or wear them down. The people we elect are still, after all, human.

Can we please treat them as humans, the way that we would wish to be treated?