Political Satire: Having trouble surviving these times? You’re not alone. Join us in columnist John F. Di Leo’s exploration of an alternate universe, where we imagine the impossible:
Joe Buckstop, an aging, corrupt old fool, somehow becomes president in his basement, and every night, an aide has to bring him his soup and discuss the events of the day as he prepares to receive his nightly meds…
Note: We continue reprinting roughly every other chapter from Volume Two. In today’s episode, Joe Buckstop is forced to confront the challenge of Democrat executive staffers who can’t seem to handle the heat these days.
Chicago Mayors, Federal Employees, and Nita’s Signature Gumbo
Dateline: June 26. Begin Transcript:
“Good evening, sir! How about some soup?”
“How about some silence?”
“Do you know, sir, you get grumpier every day. Why do you suppose that is, sir?”
“Because you keep showing up every day.”
“Now, that’s not fair, sir.. I’m just bringing down your soup, sir… if you hate seeing me so much, you could always just ask the cook to tell the agency to send somebody else, sir.”
“I could?”
“Well, of course you could, sir. I’m just a temp, doing this until I find something I like more that fits my hours, for when I go back to college, sir.”
“Huh. I thought you were Hatched.”
“I beg your pardon, sir?”
“Hatched. I thought you were hatched.”
“Hmmm… before I ask you what on earth that means, sir, assuming it actually does mean anything at all, sir, I’d better serve you your soup so I can give it my full attention, sir.”
“Huh?”
“Tonight’s soup is a gumbo that the cook found in a Chicago recipe book, sir.”
“Why is she looking for Chicago recipes? I don’t want to think about Chicago.”
“I wouldn’t know, sir. She just said it’s called “Nita’s Signature Gumbo” and it’s from a restaurant in Chicago, sir.”
“I don’t do that stuff anymore.”
“Beg your pardon, sir?”
“I can’t chew gum. Bad for the teeth. Weak old teeth. Couple of crowns and implants.”
“More than a couple, sir, if you ask me.”
“Ask you what?”
“Oh, nothing. Never mind, sir. You were saying?”
“What?”
“What were you saying, sir?”
“Oh. Umm… No idea. What’s the soup today?”
“Nita’s Signature Gumbo.”
“Oh, I can’t have that. Can’t chew gum anymore.”
“Sir, it’s gumbo. A southern soup, usually with shrimp and chicken and sausage and rice, I think, depending on the region. Louisiana, Texas, you know, sir.”
“Oh. Then what does gum have to do with it?”
“Nothing, sir. There’s no gum in it, sir.”
“You said there was!”
“No, sir. Gumbo, sir. Gumbo. A type of soup, sir.”
“Oh.”
“So here you go, sir. Soup, crackers, napkins, spoons, sir. So now tell me, sir… what did you mean by saying I was hatched, sir?”
“Come on, man! Everybody knows what Hatched means!”
“Sir, one of my cousins is a chicken farmer. Another cousin is a plot developer and script doctor in Hollywood. Ask the two of them what ‘hatched’ means, and you will get two very different answers, sir.”
“What on earth are you talking about, kid?”
“Rhett, sir.”
“What?”
“Rhett, sir. Not Kid. My name, sir. You forgot my name again.”
“Oh, right. Well, what were we talking about?”
“You were telling me how upset you are at me, and how you thought I was hatched, sir. While my dad did just tell me the other day that I’m a good egg, I can’t help but think that wasn’t what you meant.”
“By what?”
“By saying I was hatched, sir.”
“Ohhh…. Hatched. I thought you were Hatched. A protected civil servant.”
“Well, sir, I do try to be civil when I serve your soup, but … is there a post for an uncivil servant, sir?”
“I’m talking about federal employees! Most are protected career government employees. Some are political appointees. They’re not protected.”
“I see, sir. And the taxpayers are the least protected of all, sir.”
“Huh? Now stop that!”
“Stop what, sir? I’m just trying to understand what any of this has to do with your calling me hatched, sir.”
“To be Hatched means to be covered under the protections and restrictions on civil servants, of course! A civil servant is independent of political activity; a political appointment is expected to come and go with the officeholder. Everybody knows that, man! And a political appointee can be fired; a civil servant has a likely lifetime job.”
“Oh, I see. So you thought I was a federal employee, so you couldn’t have me fired, sir.”
“I did?”
“Well, that’s what it sounded like, sir.”
“I’m eating my soup now. This is good soup.”
“Glad to hear it, sir. But hey, as long as we’re on the subject… I’ve been wondering a bit about political jobs, sir.”
“Really? Planning on coming over to our side? Great! The more the merrier!”
“Well, not necessarily, I’ve just been wondering, sir. A lot of government workers are in the news for leaving their jobs these days, and I’ve been wondering about it, sir.”
“What do you mean? Who’s leaving? Can’t imagine why anyone would leave a government job; it’s the best!”
‘Well, sir, maybe a lot of people don’t like their government jobs, sir.”
“What’s not to like? Easy hours, lots of power, lifetime job security, great provision for retirement…”
“I understand that, sir, but some people might not like the job. Might not find it rewarding, might not think it pays enough, might not like the commute; there are lots of reasons to leave a job, sir.”
“Well, I sure never saw any!”
“Most people don’t have the luck to be elected Senator at 30, sir.”
“Oh. Right.”
“For example, sir, When the Californian went on her trip to El Paso the other day, sir, the news reported that key members of her travel office are leaving, sir. The reporters thought that was odd, sir.”
“Oh, well, I don’t know.”
“And your side of the administration has had some early departures; heck, your border czar only lasted a couple months, sir.”
“Well, not many…”
“I was talking with my cousins from Chicago the other day, sir… and they said that people are fleeing the mayor’s administration as fast as they can, sir.”
“Who’s that?”
“The Mayor of Chicago, sir. You must have heard of her, sir.”
“Why on earth would I have heard of a mayor of Chicago! I’m nowhere near Chicago! I’m a Scranton boy… don’t know if you knew that, by the way… Born and raised in Scranton, Pennsylvania, you know.”
“Uhh, yes, sir, I had heard, sir.”
“Chicago mayor…. next thing, you’ll probably be telling me to pay attention to the Portland City Council or to follow the aldermen of Atlanta , or similar crackpot ideas. They’re nobodies. Who cares about them?”
“Well, sir, I thought you paid attention to that sort of thing. I’ve seen tapes where you’re in meetings and you always compliment prominent big city mayors by name, and get the audiences to applaud them, sir. I figured that meant you knew the important ones, sir.”
“Oh, Come on, Man! I don’t have time for that kind of foolishness. I have staff for that. Staffers write down those names for me.”
“Oh, I see, sir.”
“I’ve got more important things to do with my time than paying attention to these stupid little nobodies at the local level… I’m busy.”
“Doing what, sir? Eating soup, napping, and playing Super Mario Brothers?”
“Huh? What’s that? You’re mumbling again.”
“Sorry, sir. So I guess what I’m wondering is, what kind of a relationship do these staffers have with their bosses if they want to leave jobs that so many people say are so easy?”
“Huh?”
“Well, sir, the local press in Chicago has been talking about how city hall staffers hate their jobs now because their mayor is so weird. Losing her temper all the time, berating her staff over tiny things, complaining about things that sound like they’re pretty normal, sir. I guess her staff think she’s not up for the job, sir… she’s going bonkers in there, sir.”
“Who’s this again?”
“The mayor of Chicago, sir. The Chicago Tribune did some research, using Freedom of Information Act requests, sir, to read the mayor’s emails to see if they could get a clue about what she’s like to work for, sir.”
“Well, that sounds like prying to me… Is that constitutional?”
“Funny you should ask, sir. Yes, that’s what Freedom of Information Act requests are all about, sit. The basic idea that since government officials are working for the public, their documents should be public, sir, unless they impinge on a pending court case, or national defense secrets, things like that, sir.”
“Oh, right. I remember what those are. We call them FOIA.”
“Yes sir.”
“I still think it sounds unfair. Confidential emails. I mean, what’s next?”
“Well, sir, i can tell you about a couple of the mayor’s emails. In one, sir, she was angry at her staffers for scheduling her with full days. She sent an angry email shouting a couple of exact sentences multiple times, sir. Like… “I need office time everyday!”, that one line, typed and repeated and repeated, again and again. I think that line was repeated 16 times, sir. There were a few others too, retyped again and again, a dozen or so times each, “I need office time everyday! I need officetime every day!” Again and again, sir.”
“Well, that’s not so bad…”
“In an email to an employee, again and again and again, sir. If I were an employee, I’d think she was trying to drive me off, to get me to quit, sir. Is that possible, sir?”
“I think you’re making a mountain out of a molehill, kid. Maybe her keyboard was stuck?”
“On whole sentences, sir?”
“Well, maybe she meant the email for multiple people, so each statement was for a different employee?”
“Sir, it was an email to one person, sir. Her scheduling secretary.”
“Oh.”
“And there were more, sir, a bunch more. The Trib said that she ripped up a bunch of documents that had set her off, and then she took a photo of the stack of documents that she’d ripped up, and circulated the photo around her staff, so they’d understand that she meant business, sir.”
“Well, maybe, uh, maybe it was cold, and she needed to burn some records as fuel for the fire?”
“Umm, no, sir, I really don’t think so. The city hall is heated traditionally, sir. The mayor doesn’t need to wander around city hall with a scissors, cutting up the contents of files for kindling, sir.”
“Oh.”
“And a couple weeks ago, she announced publicly that she wasn’t going to grant interviews to white reporters, sir. She said the press corps has too many whites in it, so she’d only give interviews to minorities, from now on, sir.”
“Well, that’s creative of her.”
“Creative, sir? I think it’s unconstitutional, sir! At least, some people think so. The Daily Caller is suing them for refusing to grant their reporter an interview on these racist grounds, sir.”
“Oh boy.”
“Over a dozen staffers have left the mayor’s office recently. Is that normal, sir? Is that way things are in government, sir?”
“Well, I don’t know. I don’t have people quitting on me right and left.”
“If they did, sir, how would you know, sir?”
“Huh? Well, if they left, and weren’t around anymore! Come on, man!”
“Umm, sir, you can’t remember my name, and I’ve been serving your soup every day for a month. Are you sure you’d notice if people left?”
“Huh. Good point.”
“What I’m wondering, sir, I guess, is whether there’s something about Democrat government officials – from mayors to county presidents to state governors to the head of state, sir – I’m wondering whether there’s something about the way today’s Democrat executives think and act, that maybe makes them bad bosses, sir.”
“Well, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“From the reports I’ve read, sir, a lot of the worst public character traits of some of these politicians, such as short tempers and pettiness, and disrespect for their staffs, is universal in that party, sir, and is what’s really causing these people to leave, sir.”
“Huh?”
“Well, sir, in the private sector, people leave jobs if they don’t respect their bosses, or if they think their employers are on
the wrong track in running their companies, or if the office environment is so miserable they can’t stand working there, sir.”
“Oh, well, i wouldn’t know. I don’t deal with these people that closely.”
“You deal with your own, sir, how do you think your current staffers are doing? What do you think they think of you, as a boss, sir?”
“Come on, man! I don’t have time to pay attention to whether or not my employees are happy!”
“I see, sir. Well, that’s answers my question, sir.”
“Don’t you see, we’re too busy here! We’ve got a country to destroy! Umm… I mean… we’ve got a country to, um, fix! Now stop bugging me, kid! I’m busy. I’m gonna eat my soup and read this stack of urgent staff briefings.”
“Sir, there’s dust on that ‘urgent’ stack, sir.”
“Oh. Well, umm, dust must work fast these days.”
“Guess that explains a lot, sir.”
Copyright 2021-2024 John F Di Leo
Excerpted with permission from Evening Soup with Basement Joe, Volume Two, from Free State West Publishing, available in paperback or eBook exclusively on Amazon.
John F. Di Leo is a Chicagoland-based international transportation and trade compliance professional and consultant. A onetime Milwaukee County Republican Party chairman, he has been writing a regular column for Illinois Review since 2009. His book on vote fraud (The Tales of Little Pavel) and his political satires on the current administration (Evening Soup with Basement Joe, Volumes I, II, and III), are available in either eBook or paperback, only on Amazon.
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