When idols break they don’t just break, they shatter into infinite fragments, each shard penetrating deep into the target and that is the punishment for worshipping them I guess.  I am in a huff, boiling, spitting mad and I make no bones about admitting that. The background is simple, the reason less so. We have a selection committee whereby staff is selected for postings abroad, said committee being constituted at the director level. Directors are picked by the higher-ups in the administrative division. The whole farce started on Friday when my assistant told me in rapid succession how the committee had offered her a smaller place (Which makes sense considering its her first posting) and given her 15 minutes to decide. She, being a SHE and the proper she at that (read conniving-knows-how-to-turn-on-the-tap-ensuring-eye makeup-doesn’t go to ruin-damsel in distress) approached someone who is on very good terms with the big B in administration with the result that said lady had a personal interview with the big man himself, someone who is not even available to officers let alone staff and got a posting to the greenest pasture imaginable.

Said scenario has steam coming out of my ears and nose so that I resemble a fire breathing dragon for 2 reasons, one professional the other personal. Professionally I feel it’s a breach of authority of the committee for the big man to personally overrule whatever decision he sees fit because of a personal application even if its on compassionate grounds. While I am all for due sympathy being granted to those in need for after all we aren’t machines but people with associate problems yet there must be SOME objective criteria to determine how and what exceptions if any are to be made. If women must be accommodated because they have special needs then allocate a quota, make a rule or don’t induct them. Furthermore, route them through the proper channel, otherwise you have centralization of power in the worst possible manner whereby you deal yet another death knell to the already tottering institution or what’s left of it! Taking decisions peremptorily on your own you also display a paradoxical lack of trust in the competence and integrity of people you handpicked to constitute the committee, unfathomable but tragically true.

Having said all this brutal honesty compels me to admit that it’s the personal reasoning, which makes me react with such passion to what is after all a common practice. Some men, you expect better from, some men you build up to be better then they actually are. You are fully cognizant of their deficiencies and yet you want them to live up to the standard nay the pedestal you have put them on. This particular man, I can forgive for the transgression of authority but what  I cant condone is him falling for female tears and worse justifying them. The least you could have done would have been to impudently assert that for better or for worse it was your decision and offer no excuse for flimsy excuse is precisely what it is.

Like I said, when the idol falls, it doesn’t just break, it shatters with all shards unerringly finding their target…..